Throw Momma from the Train (1987)

reviewed by
Mark R. Leeper

                          THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN
                       A film review by Mark R. Leeper
                        Copyright 1988 Mark R. Leeper

Capsule review: Danny DeVito's directing debut seems to indicate he is not yet ready to direct. The characters are neither believable nor likable and the comedy is not funny. DeVito needs and deserves a better director than DeVito. Rating: -1.

I think most successful comic actors should learn from Harry Langdon's career. Langdon made a number of successful comedies back in the silent era. He had a funny face that just worked well with screen comedy. He was also ambitious and wanted to direct his own films. He spread a rumor that his director, Frank Capra, really was an incompetent and that he himself did most of the direction on his films. So the studio let Frank Capra go. (Fear not, it was a while, but Capra DID eventually get work directing films again.) Langdon directed his own comedies for two or three flops, then he let other directors misuse him and his career just sort of petered out. Not everyone who is good in comedy acting knows how to direct him or herself. Gene Wilder is another example. A third is probably Danny DeVito. DeVito needs a director who wants to and knows how to show him off. (I have been surprised by how many fans of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and TERMS OF ENDEARMENT do not even remember that DeVito was in those films.) DeVito has been funny only when he has had really talented directors. His first attempt to direct himself just proves he does not (yet?) have that talent.

THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN is a patchwork of comedy styles that never gels into a real film. The plot is a sendup of Hitchcock's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. Larry (played by Billy Crystal) is a writing instructor who teaches his class that a writer always writes. He himself, however, has a writing block connected with his hatred of his ex-wife, a hatred he makes no secret. Owen (played by Danny DeVito) is a student in his class hatching murder plots in fiction and for real equally incompetently. Owen's mother is about as revolting as a woman can appear on screen and Owen, quite justifiably, wants to do her in. Through misunderstanding Owen thinks Larry has suggested an exchange of murders to throw off the police.

The concept could have made for a successful comedy, but virtually nothing in this comedy is funny. The film starts with Larry struggling for much too long with the first sentence for his book. He wants a great first line and he knows it will be "The night was ." He has been stuck for months looking for the right adjective. The scriptwriter seems to think that a writer finds a first line and then builds a story around it--not too surprising, since he seems to have built a film around a funny title he never successfully fits into the plot. The situation is neither believable nor funny. And that is just how the rest of the film proceeds, leaving implausibilities and loose ends in its unfunny wake. The characters are inconsistent and unbelievable. (Would you help someone you thought was trying to kill you to find the right word for a line in a story?) In the great glut of comedies we are having, so unfunny a comedy will be quickly forgotten. Rate it a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.

                                        Mark R. Leeper
                                        ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper
                                        mtgzz!leeper@rutgers.rutgers.edu

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