Themes: Nothing Goes Right, Fish Out of Water, Foibles of Marriage
Main Cast: Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, Mark McKinney, John Cleese, Oliver Hudson
Release Year: 1999
Country: US
Run Time: 92 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
When Frank Sinatra sang "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere, it's up to you, New York!" he probably didn't have the same odds in mind that line up against Henry and Nancy Clark in The Out-Of-Towners. Henry (Steve Martin) is an advertising man from Ohio who runs his life on an exacting schedule. His wife Nancy (Goldie Hawn) feels the spark has gone out of their lives together. After 24 years of marriage, their children are grown and nothing is tying them to their old home, so they decide to take a stab at relocating to New York City. Henry arranges a job interview in the Big Apple, they schedule a flight into Manhattan, and from that point on, anything that can go wrong does go wrong. Henry and Nancy's flight is delayed, their luggage is lost, their hotel reservations are cancelled, they're accosted by muggers, the cab they're riding in gets in a wreck, Henry is accidentally drugged and Nancy ends up in a group therapy meeting for sex addicts. The Out-Of-Towners is an updated remake of the 1970 comedy scripted by Neil Simon; the original version starred Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis as the hapless Midwesterners. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Charley Beal - Art Director, William F. O'Brien - Art Director, Philip E. Thomas - Associate Producer, Ilene Starger - Casting, Andrew G. La Marca - Co-producer, Ann Roth - Costume Designer, Amy Lauritsen - First Assistant Director, Sam Weisman - Director, Kent Beyda - Editor, Philip E. Thomas - Executive Producer, Christine Forsyth-Peters - Executive Producer, Marc Shaiman - Composer (Music Score), Ken Adam - Production Designer, John Bailey - Cinematographer, Robert W. Cort - Producer, Robert Evans - Producer, David Madden - Producer, Teri Schwartz - Producer, Marvin March - Set Designer, Kathryn Peters - Set Designer, David Kelson - Sound Mixer, Neil Simon - Screenwriter, Marc Lawrence - Screenwriter, Tom Perry - Re-Recording Mixer, George De Titta, Jr. - Set Decorator
There are subtle differences from the original, such as the couple's credit card being declined at the hotel (instead of their room being given away as in the original), but the script is largely faithful to the 1970 version. The remake also has the addition of John Cleese as Mr. Mersault, the Hotel Manager, a character similar to the one Cleese played in the television series Fawlty Towers. Most of the differences are due to the talents of Hawn and Martin, who are both mainly comedic actors with very individual styles (the 1970 film had Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis playing their roles very seriously, largely the source of many of the film's laughs). Consequently, the 1999 film stands alone as a Hawn and Martin collaboration, rather than as a comparable remake of an already successful film.
Reception
The movie was a disappointment critically and commercially. It has a 22% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website,[1] with Roger Ebert commenting that the movie "was not a proud moment in the often-inspired careers of Martin and Hawn."[2] Most of the negative reviews point to Cleese as the only redeeming factor of the film. The film had a budget of $75 million, but grossed just $29 million in the US, and $33 million worldwide.[3]
