James Belushi and Alisan Porter, a pre-pubescent newcomer, portray a pair of transient con artists in writer-director-producer John Hughes's CURLY SUE, a maudlin Depression-era comedy-drama that must have looked better on paper than it does on screen.
Bill Dancer (Belushi) loves being a street person and he gets a charge from conning rich people out of some of their wealth by faking traffic accidents or snookering them at poker. His dubiously adopted daughter, Curly Sue (Porter), also enjoys the carefree life of the vagabond. Together, they've
made a career out of bilking the rich to line their own pockets, though they do have their own moral code. For instance, they would never steal cash directly out of an open purse or dresser drawer ... just filch it through trickery and deceit.
Grey Ellison (Kelly Lynch) is an attractive but cold Chicago attorney. Bill and Curly Sue pull one of their con jobs on her when Bill, at his agile best, creates the impression that Ms. Ellison's car ran right into him and caused him to sprawl onto the pavement. Though heartless, Grey is
sufficiently concerned about the possibility of a lawsuit to take the ragamuffins home and scrub them up. As Bill enjoys the rest he's getting in an elegant king-sized bed, Curly Sue works on Grey, melting her heart. When Bill does emerge from bed and gets all dolled up in an imported Italian
suit, the female lawyer takes a second but now serious look at his surprising handsomeness. To her boyfriend Walter McCormick's (John Getz) chagrin, Grey decides to adopt both Bill and Curly Sue. Predictably, the happy trio--though temporarily detoured through the Valley of Slapstick Comedy--stay
happy together while Walter peddles his papers.
CURLY SUE is one of those saccharine entertainments that worked so well for Shirley Temple in her heyday. There's something about the 1990s, however--call it loss of innocence, jaded sophistication or just plain cynicism--that clashes with an essentially sentimental yarn like this. By hindsight,
it seems that the actors, writers and directors of the 1930s and 40s had a gentler, kinder, more endearingly humane outlook on life as they went about the task of creating their often marvelous confections. (Could a Frank Capra or a Damon Runyon survive today?) There was no sexual revolution then,
no drug culture, no punk or heavy-metal music. Whatever the reason, a film like CURLY SUE just doesn't jell with the mores of the 9Os.
John Hughes is at his best when he's slightly crass or a shade irreverent, or especially when he's being a wee bit anarchic. Judging from CURLY SUE, he's at his worst when attempting to dredge up the schmaltzier side of the past. Another problem: CURLY SUE is an example of filmmaking by the
numbers--here we cry, there we laugh--where the pawn-actors are moved hither and yon on the whim of contrivance, seldom as a result of logical reasoning.
Hughes's basic idea is sound enough, but none of his actors play it out with genuine conviction. Though Belushi is charming and thoroughly likeable, it's all but impossible to believe many of the motivations Hughes assigns him. Porter comes across as a bargain-basement Jane Withers. She's sassy
enough, but almost entirely devoid of genuine charisma. Lynch is appropriately icy as the tough lady lawyer whose heart of stone turns to mush. Getz, as Lynch's snobbish boyfriend, perfectly fits the image of his stock character.
A crackingly good clash of cultures yarn might be made out of the ideas presented in CURLY SUE, since there's a great deal of potential in what might happen when the homeless are provided a home by a rich individual whose motives aren't necessarily the purest, but this particular film is not it.
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