Peter O'Toole does comedy!

Another of my recent movie viewings was My Favorite Year.

New York, 1954. It's what Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) describes as his "favorite year". Benjy is a junior writer for the live sketch comedy TV show hosted by King Kaiser (Joseph Bologna), working under Sy Benson (Bill Macy). It's not all a bed of roses, however. One problem involves a series of sketches the show has been doing about a mobster named Hijack, which in and of itself would be no big deal. But the show is clearly spoofing a guy named Rojeck (Cameron Mitchell), and he's pissed. He visits Kaiser and the rest of the writers, and threatens them if they don't stop doing sketches about him.

The other problem involves this week's guest star. Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole) is one of Benjy's favorite old actors, being a swashbuckler who's very obviously modeled on Errol Flynn. Alan, it turns out, is only doing the show because he's very heavily in debt to the IRS and needs the money. It's a headache for Kaiser and the writers because Swann is a notorious party animal and drinker, two things which just won't work for live television. But since Benjy is such a big fan, he offers to take the job of making certain Alan can stay sober and show up for all the rehearsals and the show on Saturday night.

It's not going to be easy, since the first time we meet Alan we see his chauffeur finding all the bottles Alan has hidden. And the first thing Alan wants Benjy to do is to escort him to one of those nightclubs of the sort that featured in screwball comedies -- one where Swann caused a major incident the last time he was there. (In the end, Swann creates another incident, but by dancing with a woman there for her anniversary, played by Gloria Stuart.)

Against the backdrop of all this, Benjy is in love with one of the other junior staffers, Dowling (Jessica Harper), which creates another thread running throughout the movie. Then Benjy's mom Belle (Lainie Kazan) invites him for dinner, and since Benjy has to chaperone Alan, he brings Alan along, which creates another big scene since everybody in the building knows who the famous Alan Swann is and wants to see him.

But events conspire to threaten Swann's appearance on the show. One is that he's got a daughter in Connecticut he hasn't seen in a year, what with him having been through several marriages. On the morning of the show, he decides to pop over to Connectict -- as if he doesn't know that it's well over an hour away -- to see the daughter. Worse, he finds out that the show is actually going on the air live, something the producers neglected to tell him, apparently knowing this would be a problem for Swann. And, the show is scheduled to start with another Hijack routine, which fortunately Swann doesn't have a part in so at least they have a few more minutes to get Swann ready if that need arises. But of course, there was that threat from Rojeck....

I've said on quite a few occasions that while I enjoy contemporary movies from any era (at least if they're good), I've always been more ambivalent towards more recent movies looking back at the Boomer era, so I've long been hesitant toward My Favorite Year. But to be honest, I really enjoyed it. I don't know that Peter O'Toole got to do a whole lot of comedy -- there's How to Steal a Million, although most of what I can think of is more dramatic. But O'Toole really shines in My Favorite Year and makes the movie work. He's helped by a very good script and direction from Richard Benjamin who clearly has a soft spot in his heart for this material.

There are also a lot of good supporting performances. In addition to the actors I've mentioned, Selma Diamond in the wardrobe department and Lou Jacobi as Benjy's uncle come to mind.

If you haven't seen it before, I can highly recommend My Favorite Year.