Foolin' Around

"Foolin' Around" is one of those films that harkens back to 1930s screwball comedy, and that knows enough not to take itself too seriously. Likewise, it knows one of the key lessons of such comedies -- get likeable leads together with wonderful supporting actors to make the genre work.

Busey (one of my favorite actors when he's on his game) plays a good ol' boy who's going to the University of Minnesota who falls in love with fellow coed O'Toole. Despite the fact that she's ostensibly spoken for (with obnoxious boor Calvin), a romance blooms between the two of them, not the least because her grandfather (Eddie Albert, in an extremely fun character performance) sees in Busey a lot of the same blue collar roots and values that brought him to the top. Busey is wonderfully likeable (as he usually is) as is O'Toole, but it is Albert, Cloris Leachman (as O'Toole's status-conscious mother) and Tony Randall (hilarious as their stiff-as-a-board butler) that really get into the screwball spirit. Randall's efforts to keep track of a mysteriously disappearing and reappearing bag and his (off-screen) sex scene with Leachman are among the many highlights in this film.

On a one-to-ten scale, this film definitely hits a 7 1/2.