Isn't She Great
USA/Germany/UK 1999
Reviewed by Charles Taylor
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Manhattan, the late 50s. Jacqueline Susann is a determined but untalented actress trying to make it in New York. Irving Mansfield sees her on stage and is immediately smitten. He proposes to become her agent and her husband; Jackie accepts both offers. Despite Irving's belief in her talents, she still struggles as an actress. Deciding that his wife will have a better future as a writer, Irving persuades Jackie to write a novel based on the scandalous show-business stories she's heard over the years. The result, Valley of the Dolls, becomes a smash despite the derision of the literary world.
Meanwhile Jackie gives birth to a severely autistic son and is diagnosed with breast cancer. She prays for more time to prove that the success of Valley wasn't a fluke and lives just long enough to see her next two books follow it to the top of the best-seller list.
Review
How many movies deal with happy marriages? Clumsy in execution but very sharp in its understanding of its subject, Isn't She Great uses the lifestory of trash novelist par excellence Jacqueline Susann as material for a comedy of happily devoted married life. The title itself was the oft-repeated phrase of Susann's adoring husband and manager Irving Mansfield. Director Andrew Bergman (Honeymoon in Vegas) and screenwriter Paul Rudnick rely on Bette Midler to convey the self-promoting brassiness that made Susann's persona as big a hit as her books. But the heart of their movie lies in the contented rapture that emanates from the eyes of Nathan Lane's Irving whenever he gazes at his wife.
Isn't She Great starts badly. As Jackie shuttles from commercials to game-show panels trying to make her mark, Bergman's staging is both broad and imprecise. But as soon as Jackie starts writing Valley of the Dolls the movie's canniness smoothes out all the unevenness.
Valley of the Dolls, Susann's novel inspired by the scandals she'd heard about true-life celebrities, was a massive hit when first published and Rudnick views the public's appetite for the book and the literati's contempt for it as a classic battle between the vulgar vitality of pop culture and the stifling propriety of approved culture. The latter is represented by David Hyde Pierce (from television's Frasier and one of the most gifted farceurs around) as the preppy editor Hastings assigned to whip Jackie's manuscript into shape. The winner in this rivalry is never in doubt. From the moment this Wasp finds himself lunching with these two garrulous New York Jews, he doesn't stand a chance. Rudnick and Bergman do a nifty job of foreshadowing just how strongly the public will capitulate to Susann when Hyde Pierce's character takes Jackie and Irving to his family's Connecticut house. ("Ya got slaves?" Jackie asks when she takes a gander at the sprawling country home.) In no time at all, the editor's prim Yankee grandmother and businessman father have fallen for Jackie and devoured her manuscript. The film-makers bring the friendship between the author and her editor to a satisfying close with one lovely detail: when he visits the dying Jackie, Hastings has abandoned his Brooks Brothers suits for suitably modern attire.
Roundly panned when it opened in America, Isn't She Great is nonetheless raucously funny and good-natured. Indeed, there's something ironic about the dismissive treatment the film received from 'serious' critics on its US release: vividly embodied by Midler, Susann epitomises the brash pop energy that attracts us to the movies in the first place. And like the lush melodramas of George Cukor and Douglas Sirk, sniffed at by critics on their first release, now given serious consideration, her novels get their emotional resonance from focusing on the disappointments in the lives of women in the pre-feminist era.
Rudnick's script avoids juicier titbits like Jackie's reputed bisexuality. He's dead on, though, about the mixture of narcissism and generosity that fuelled her self-promotion. (Her determination to hide the facts of her son's autism and her cancer are the exact opposite of the way celebrity tragedy is now used as PR capital.) Midler's performance is an astute combination of warmth and monstrousness. But it's Lane who nearly makes off with the film. From voicing the cat in Stuart Little to his baggy-pants brio in Love's Labour's Lost, Lane has one of the movies' most dependable and delightful comic presences. He's never been as touching as he is here. Even instructing a bus full of schoolchildren to ask for Valley of the Dolls for Christmas ("It's better than milk!") everything he does is in service of Jackie. Lane does more with his eyebrows than most actors do with their entire faces. They arch together to express sudden scepticism, or, in blissful adoration, form a steeple over his lovestruck expression. Lane's Irving is a man buoyed by love, and the actor's roly-poly frame takes on a swain's lightness. Isn't She Great is as much Irving's fairy tale as Jackie's. He's the putz who became a prince.
Credits
- Director
- Andrew Bergman
- Producer
- Mike Lobell
- Screenplay
- Paul Rudnick
- Based on the article Wasn't She Great by Michael Korda
- Director of Photography
- Karl Walter Lindenlaub
- Editor
- Barry Malkin
- Production Designer
- Stuart Wurtzel
- Music
- Burt Bacharach
- ©Universal Studios
- Production Companies
- Universal Pictures and Mutual Film Company present a Lobell/Bergman production
- Produced in association with Tele-München, BBC/Marubeni/Toho-Towa
- Executive Producers
- Ted Kurdyla
- Gary Levinsohn
- Mark Gordon
- Associate Producer
- Cathy Schulman
- Production Supervisor
- Judy Richter
- Production Co-ordinators
- Marie Quesnel
- NY Unit:
- Lois Otto
- Production Manager
- Micheline Garant
- Unit Production Managers
- John A. Machione
- Ted Kurdyla
- Unit Managers
- Stéphane Fréchette
- Esther Lacaille
- NY Unit:
- Troy Thomas
- Location Managers
- Catherine Dawe
- Ken Korrall
- NY Unit:
- Dana Robin
- Post-production Supervisor
- JoAnn M. Laub
- 2nd Unit Director
- Ted Kurdyla
- Assistant Directors
- Glen Trotiner
- Dean Garvin
- Pierre Brassard
- Michelle Benoît
- Matt Jemus
- NY Unit:
- Andy Muller
- John A. Machione
- Script Supervisor
- Mary Gambardella
- Casting
- Kathleen Chopin
- John Lyons
- Canada:
- Elite Productions
- Rosina Bucci
- 2nd Unit Directors of Photography
- Karl Walter Lindenlaub
- Geoff Erb
- Louis Deernsted
- Camera Operators
- Colin Anderson
- NY Unit:
- Dave Knox
- Steadicam Operator
- Colin Anderson
- Digital Visual Effects
- Balsmeyer & Everett, Inc
- Visual Effects Supervisor
- Randall Balsmeyer
- Special Effects
- Steve Kirshoff
- L'Intrigue
- Graphic Artist
- Isabelle Coté
- Art Directors
- Raymond Dupuis
- NY Unit:
- Ray Kluga
- Key Set Decorator
- Frances Calder
- Set Decorators
- Susan Macquarrie
- Amy Burt
- NY Unit:
- George DeTitta Jr
- Costume Designer
- Julie Weiss
- Wardrobe Supervisors
- Melissa Adzima-Stanton
- Tom Stokes
- Wardrobe Mistress
- Lyse Pomerleau
- Laurent Sevigny
- Key Make-up Artist
- Linda DeVetta
- Make-up Artists
- Michele Paris Cantanzarite
- Annick Chartier
- NY Unit, Additional:
- Steve Lawrence
- Key Hair Designs
- Alan D'Angerio
- Hair Stylists
- Francesca Paris
- Réjean Forget
- NY Unit, Additional:
- Verne Caruso
- Nathan Busch
- Titles Design/Production
- Balsmeyer & Everett, Inc
- Opticals
- The Effects House
- Cineric Inc
- Musicians
- Flute:
- Jim Walker
- Oboe:
- Earle Dumler
- Alto Sax:
- Tom Scott
- Clarinet:
- Dan Higgins
- Tenor Sax:
- Gary Foster
- Trumpet/Flugel:
- Gary Grant
- Concert Master:
- Bruce Dukov
- Guitar:
- Dean Parks
- Whistler:
- Rick Riccio
- Harmonica:
- Tommy Morgan
- Orchestrations
- Rick Giovinazzo
- Music Supervisor
- Gary Jones
- Music Editor
- Todd Kasow
- Scoring Mixer
- Tim Boyle
- Soundtrack
- "I'm on MyWay" - Dionne Warwick; "Open Your Heart" - Vanessa Williams; "Hush" - Deep Purple; Johnny's Theme" - Doc Severinsen & His Orchestra; "Roller Coaster" - Henri Rene; Franz Schubert's "String Trio in B Flat, D 581 Rondo (Allegretto) - Grumiaux Trio; "Poeme" - Lawrence Welk and His Orchestra; "Here We Go Again" - The Glenn Miller Orchestra; "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" - James Brown; "I Got You (I Feel Good)", "Ain't That a Groove" - James Brown; "This Could Be the Start of Something Big"; "Happy Birthday to You"
- Choreography
- Adam Shankman
- Sound Mixers
- Don Cohen
- NY Unit:
- Tom Nelson
- Re-recording Mixers
- Michael Barry
- Lee Dichter
- Todd Kasow
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Paul P. Soucek
- Sound Editors
- Warren Shaw
- William Sweeney
- Dialogue Editor
- Dan Korintus
- Sound Effects Editor
- Michael W. Mitchell
- ADR
- Loop Group:
- Speakeasy
- Recording Engineers:
- David Bolton
- Bob Baron
- Editors:
- Deborah Wallach
- Harriet Fidlow Winn
- Foley
- Artist:
- Brian Vancho
- Recording Engineer:
- George Lara
- Editor:
- Steven Visscher
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- Minor Mustain
- Benoît Gauthier
- Animal Trainer
- Birds and Animals Unlimited
- Film Extract
- Valley of the Dolls (1967)
- Cast
- Bette Midler
- Jacqueline Susann
- Nathan Lane
- Irving Mansfield
- David Hyde Pierce
- Michael Hastings
- Stockard Channing
- Florence Maybelle
- John Cleese
- Henry Marcus
- John Larroquette
- Maury Manning
- Amanda Peet
- Debbie
- Terrence Ross
- radio actor
- Jeffrey Ross
- Shecky
- Christopher MacDonald
- Brad Bradburn
- Paul Benedict
- Professor Brainiac
- Dina Spybey
- Bambi Madison
- Pauline Little
- Leslie Barnett
- William Hill
- passerby
- Mal Z. Lawrence
- Mort
- Adam Heller
- Howie
- Ellen David
- Sylvia
- Daniel Ziskie
- Guy's doctor
- Anna Lobell
- receptionist
- David Costabile
- junior editor
- Brett Gillen
- man with bicycle
- Olga Merediz
- Mrs Ramirez
- Jacklin Webb
- nurse
- Clebert Ford
- Claude
- Dick Henley
- doorman
- Sonia Benezra
- manicurist
- Richard Litt
- Buddy
- Maurice Carlton
- orderly 1
- Edward B. Goldstein
- Eddie in Lindy's
- Larry Block
- Herbie
- Jack Eagle
- waiter
- Le Clanché du Rand
- Lissy Hastings
- Elizabeth Lawrence
- Mimsy Hastings
- Helen Stenborg
- Aunt Abigail
- John Cunningham
- Nelson Hastings
- Charles Doucet
- teamster
- John Moore
- news anchor
- Richard McConomy
- Harry Gladrey
- Lisa Bronwyn Moore
- Irma Gladrey
- Steven McCarthy
- Book Nook clerk
- James Villemaire
- Jim Morrison
- Karyn Quackenbush
- TV cook
- Sam Street
- Truman Capote
- Peter Blaikie
- David
- Sheena Larkin
- saleswoman
- Frank Vincent
- Aristotle Onassis
- David Lawrence
- Steve Lawrence
- Debbie Gravitte
- Eydie Gorme
- Mickey Toft
- Guy at 6
- Ricky Mabe
- Guy at 14
- Robin Andrew Wilcock
- stage murderer
- Jude Beny
- sceptical housewife
- Jean-Guy Bouchard
- wolf whistle teamster
- Carl Alacchi
- orderly 2
- [uncredited]
- Rebekah Mintzer
- young Jackie
- Sarah Jessica Parker
- Tira Gropman
- Jason Fuchs
- paperboy
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 8,578 feet
- 95 minutes 19 seconds
- Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS
- In Colour