妙亲家与俏冤家

假如你的女儿即将大婚，而素未谋面的亲家却可能是个CIA特工，你会怎么办？

《妙亲家与俏冤家》（the In-laws）中欢喜冤家的设定并不算新奇，但因为两位国宝级演员的演绎，让本片成为了美国合家欢电影的首选之作，连扮演教父的马龙.白兰度都表示这是他最爱的喜剧片。不过，《妙亲家与俏冤家》在国内可没有那么好的待遇，豆瓣的页面上只有零星的几个评论，到现在都没有字幕组为它制作字幕。在拍摄本片之前，彼得.福克已经是个家喻户晓的巨星，对很多人来说，他就是神探科伦坡（Columbo）的化身。而艾伦.阿金也凭借《俄罗斯人来了》等作品奠定了好莱坞冷面笑匠的地位。据说，本片的起源正是因为这两位明星公开表示希望合作一部电影，电影公司这才找来了编剧Andrew Bergman和导演Arthur Hiller，可以说片中的角色完全是为了他俩量身定做的。

两位主角一个冷淡、一个热情，产生了绝佳的化学反应。仅仅是看到艾伦.阿金坐在彼得.福克旁边，流露出一脸生无可恋的表情，就很难憋住不笑。除此之外，影片最有趣的地方在于，一个普通人，阴差阳错进入了一个充满阴谋、危机、杀手的世界后，竟然发现自己逐渐对这种刺激危险的生活产生了喜欢。

牙医谢尔顿（艾伦.阿金饰）有着较高的收入、幸福的家庭，生活是如此的稳定，他享受着这种在手把控的秩序。当文森特（彼得.福克饰）闯入他的生活时，带来的全是混乱和无序。一开始他是恐惧的，直到文森特带着他一同经历了偷渡出境、街头飞车、与独裁者交易等一切后，他万万没想到，自己在这种危险生活中获得了很大的快乐，也慢慢对这位冤家亲家产生了好感。观影时在想，也许，并不会有人平白无故的出现在你的生命里，而上天为你安排的相遇总有其背后的玄机。那个你以为是冤家的人，在打乱你的生活、带来各种麻烦之后，最终为你的生命注入新的活力，让你遇见新的自己。

最好玩的一幕发生在，文森特将不知情的谢尔顿骗上了一架飞往洪都拉斯的微型客机，登机后，协助文森特偷渡的中国人（吴汉章饰，美剧常客），用一口流利的广东话，给谢尔顿进行了完整的乘机介绍和应急演示。想到明明是违法的偷渡，而且机舱的空间还那么狭小，这位唯一的乘客竟然还能享受到正常航班才有的乘机服务。看着艾伦阿金一脸懵逼的样子，真是一种特别的放松。

《妙亲家与俏冤家》的名声还来自片中谢尔顿在躲避机枪的一幕，文森特喊出了那句喜感十足的"Serpentine！Serpentine！"，意思是只要迂回的跑动就能躲避子弹。这就像1969年版本的《意大利任务》（The Italian Job ）中 ，迈克尔·凯恩的那句“You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off！”一样，两声”Serpentine“已经成为超越影片本身而独立存在的文化符号，为影迷们津津乐道。我是因为彼得.福克才买的这张碟，谁知却成了另一位主演艾伦.阿金的粉丝。因为我终于发现，比起那些活泼热闹的角色，看着一个严肃而不懂放松的人，如何一步步卸下防备，更是喜剧能带给我们的一种慰藉啊。（欢迎关注个人微信公众号：迷途小虾。感兴趣的请搜索“迷途小虾”或扫描二维码）

Two 1970s comedies from the two poles of the Cold War, Arthur Hiller’s THE IN-LAWS, which would spawn a naff 2003 remake directed by Andrew Fleming and starring Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks, belongs to the odd-buddy genre that bundles two disparate fathers-in-law together and throws them onto a fun-studded, border-crossing escapade; while in USSR, Leonid Gaidai’s IVAN VASILYEVICH CHANGES HIS PROFESSION is a silly slapstick trades on well-worn tropes like time travel and mistaken identities.In THE IN-LAWS, Vince Ricardo (Falk), a secret CIA agent and Sheldon"Shelly" Kornpett (Arkin), a Manhattan dentist, are soon-to-be in-laws with their respective offspring’s pending matrimony. Shelly has some reservations about Vince, who pretends to be a busy businessman but acts like a blowhard. Unbeknownst to Shelly, Vince is pressed to foil a scheme of worldwide currency inflation conceived by a Central American general. By quirk of fate, he drags a grudging Shelly along as his companion in the pursuit of this noble mission. All’s well that ends well and it is a no brainer that the two of them will not miss the wedding ceremony, you bet their entrance can leave onlookers thunderstruck.The script is best at contrasting Vince and Sheldon’s personalities, in particular, underlining Sheldon’s “fish-out-of-water”reluctancy, incredulity, shock when his life is ceaselessly put on the line (the life-saving serpentine walk bit is sidesplitting). Arkin (R.I.P. legend, who just passed away this year) is divertingly proficient to play miffed and catatonic, even his cranky outburst is infused with a ghost of drollness. Falk, on the other side, is all chummy and sincere albeit his spy-like identity, oblivious of any danger and plays a straight face with great alacrity, his Vince can charm you into doing anything that is unconscionable, no wonder Sheldon cannot help but acquiesce in this unlooked-for thrill ride that almost gets him executed on a foreign land. It is alluring to experience a death-defying hog-wild excursion to enliven one’s mundane life, and vicariously, for us bums on seats, such allure can never be oversold.Hiller’s direction is precise, efficient, if nothing too memorable, and barring a facetiously beaming Richard Libertini as the General, whose weird accent and hand gimmick are top-notch gags, no one from the supporting cast is offered enough scenery to chew, especially the fairer sex is woefully stereotyped and untapped. THE IN-LAWS is almost a blokey pap, saved only by a modicum of zest entrained by Falk and Arkin’s uncannily bonhomous chemistry, a “bromance” avant la lettre.

IVAN VASILYEVICH CHANGES HIS PROFESSION pokes fun at the time travel nonsense, it looks more akin to THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (1963) than THE TIME MACHINE (1960), with all the alembics and colorful swilling liquids. And the special effects to actualize the travel per se are make-do effort of image-blurring-distorting-dissolving and montage-splicing, a technique doesn’t age well but must be novel to see at then as the film is a boffo crowd-pleaser upon release.The subjects switched by the machine are the notorious Ivan the Terrible and his look-alike, an anal-retentive building superintendent Ivan Vasilievich Bunsha (both played by Yakovlev, alternating between alpha and beta male personalities with moderation). So in the present day, Ivan the Terrible gets to acquaint himself with mod cons and a modern world four centuries after his time, not that the film allows him to go out of the main building where lives the scientist Shurik (Demyanenko, indeed a variation on Jerry Lewis’s nerdy persona, but less objectionable). An encounter with Shurik’s wife Zinaida (Seleznyova) and her lover, film director Yakin (a smarmy and incredulous Pugovkin) reassures him that his repute doesn’t lost on posterity.In the paralleled universe of the 16th century, Bunsha and burglar George Miloslavsky (Kuravlyov, quite a cock of the walk) must brave themselves to evade their chasers in the royal court (the pace is fast-edited and the music is merrily pellucid) and then with Bunsha pretending to be the Tsar, they revel in the full royal treatment until their shenanigans are discovered. It is a high farce but the gags run to insipid.For the final touch, Shurik seems to restore the balance back in both worlds after a flurry of confusion and hubbub, but Gaidai’s film impishly suggest could it be castles in the air or some magic conjured up by the black cat? Zinaida comes back as if the prior break-up doesn’t happen, everything is tickety-boo.Both pictures are daydreams pandering to a masculine mindset while leaving the opposite sex on the sideline, unlike in USA where an ordinary citizen can have a ball overcoming a military lord in a Third World country, without an inkling of worry about his daughter’s prospective wedding ceremony, on the other side of the Iron Curtain, a fanciful invocation of a past Tsar to the present day cannot really tally with Communism’s materialistic precept. that may well explain IVAN VASILYEVICH CHANGES HIS PROFESSION’s equivocal ending, a non sequitur to get the filmmakers off the hook of any draconian censorship, an effective means could and would be applied for future films.referential entries: Hiller’s THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS (1970, 4.4/10); Terence Young’s DR. NO (1962, 6.4/10); Karen Shakhnazarov’s ZEROGRAD (1988, 7.7/10); Jerry Lewis’s THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (1963, 5.7/10); George Pal’s THE TIME MACHINE (1960, 6.4/10).

Title: The In-LawsYear: 1979Genre: Comedy, Adventure, ActionCountry: USALanguage: English, Spanish, CantoneseDirector: Arthur HillerScreenwriter: Andrew BergmanMusic: John MorrisCinematography: David M. WalshEditor: Robert SwinkCast:Peter FalkAlan ArkinRichard LibertiniNancy DussaultPenny PeyserArlene GolonkaMichael LembeckEd Begley Jr.James HongDavid PaymerPaul L. SmithCarmine CaridiRating: 6.8/10English Title: Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His ProfessionOriginal Title: Ivan Vasilevich menyaet professiyuYear: 1973Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Sci-FiCountry: Soviet UnionLanguage: Russian, GermanDirector: Leonid GaidaiScreenwriters: Leonid Gaidai, Mikhail A. Bulgakov, Vladlen BakhnovMusic: Aleksandr ZatsepinCinematography: Vitali Abramov, Sergei PoluyanovEditor: Klavdiya AleyevaCast:Yuriy YakovlevLeonid KuravlyovAleksandr DemyanenkoSaveliy KramarovNatalya SeleznyovaMikhail PugovkinNatalya KrachkovskayaVladimir EtushSergey FilippovNina MaslovaNatalya KustinskayaRating: 6.9/10