Writer-director Colin Higgins didn’t make a ton of films across his all too short career, but all of them were memorable. Starting his career off by providing the outstanding screenplays for Harold and Maude and Silver Streak, Higgins landed his first gig as a director with the 1978 comedic Hitchcock riff Foul Play. A star vehicle for Goldie Hawn and the first major leading role for Saturday Night Live player Chevy Chase, Foul Play would be a box office hit with middling critical notices at the time. A film that has only gotten better and funnier with age, Foul Play now stands as one of the most entertaining crowd pleasers of the era, and the third prominent feather in Higgins’ crown as a filmmaker. Now available on 4K UltraHD Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics (in association with Paramount Pictures), Foul Play looks, sounds, and plays better than ever.
Recently divorced San Francisco Bay Area librarian Gloria (Hawn) is having a hard time getting back into the swing of things, although she seems far from unhappy. One day, she randomly picks up a gentleman (Bruce Solomon) who’s having car troubles. She’s unaware that he’s being followed by some shady types. The man slips a roll of film into a pack of cigarettes that he leaves with Gloria, saying he’ll pick them up from her later if they go to the movies together that night. He shows up to the movie – already in progress – with a gunshot wound, whispering that she should “beware of the dwarf.” He looks to be dying, but the body goes missing, thus setting off a series of coincidences, near misses, and misunderstandings that make Gloria seem like a crazy person (or, in the eyes of many, some kind of stoner). The only person who starts believing Gloria might be in danger is Tony Carlson (Chase), the detective assigned to her case.
Comparisons to Hitchcock are unavoidable throughout Foul Play, which could just as easily be called The Woman Who Knew Too Much. But while that master of suspense could muster up some devilish black comedy on occasion, Higgins’ Foul Play is a full on lark; light and effervescent, but always focused and driven with a clockwork efficiency. Higgins’ mines plenty of potentially dangerous situations for comedic gold, particularly the unfortunate way that bodies go disappearing from sight before Gloria can get anyone to see them. Everything in Gloria’s life starts to feel threatening, and the tension amid all the humour feels real and earned.
Take for example, the most memorable sequence in Foul Play, in which Higgins revels in the balance of silliness and suspense. While being tailed by a creepy albino assailant, Gloria ducks into a singles bar for refuge and a way out. She immediately sets her eyes upon the first person she can find, an all too eager hound dog named Stanley, played by a beautifully unhinged Dudley Moore. She demands they go back to his place immediately, with no chit chat or innuendo necessary. When they get up to Stanley’s place, Gloria immediately heads to the window, watching the movements of her stalker outside from behind the curtains. Meanwhile, set to the best use of The Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive” outside of Saturday Night Fever, an oblivious Stanley hurriedly sets up what can only be charitably descried as his vision of a sex palace. Half the scene is played for pure hilarity, and the other for dramatic tension, cutting between the two effortlessly and using a song that could be seen as both silly and serious in the same moment.
Foul Play is one of the best examples of Goldie Hawn’s natural star power and ability, as well it should since Higgins wrote the part with the actress in mind. She’s just as compelling in the film’s dramatic and heartfelt moments as she is using her well honed comedic chops. The chemistry she has with Chase – someone who never had a better scene partner than her – is obvious from the first time they awkwardly make small talk, well before the plot kicks in and the detective becomes Gloria’s protector. Hawn brings out the best in the smarmy, sarcastic Chase, both here (in a film that still plays to the actor’s then well known talent for pratfalls) and in their second collaboration a few years later on the Neil Simon penned Seems Like Old Times. Part of Higgins’ success as a filmmaker has come down to impeccable casting, and the lead quartet of Foul Play – which also extends to Burgess Meredith, as Gloria’s kindly anthropologist landlord with a mischievous snake – is all aces.
The mystery within Foul Play isn’t worth as much as the situations the characters find themselves in along the way, but the reveal of the murderous motivations gives the film a final punchline that has only gotten funnier with age. The film itself is a grand excuse to watch talented performers play around in a sandbox for two hours while the viewer enjoys the pleasure of their company; the epitome of a movie that could be watched at any time and put a smile on someone’s face.
Higgins (who gets a lovely remembrance from his former sound editor in the disc’s special features) would go on to direct two more films that would showcase his comedic talents and eye for casting: the iconic workplace comedy 9 to 5 and the underrated, madcap musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, a pair of efforts that would make Dolly Parton a viable box office star in addition to being a respected recording artist. Aside from co-writing a well received made-for-television biopic where Shirley MacLaine played herself, Higgins wouldn’t do anything else. Tragically, Higgins would die from AIDS related complications in 1988, leaving viewers to wonder what could’ve been if he’d kept making films since. It’s cold comfort to say so, but Higgins’ filmography remains unblemished, and while films like Harold and Maude and 9 to 5 cast large shadows, Foul Play is a classic in its own right.
Foul Play is now available on 4K UltraHD and Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics.
