This is one of those movies that wouldn't seem to be very good, until you watch it - once or twice or half a dozen times. Each major actor handles his or her role with aplomb and genuine talent - especially so for the recently deceased and sadly missed Jack Warden. Warden plays a struggling garment maker in New York, with O'Neal as his college-professor son. The various details of the plot can be seen in the other comments, but basically it boils down to the fact that Jack is in debt to Kiel's gangster character ("Mr Eddie") and for some odd reason, Kiel insists on O'Neal joining the business. O'Neal falls for Kiel's lovely but ignored and bored wife, thereby endangering not only the business, but his life. Warden's reactions to the news are priceless, a combination of horror and bemused admiration for O'Neal's lovemaking prowess. Through an accident of timing, O'Neal ends up spending the night under the marriage bed of Kiel and his wife, and since she threw his clothes out the window in a fit of passion, he has to get home in the morning in a pair of her jeans. He splits the rear end of them, and patches them with some clear plastic scavenged from a trash can. His entry to the garment shop creates a stir, and within a few movie moments, the "So Fine" jeans are a national rage. The business back on top, O'Neal heads back to school. However, Mrs. Big Eddie follows him there, then of course Mr. Eddie himself is on the trail, and finally Warden too. The climactic scenes, played out against a college production of "Othello" are hilarious in themselves. But, as several have noted, the funniest line in the movie, and one of the dozen or so best lines ever, is Jack Warden's unabashed question to his love interest in the gondola on the canals of Venice just before the credits roll.
As a send up of the garment industry, provincial colleges, gangsters, Shakespeare, Mozart and various others, this movie hits on many different levels. There are at least a half dozen quick 'funny bits', not the least of which are scenes like Richard Kiel lip-syncing to the Four Season's "Walk like a Man" while stopping for some nourishment at an IHOP-like place, O'Neals impassioned goodbyes to the fellow garment workers, quoting Henry IVs "we few, we happy few" speech, Fred Gwynne's imperious college president turn, the police at the end peering at Keil's Drivers License (note the picture - only his neck and chin show, a "Big man" joke that passes by REALLY FAST), who look at each other in a quizzical fashion, one saying, "Nationality?" and the other, peering at the Othello-made up Kiel's passed out body, "Moor?".
There are so many quick jokes in this movie you really have to watch it four or five times to catch them all. Highly recommended.
As a send up of the garment industry, provincial colleges, gangsters, Shakespeare, Mozart and various others, this movie hits on many different levels. There are at least a half dozen quick 'funny bits', not the least of which are scenes like Richard Kiel lip-syncing to the Four Season's "Walk like a Man" while stopping for some nourishment at an IHOP-like place, O'Neals impassioned goodbyes to the fellow garment workers, quoting Henry IVs "we few, we happy few" speech, Fred Gwynne's imperious college president turn, the police at the end peering at Keil's Drivers License (note the picture - only his neck and chin show, a "Big man" joke that passes by REALLY FAST), who look at each other in a quizzical fashion, one saying, "Nationality?" and the other, peering at the Othello-made up Kiel's passed out body, "Moor?".
There are so many quick jokes in this movie you really have to watch it four or five times to catch them all. Highly recommended.