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Review by Dave Edwards ★★½

Basically Stanley Donen’s version of Grindhouse, Movie Movie seeks to lampoon several popular 1930’s genre staples – the boxing picture and the Busby Berkley musical. The two short films are tied together with a fake trailer about a WW1 flying ace – something Howard Hughes would have greatly enjoyed. While the production value is top-notch, accurately replicating the style and themes these genres utilized, the comedy is very…subtle…so subtle I often forgot I was watching a comedy. The good news is the cast is game and seem to enjoy the opportunity to play multiple characters across the three segments. George C. Scott gets to flex his comedic chops a bit, which is always welcome, but I can’t help but feel he (and most everyone else involved, behind or in front of the camera) are “punching down” with this type of material.

Great Scott! - A Year With George

Review by Mark Kaiserman ★★½

I think this film was a very early attempt at trying to make a film like Airplane!. But they didn't commit to the bit at all. The jokes are light wordplay that occasionally prompt a smile but never a laugh.
Here's an easy example. Towards the end, one character collapses while standing on a ramp. In Airplane!, that person would have rolled down the ramp to the bottom. Here, he just falls over. A few bon mots do not make for a memorable or funny comedy.

There is one exchange that got a laugh out of me:
Spats: Only four weeks to live. 30 days.
Doctor: This is February, Spats.

Review by Justin LaLiberty ★★★

in structure, it feels like Stanley Donen's Grindhouse but while watching it, it feels more like his Kentucky Fried Movie -- less interested in lampooning its inspirations than it is paying sincere tribute, but Donen's earnestness rather quickly gives way to something erratic, resulting in a diptych that feels like a faux clip show, albeit a consistently entertaining one

Review by Will Sloan ★★★½

The original Grindhouse: Stanley Donen directs two 45-ish-minute films in the style of a '30s double feature. The half-forgotten genres are a boxing picture and a backstage musical, separated by a fake trailer and with an introduction by George Burns.

Not exactly serious, but not a Zucker-style parody either -- these are more like slightly-tongue-in-cheek, immaculately accurate-seeming fan fiction. The cast is very likeable, Donen pays irable attention to detail, and the whole thing has a charming enough energy to distract from the fact that it's a bit of a pointless exercise.

Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★★ Liked

A send-off of the Hollywood assembly line done less through jokes than an affectionate use of its own structures. It is a 1930s double feature, a B&W boxing movie and a color backstage musical, that reuses most of the same actors, uses the same sets, and has lots of plot similarities despite very different surfaces. The third act in both episodes goes over the top, but the humor is less in Mel Brooks-style satire than in how it recognizes and plays around its established boxes. Stanley Donen directed, and this would be great if only for how he pushes every actor to go earnest with their absurd dialogue, which makes it far funnier. On a formal level, it is one…

Review by Joe ★★★½ Liked

The jokes here are almost never more than mildly funny (and disproportionately based on mixed metaphors) but getting Stanley Donen to direct an affectionate parody of old Hollywood movie genres is such a coup, it's like watching Hitchcock do High Anxiety. Somewhat surprisingly, he nails the look of the proto-noir boxing picture more accurately than the splashy Busby Berkeley musical, maybe because the black-and-white makes the illusion in the former stick, or maybe because his own connection to the musical genre is too strong to parody it properly, but this is a very enjoyable, well, not a laugh riot exactly, more like a smile debate.

Review by Josh Kadish ★★½

Literally *everyone* involved in this is miles ahead of the material, which is the only reason it makes the endeavor even remotely engaging. The first rule of any parody is to be funny, and this only does the work to recreate the style without any punch whatsoever.

I can’t rightly say why I decided to watch it...though I guess it technically delivers on the title.

12

A beautiful 70s throwback (the 70s loved looking back at all types of movie genres of the past and reexamining or revising them) that is a double feature of 1930s audience winners like the Warner Brothers Black and White gangster/boxer picture and a color musical with all its angst. The best thing about this is the way it is produced ... 2 features and an intermission of a trailer ... and then the 2nd feature all featuring the great George C. Scott. Rumor has it (on the commentary of the DVD) that he was drunk during the filming, but damn it all to the heavens above, he is magnificent.

Review by Cauls_Apartment ★★

This is a pretty obscure movie these days, but people who've seen it seem to like it. It wasn't for me, though, which is kind of a shock because it's doing a pretty good job mimicking early 30s studio pictures. The film is a George C. Scott showcase. He plays big parts in back-to-back 30s spoofs, one about a boxer learning the ins and outs of the business, and one about the last Broadway show for a dying producer. He also shows up in the middle trailer for a flying ace film that doesn't exist. So, yeah, this is Grindhouse, but all nostalgic for an even earlier era of double features.

The problem for me is that it's just not…

Review by AbandonChimp ★★★

Sorta like Mel Brooks' high-concept satires, but totally lacking in the anarchic hilarity (the humor here is more along the lines of complex wordplay).

That said, it was Grindhouse 30 years before QT and Rodriguez got around to it, so that's of interest.

Review by Justin Decloux ★★★

A fun idea (A fake double bill) is let down by Stanley Donen's inability to commit to the bit. The two films are respectively a boxing drama and a backstage musical, but neither push the genres in any interesting directions or go full spoof. It ends up being two 45-minute movies that are merely fine.

Listen to me talk Stanley Donen on THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB podcast

Review by columbo_ ★★★

No, alright, this works. I think it probably got lost on audiences at the time but if you’re really watching it as a parody, you’ll get it. 

I have an unhealthy obsession with men who wear glasses and drop items ❤️