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The California beauty-pageant scene as asinine refuge and sideways pendant to Nashville, right down to the striptease. (Forman's The Firemen's Ball is another clear model of carefully balanced communal delusion.) The joke is that it's Michael Ritchie's sequel to the meat market in Prime Cut, the girls in the pigpen are now accordionists and baton-twirlers vying for the Young American Miss crown with Vaseline-lubricated grins. Hopefuls come to town and join the cheery inanity: "Santa Rosa is so beautiful. I thought the shopping mall in Anaheim was great until I saw yours!" The RV salesman (Bruce Dern) plays judge, the coordinator is a ruthlessly perky iron maiden (Barbara Feldon), a sarcastic choreographer (Michael Kidd) is brought in to keep the contestants from falling off the stage. ("Me Ol' Bamboo" filtered through a marching band is the irritant of choice.) Dern hangs on to homilies, sighs like Vanya when recalling a near-date with Liz Taylor, and unwinds with horseplay at "Exhausted Exalted Rooster" gatherings. His pal (Nicholas Pryor) can no longer maintain the façade of congeniality, the breakdown takes place at home on the freshly shampooed carpet: "Don't worry, I'm standing on the paper," he assures his wife while bringing pistol to mouth. Ritchie holds it together with rapid technique and a glancing eye for the caged mechanical canary and the emcee who pauses mid-platitude to check cue cards. And, despite his anger at the event's emptiness, he bears no malice for the folks in it—the film looks fondly on Annette O'Toole's showmanship as she offers her swimsuit-clad figure as proof of "inner beauty," and Joan Prather's earnest grace as she negotiates a priest's questions. A saucy Polaroid under the end credits concludes the bleak-charming pointillistic approach. With Geoffrey Lewis, Melanie Griffith, Colleen Camp, Maria O'Brien, Dick McGarvin, Denise Nickerson, Tito Vandis, and Dennis Dugan.
--- Fernando F. Croce |