Hero at Large

Quite some time back TCM did a double feature of movies starring John Ritter. I've already done a post on one of the two films, They All Laughed; now it's time for the other film, Hero at Large.

Like They All Laughed, Hero at Large takes place in New York just as the 1970s were turning to the 1980s, and is filmed largely on location. John Ritter plays Steve Nichols, a struggling actor who can't pay the rent and isn't all that good with relationships as he's bickering with a girlfriend as he's walking down the sidewalk at the film's opening. Living across the hall from Steve is J. Marsh (a young Anne Archer), who has been able to carve out at least a bit better of a living in the entertainment industry by working behind the camera as a production assistant on commercials.

Steve's next "acting" gig is a particularly degrading one. There's a new superhero movie, Captain Avenger, coming out, and the PR brains behind the promotion is Walter Reeves (Bert Convy, probably better known for his game show hosting). One of his ideas is to send out a Captain Avenger to a many of the theaters at which it's playing for the opening weekend; there's a dozen or more in New York alone, all on a bus going from theater to theater and Steve is one of those.

After the movie ends one night, Steve, still dressed in his Captain Avenger outfit, stops off at a bodega to pick up a carton of milk, barely able to get in before the store closes. Another young man takes the opportunity to come in the store, except that this other young guy is a hoodlum who's looking to hold up the place. Steve isn't right at the register at the time of the hold up, so he uses his presence to startle the stick-up man enough to get him out of the store and save the lives of a very grateful older husband-and-wife pair who own the store. They naturally run to the local TV news, and since this was the era in which New York was only beginning to get cleaned up, the idea of a masked man in a superhero outfit foiling a crime is a big thing. It's also a perfect opportunity for Walter to promote the movie.

But Walter also has a second PR job his agency is handling. There's a mayoral election coming up, and the mayor's campaign manager Donnelly (Kevin McCarthy) thinks that a superhero fighting crime and working for the current administration would be just what the mayor's campaign needs. So perhaps Donnelly could get Walter to figure out a way to get this crime-foiling Captain Avenger to join the mayor's campaign. Not that Walter even knows which of the Captain Avengers is the one who foiled the crime, as Steve isn't being that open about it. He didn't do it for the publicity.

Meanwhile, Steve both gets injured in another vigilante event, while also getting locked out of his apartment for not paying the rent, leading him to spend a good deal of time with that lovely Miss Marsh across the hall. So she's the one person who learns his secret, although she isn't going to let on either. The Mayor's offer could be lucrative, but it would also be dishonest. Does Steve want to sell his soul for this?

Hero at Large is a pleasant enough little movie, thanks almost entirely to John Ritter's charm. A relatively slight and unrealistic story shouldn't work, but dammit, Ritter's Steve Nichols is just such a nice guy that you can't help but root for him. I can understand why, in the past 45 years, Hero at Large has fallen through the cracks to become a relatively forgotten movie. But it's more than entertaining enough to spend a good 90 minutes with and is definitely worth a watch.