The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank

I am not exactly a Carol Burnett fan because here in Italy is not very known and she hasn't made that many movies to begin with. However, there is one reason why I saw THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER OVER THE SEPTIC TANK: it's the first movie Eric Stoltz has ever made, and on his Instagram page he posted some photos from it when Charles Grodin died in 2021.

Dorothy and Jim Benson (Burnett and Grodin) are a couple of New Yorkers that can't stand life in the big city anymore and so they decide to move in the suburbs thinking that it's easier living there. They move, but also life in the suburbs has it's problems: housing tracks without lawns unless they use the septic tank, bathroom and kitchen objects that don't work, neighbours without shame and a dog huge as a lion that ends up sprayed by a skunk. The Benson family decides to stay and just before the end the grass grows on their porch like for magic.

I didn't loved nor hated this TV Burnett vehicle. There were some funny moments and some that fell flat but overall the acting was good and the ending very rewarding. If you stumble upon it on Youtube and you are a fan of the cast members, give it a try.

Produced by her husband Joe Hamilton who had also produced her variety series, Carol Burnett is Dorothy Benson, wife of advertising worker Jim (Charles Grodin), mother of three and would-be murder mystery writer, who instigates the family move from living in New York City to suburban Darkhaven Manners.

Based on the novel by Erma Bombeck, the premise allows for the Bensen's to find their new environment just as hostile as their previous one, with Dorothy's role as `hired hand' a worse form of drudgery than she seemed to have in the city. Although the following year's Friendly Fire is thought of as Burnett's dramatic debut, her Dorothy allows her to present a housewife's frustration, dis-empowerment, and contemplation of infidelity, all which she performs with subtlety and restraint. However, the material also allows Dorothy to be funny, which Friendly Fire doesn't.

Burnett is hysterical in the clown way she reacts to having gardening manure thrown on her, screaming and jumping in fear of a rebellious garbage disposal system, her forced smile of gratitude for being volunteered as a girl scouts cookie chairwoman, and reacting to a dog that is brought home and jumps on her- `What is it? It's a lion!'. (The manure and dog scenes are the only time that the vaudevillean music score of Peter Matz is appropriate). We also see her opening her mouth but not saying anything to an insult from Jim, smiling in the face of his depressive persona, noisely swallowing coffee at the accusation of her having an affair, and throwing Jim's gardening utensils and dirt off her work desk. Burnett has a strong rapport with her youngest son David (David Hollander), and intones `skews' amusingly to parody Jim's repeated use of the word.

The teleplay by Dick Clair and Jenna McMahon has many funny lines. `I knew I could be a brilliant writer, as soon as I wrote something'. `You guys wanna know something about F Scott Fitzgerald and Shakespeare? They weren't mothers'. `We had the only toilet seat in the city that was held together with silly putty', `A man doesn't notice that another man is attractive. Well, you can tell the difference between Cary Grant and Peter Lorre, can't you?'. `If the good Lord had meant for people to go nude, he never would have invented the whicker chair', `You're either bushed or you're washing your hair. You gotta try for some other moods'. `He got hold of a sponge and it expanded in his stomach. He'll be fine. We just can't give him water for a year', and `Hemmingway wrote in mens rooms. That might be just the inspiration I'm looking for'.

However all humor goes out the window when the narrative has Dorothy apologise to Jim for asking for some independence. Jim is allowed to have his garden as a hobby, but poor Dorothy can never get to her writing class. And Jim tells her that if she was any sort of a writer, she could write no matter what or where, ignoring Dorothy's mammoth domestic chores. The accusation against Dorothy having an affair with house husband and David's baseball coach Ralph Corliss (Alex Rocco) is paralled with Jim's fawning over the community sexpot Leslie (Linda Gray), with Jim's resultant behavior left unexplained.

Director Robert Day uses bad rear projection for a car scene of the move, and shoots one family dinner with the camera on Burnett's seeming hunchback.

I've always felt a real attraction to the early heyday of 1970s-80s television movies. Often, and perhaps at their best, they were adaptations of novels or screenplays deemed either too low-key for cinema or uncomplicated enough to manage on a small budget. Something like "The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank" is an ideal example of both. It plays very much like a pilot for a TV series, and as far as family comedy/drama shows go, it would have made a very good one.

It's an easy film to believe, though everything is secondary to the roles of Carol Burnett and Charles Grodin. Burnett is busy channeling elements of everything she played on her 11-year variety show, and it works well in the framework of sarcastic dialogue. She plays it up a bit like a screwball comedy, but it works because she's just as believable in dramatic scenes. Grodin is convincing playing what tended to be a very typical role for him – the bemused, confused, slightly put-upon straight man. There's good humor in the gentle absurdity.

In fact, gentle absurdity would be a good enough summary of the film. It's not too sad or too funny, but it IS funny and it's familiar. There's a steady anxiety, and a lot of social humor. Like life in general, you laugh at what you know, and get on with things. While in no way being about anything big, "The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank" convincingly shows you small slices of life – and at the risk of being sarcastic (though still keeping with the mood), some cut deeper than others.