In the 1950s, television was live. Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows was the big hit on Saturday night. One week, Errold Flynn was the guest and created the premise for My Favorite Year.

Peter O'Toole plays Alan Swan, the womanizing, hard-drinking, unreliable movie star. Mark Linn-Baker is the young writer who is Swan's keeper for the week. There's the whole premise. How does this young man keep this crazy movie star on schedule?

What carries My Favorite Year is the dialogue and non-stop humor. The characters can be three-dimensional. The jokes are mostly clever; -- a cut above what you would expect from Mel Brooks.

Yes, this is a Richard Benjamin film, but it is Brooks' film producing, and as it so happens, Brooks was a young writer on Your Show of Shows. They say write what you know about; I think this film is a case of Brooks' remembrances as told to another writer, and Benjamin's directing. More chefs in this kitchen have made great soup.

No Suction!

Film Facts

Cast
• Peter O'Toole
• Mark Linn-Baker
• Jessica Harper
• Joseph Bologna
• Lainie Kazan
• Cameron Mitchell
• Anne De Salvo
• Basil Hoffman
• Lou Jacobi
• Adolph Green
• Tony DiBenedetto
• George Wyner
• Selma Diamond
• Bill Macy
• Phil Adams
• Rex Benson
• Corinne Bohrer
• Richard Brestoff
• Stanley Brock
• Philip Bruns
• Richard Butler
• Robert G. Denison
• Nick Dimitri
• Peter Eastman
• John Christy Ewing
• George Fisher
• Teresa Ganzel
• Martin Garner
• Howard George
• Ted Grossman
• Karen Haber
• Archie Hahn
• Fox Harris
• Eleanor C. Heutschy
• Barbara Horan
• Priscilla Kovary
• Denver Mattson
• Katie McClain
• Clyde McLeod
• John Medici
• Jed Mills
• Jenny Neumann
• Harry Bill Roberts
• Annette Robyns
• George Marshall Ruge
• Vincent Sardi
• Pearl Shear
• Ramon Sison
• Norman Steinberg
• Gloria Stuart
• Bob Termune
• Richard Warwick
• John Welsh
• Bob Windsor

Directed by Richard Benjamin

Released in 1982

MPAA Rating: PG

Reviewed by Mongo