Once Upon a Crime (1992)

At one point in the film, a foot is sticking out of a suitcase in a car of a train. James Belushi and Cybill Shepherd are in that car trying to push the suitcase on some sleepy elder passenger. Eugene Levy, bless his heart, as director tries to get his ensemble cast to really physically lay into the material that is just desperate for every laugh it can possibly get. The script assembles Americans in France eventually arriving at Monte Carlo, a down-on-his-luck actor (Richard Lewis), just sacked by his agent, and a woman (Sean Young) who spent all she had on a one-way trip believing the guy she had a tryst with would be waiting on her, who end up together through a dachshund, belonging to a Madame eventually killed by someone. Shepherd and Belushi arrive to Monte Carlo as Belushi is involved in sampling fashion to later tinker when back in New Jersey to sell at cut-rate prices. Actually, Belushi wants to gamble while Shepherd tires of his lack of attention and disregard for her. Ultimately, as expected, Belushi gambles away everything while Shepherd, through happenstance and fortune, comes across a regular who encourages her to gamble with a chip of his and that turns out to be quite lucrative. A somewhat reformed impulsive gambler (John Candy) returns to Monte Carlo with a very lovely (and rich) wife (Ornela Muti), taking right back up with gambling away a lot of money (and encourages Belushi to go through even more of his). All become intertwined with the murder of the Madame. It all gets sorted out eventually as a lothario (George Hamilton) and “master detective” (Giancarlo Giannini) also become involved in this whole mess.

The film goes the route of “the cast all keep lying and making matters worse for themselves” which, of course, includes poor Candy yet again having to go out a window, down the side of a hotel, falling and sliding along the way until he ends up in the room of where the victim was killed. Candy, when he is first introduced, brought about a big smile from me because I just adore the late Canadian actor and always will. He rarely had that great film, though, and it could very well be “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” (1987) is probably regarded as the classic (although, I think “Summer Rental” and “Uncle Buck” are comedy gems) of his resume. I, like many others, felt we were robbed when we heard of his death. At any rate, Candy tries so hard to get whatever laugh he can muster, conniving when he must to keep his wife from leaving him, trying to figure out a great big lie to help keep him from being implicated of a crime for the death of the Madame…even so far as to go to his wife’s late night lover (Harrison) hoping to create an air-tight alibi, with Muti agreeing with everything including sex at a particular time. Part of the film that gets dizzying is how the cast just try to lie and cover up everything related to the death. Belushi stole Young’s suitcase fitted with the body parts of the Madame hoping he could sell whatever contents he found inside it due to being broke. Shepherd finds the body in the suitcase and forces Belushi to help her get in a train, looking to dump it off and escape from Monte Carlo. That doesn’t work. Meanwhile, Lewis and Young coordinate efforts to sell the dog to the Madame, discover her body at the house (gate was open), and look to get out of there. Lewis, however, finds Harrison behind the bushes (figuring he was the one responsible), but eventually he and Young get separated. Young is eventually found trying to avoid the dog in a canal, arrested, and all wet (pretending to be the dog’s owner), while Lewis was arrested when he went back to Madame’s home, is found there by police waiting on him, and tries to lie his way out of ever being there. Before Monte Carlo, Lewis “sold” the dog to Candy without Young’s permission, and both were kicked off the train for having a pet onboard.

The script convolutes everything in order to produce a mystery. This all even includes a maid and butler (who are husband and wife), and Giannini cleverly gets the entire cast to fumble all over themselves. Why did the cast continue to make their lives more complicated with lies: comedy, I guess. Problem is, I don’t think this film will get very many laughs out of people lying endlessly instead of legitimately just telling the detectives the truth. It was like watching these people set their own traps and walk into them voluntarily while Giannini looks on at them disapprovingly. I think that might be part of why the film was decimated by critics in 1992. It has a cast of name faces that do give effort but even the best talents you can accumulate in one movie need material that helps them out. There is even this gag involving a detective always failing to get his lighter to flick a flame for Giannini’s cigarettes. Candy does have one scene where he’s dropping chips all over tables in a frenzy while a grasping, groveling Belushi begs for help to restore all he lost, the two really hamming it up, that might earn a few chuckles. Shepherd, still very attractive, being ignored by Belushi was a bit hard to swallow, including how she’d even stay with such an insensitive schlub…I give her credit for going all out to emphasize varied emotions such as frustration, horror, anger, etc. Young as a harried ditz and Lewis as a shoot-himself-in-the-foot loser try to get across the screwball pair seemingly incapable of escaping one mishap after another, designed to always find themselves back together and in trouble I also credit for giving it the best go they possibly could. I just felt bad for them because the jokes just weren’t there. To say I rarely laughed at Candy, even, says a lot because he can typically just react a certain way and I crack up. Harrison, out of the cast, it seemed, came off best because he basically just played a satire of his own persona. The dog is used to set up comedy and the murder mystery, sort of summoning up how desperate the film is. I think the film isn’t a total wash as I had no problem following the cast wherever they went, even if their own foolhardiness perpetrated their continued misery. Not sure the perpetrated misery every made me laugh much…figure the film meant for the opposite effect. 2/5