Max Dugan Returns (1983)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Herbert Ross

Writer:

Neil Simon (written by)

Release Date:

25 March 1983 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

Prices are double. Your love life's in trouble. The car won't start. Your boss has no heart. The door squeaks. The roof leaks. Your stereo just went mono. All you need is a little Max Dugan.

Plot:

Nora is a single mother who lives with her son Michael in a small house. They don't have much money but at least they have each other...

Plot Keywords:

Money | Suitcase | Single Mother | Police | Las Vegas

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Marsha Mason	...	Nora McPhee
Jason Robards	...	Max Dugan (as Jason Robards Jr.)
Donald Sutherland	...	Brian Costello
Matthew Broderick	...	Michael McPhee
Dody Goodman	...	Mrs. Litke
Sal Viscuso	...	Coach
Kiefer Sutherland	...	Bill
Panchito Gómez	...	Luis
Charley Lau	...	Charley Lau
Mari Gorman	...	Pat
Brian Part	...	Kevin Costello
Billie Bird	...	Older Woman
Tessa Richarde	...	Blonde in Shoe Store
Jim Staahl	...	Man in Shoe Store (as James Staahl)
Duke Stroud	...	Teacher

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:L | Australia:PG | Norway:12 | Argentina:Atp | Chile:TE | Finland:S | Sweden:11 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Alexander Hamilton High School - 2955 S. Robertson Blvd., Palms District, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The first of only two times (as of October 2006) that 'Donald Sutherland' and his son Kiefer Sutherland have appeared together in a dramatic film project; the other is A Time to Kill (1996).

Goofs:

Continuity: When Max stops the boys that retrieved the homerun ball hit by his grandson, he is carrying a suitcase which he places down at his side when he takes the ball from them. After he pays them he simply turns around and walks back in the opposite direction without leaning down to pick up his suitcase.

Quotes:

Michael McPhee: [looking at the new refrigerator] It has an ice crusher!
Nora McPhee: Don't crush ice! Don't crush anything! It's a mistake! It doesn't belong to us!

Last of the 70s Sleepers

The Neil Simon era in film didn't last long (circa 1977-1983) but some of us are old enough to remember when all they had to say in the trailers was "In Neil Simon's XYZ" to lure moviegoers. Many of the pictures were sub-par, but Max Dugan was a good swan song, in part due to Marsha Mason (if there were an Oscar for Best Couple, she and Dreyfuss should have received it for Goodbye Girl) but also simply because it's a neat little movie that's never received its due. Matthew Broderick's first movie. Donald Sutherland got a new haircut. Jason Robards may have been cast as an afterthought to lend cachet, but who else could play the ironic, world-weary, Kierkegaard-and-Wittgenstein-reading jailbird title character? I only have one acquired gripe: that so much of the dialogue is so "sharp" and "witty" that it feels contrived (not that they aren't memorable). This is one of the rare instances when a screenplay may be almost "polished" out of existence. That said, if you don't have a warm spot, you can forget it. This isn't a cinematic masterpiece (and I say that as a Polanski-and-Coppola type); but the story is neat and the performances are genuine, and in a decade when films set in L.A. focused primarily on glitz and bling-bling (which Max Dugan indirectly parodies), it's still refreshing to be made to feel at home among the sunlit bungalows of the city's low-key/low-rent, lower middle class suburbs.