“My DVD wall runneth over! Was chatting with a co-worker and loyal ExpDel reader (HI!!!!!) about movies, and found out he had some DVDs he was getting rid of. Miraculously, there were a few I didn’t already own. With these additions the movie wall finally hit the 1000 DVD mark. Basically I asked for any of them that I didn’t already own, which included a few I’d never heard of before. Among them, was Oscar. At the last minute, said friend’s wife almost reclaimed Oscar from the pile, but realized that it had been years since she’d seen it, and that she couldn’t deny it the loving home it was being offered. This post is for you two.
Oscar stars Sylvester Stallone as Snaps Provolone, a mob boss gangster in the roaring 20s who makes a death bed promise to his father to go legit. Easier said than done. Hilarity ensues. I once heard someone define a farce as a play (or movie) that has a lot of doors. Think Noises Off, Lend Me a Tenor, A Funny THing Happened on the Way to the Forvm. Lots of doors. Lots of confusion. Mistaken identities, unfortunate coincidences, all culminating in an unlikely happy ending with lots of laughs along the way. Oscar fits that bill. And there’s some pretty silly dialog that had me chuckling. “”Of course I knew, I just had no idea!”” for example
It actually did start out as a play, and I’d be interested in seeing that. The over the top level of acting we see here tends to work better on the stage. On film, it takes a little while to go with the swing of things. But you can’t question this cast’s commitment. Sly is a rather unlikely choice for the genre, but he goes for it and sticks to it. Any other charater and it wouldn’t have worked. Other cool people in this movie: Tim Curry, Marissa Tomei, Kurtwood Smith.
It is kind of curious that the film is named after a character that appears for a grand total of an estimated 7 seconds. I guess there’s a joke in that, it’s just odd to me.
So I can see why someone could form an attachment to this film. Its cute and sweet. I don’t know that it had the same effect on me, but I get it. And I am honored to be able to include it in my collection.”