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Simply Perfect

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I noted that in this comedy about a college basketball star lanky Anthony Perkins sure looks the part. But if you watch closely there are no real shots of him actually playing basketball. I suspect that Perkins in real life was no athlete though the story focuses on him potentially missing a big game.A big game it is indeed with no less than a team of Soviet All-stars touring the USA and playing many colleges. Perkins missing the game would certainly affect the odds.So when money is dumped on him from a mysterious source to throw the game this throws Perkins in an ethical quandary. And because he's got Ray Walston his professor who is his ethics professor the whole thing becomes a mess as Perkins deliberately flunks Walston's class to miss the big game.Although Perkins and a young Jane Fonda as the coed looking to snare Tony for a husband, the real star of this show is Walston. When he flunks Perkins and then refuses to give him a makeup exam to make him eligible he's got everyone hating him including his wife Anne Jackson and next door neighbor and colleague Marc Connelly. In 1959 Tall Story ran on Broadway for 108 performances. Authored by the legendary team of Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse, only Connelly and Robert Wright as the college president repeat their Broadway roles in the film.Some mention has to be given to Murray Hamilton as the frantic basketball coach who has the idea that the university exists to give his basketball team a home. What could possibly give him that idea in the America of 1960 let alone today?The stars do well and the supporting cast is fine. But this film is a must for fans of Ray Walston.

"Tall Story" is a film that is sort of like a throwback...a film similar in plot to films of the 40s and 50s. However, despite having an older sort of plot, there are also some adult aspects which make it like a bridge to the past and to the more modern sensibilities.The film is Jane Fond's first movie...and she co-stars in it as a character you would NOT expect based on her later films. June Ryder is a lady in college to get her MRS degree. In other words, this is no feminist and her one and only goal is to marry the star basketball player, Ray Blent (Anthony Perkins). For a while, Blent is oblivious to her concerted efforts to bag him...though eventually he succumbs to her charms. But, before they can marry and THEN indulge in their carnal lusts, there is the big game between his school and the Russians...and someone knows Blent needs money to marry and offer him a fortune...if he makes sure the Russians win!The film is a passable time-passer. There's nothing particularly wrong with the film, but the nice momentum it maintained seem to screech to a halt when the basketball fix plot was introduced. An odd film, surely, but one worth seeing.

I was surprised to see that the play on which this is based is from 1959 and not 1939; it has so much of the flavor of 30s college flicks. Just imagine it with a cast from a quarter-century earlier and it makes for a more comfortable fit. Who would you cast in the principal roles? The contemporary young 30s actors to play Tall Naive Guys could be say, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, even musical comedy hoofers such as Ray Bolger or Buddy Ebsen for a different flavor. For the go-getter girl June (who needn't be tall) the possibilities are broader. Ginger Rogers? Early Betty Grable or Lucille Ball? Toby Wing? One could amass quite a list of potential Junes... Let me confess that I didn't get to see this all the way through, but from what I saw I found it rather weird to find all these young people existing in a 1960 world devoid of young peoples' music, i.e. rock 'n' roll, doo-wop etc. When the couples are out spooning under the moon they're even singing "Cuddle Up A Little Closer, Lovey Mine", published in 1908 (the same year the director, Joshua Logan, was born). Granted this song had been revived to considerable success in the 40s during wartime and was still popular in the 50s, but it just didn't seem credible to me. However, once one accepts that "Tall Story" is set in a time and place all its own it's a perfectly enjoyable trifle. Perkins is likably boyish, callow and gawky, and a trifle awkward to be convincing as an athlete, but one can swallow that with the rest of it-- remember, Willing Suspension of Disbelief. So we can buy Fonda's character being so besotted with the guy and pulling every string to land him. She of course is a thorough charmer, which is fun to watch from the perspective of the present day, looking back on her life and career. This is a quite watchable piece of filmmaking, and a definite curiosity. Just put your brain in neutral and let it roll by.

Tall Story is a college campus comedy, playfully highlighting a cold war era clash between us and the Russians in the form of an exhibition basketball game. Jane Fonda as the coquettish Jane Ryder in her film debut is engaging, entertaining, and a little bit cutesy. Anthony Perkins is a bit awkward for an All-American college star who also happens to be an honor student vigorously pursued by Fonda. From the moment Fonda's bicycle-riding Jane Ryder crashes into the two professors played by Ray Walston (foreshadowing Mr. Hand in Fast Times At Ridgemont High 20 years later) and Marc Connelly, the film proceeds similar in fashion to a situation comedy on television minus the laugh track.Director Joshua Logan keeps the film moving at a brisk pace but is less successful at convincing us that getting married to have sex and beating the Russians regardless of playing fair or not makes for a satisfying denouement. Logan was more successful as a choreographer. By the film's end, nearly every character compromises his/her ethics in some way in order to achieve the desired result of the script, which is to have Perkins character, Ray Blent, participate in the big game vs. the Russians in time to seal the victory. In order to do so, Ray Walston's Leo Sullivan is reduced to an overly stuffed shirt ethics professor, who is pressured by Fonda's Jane Ryder, the basketball coach played by Murray Hamilton, and his wife Myra Sullivan played by Anne Jackson. This scenario, though played for laughs in the film, is not too dissimilar from what today's students and parents do to teachers in order to get their way.Jane Fonda, in her debut film, already displays star quality and comedic talent in abundance. Anthony Perkins is acceptable in the film but does not appear to be as athletic as his character is supposed to be, somewhat of a flaw. Fonda and Perkins, interestingly enough, have a key scene inside of a cramped shower stall in the middle of the film, predating Perkins in Psycho by only a few months. The script was written by Julius Epstein, which was based on the play by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and the novel "The Homecoming Game" by Howard Nemerov. Look fast for Robert Redford as a basketball player and Van Williams as a guy who exposes himself to Fonda in the men's shower area in their film debuts. Also, look for Tom Laughlin, Gary Lockwood, and Joe E. Ross in small roles. **1/2 of 4 stars.