In 1976 America celebrated the bicentennial of its independence, but with an economic depression following on the heels of the twin traumas of Vietnam and Watergate there were many in the mid-seventies who felt the the country did not have much else to celebrate. President Nixon had narrowly escaped imprisonment over his role in the Watergate affair, and his successor Gerald Ford was widely seen as dull and uninspiring. When he lost the 1976 Presidential election to Jimmy Carter the only surprise was how narrow Carter's margin of victory was, possibly because he was seen as only slightly more inspiring than Ford.
"Fun with Dick and Jane" is a black comedy from 1977 which reflects this rather sour national mood. The title is taken from the title of one of the books in the "Dick and Jane" series of children's reading primers. Like their British equivalents, the "Peter and Jane" and "Janet and John" series, these books were sometimes criticised for only depicting white, middle-class families. At the beginning of the film the two main characters, Dick and Jane Harper, seem to be living the white middle-class American dream. Dick is a successful executive with a Los Angeles aerospace company which played a role in the Apollo moon landings. His wife Jane is a housewife whose main responsibility is caring for their son, Billy. And they all live together in a white middle-class house in an upmarket white middle-class suburb.
And then Dick suddenly loses his job. He may have played his part in putting men on the moon, but that cuts no ice with his boss, Charlie Blanchard, who needs to make cuts because of the company's difficult financial position. Dick fails to find another job and ends up applying for unemployment benefit and food stamps, while Jane's attempts to find employment are no more successful. They try appealing to her wealthy parents, but instead of helping they merely subject the couple to a patronising lecture about how hardship is good for the soul. Owing $70,000 on their mortgage, and unable to raise the money, Dick and Jane decide there is only one thing to be done. They will turn to crime. To be precise, to robbery, like a middle-class Bonnie and Clyde.
This is the sort of film that could never have been made in the days of the Production Code, which took a strictly moralistic view of law and order and forbade the sympathetic treatment of crime or criminals. By 1977, however, the Code had been in the dustbin of history for a decade, and Dick and Jane are very much the heroes of this film, not its villains. The villains in the first half of the film, when Dick and Jane are desperately trying to make ends meet, are the small-minded and unfeeling bureaucrats who administer America's welfare programmes. And in the second half, when they go on their crime spree, the real villains are the big faceless corporations they rob. Dick and Jane never actually hurt anyone, and are so hopelessly amateurish that the audience cannot help but root for them. Of course, in real life they would doubtless have been arrested after pulling off their first job, but black comedy is a film genre that has always enjoyed a certain immunity from the iron laws of probability which govern real life. For their final heist they decide to take their revenge on Charlie Blanchard, having discovered that he keeps two hundred thousand dollars in his office. As this money is a "slush fund" used for bribing officials, Dick and Jane realise that Charlie will never dare report its loss to the police.
Some aspects of the film are surprisingly left-wing for a Hollywood production made at the height of the Cold War; the general idea is that there is something rotten in the state of American capitalism and in the way the poor and unemployed are treated. It was no accident that the film's leading lady is Jane Fonda, possibly Hollywood's most left-wing star of the period. It was seen as her "comeback movie", her first big success since she won an Oscar for "Klute" six years earlier. The films she had made during the intervening period had not done well at the box office, something often attributed to her unpopularity with much of the American public following her controversial visit to North Vietnam in 1972.
This does not mean, however, that the film is solemn or preachy. Far from it; it is often very funny. Not all the jokes work, but Fonda shows that she could be as much at home in comedy as she was in serious drama, something not always apparent earlier in her career. (In "Cat Ballou", for example, she played her character with an earnestness which didn't fit in well with everyone else's jokey tone, and in "Barefoot in the Park" she was prone to overacting). Her co-star George Segal is also good here, although he was an actor I associated more with comedy than I did Fonda. (He had recently made another good one, "The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox").
I have never seen the 2005 remake of the film with Jim Carrey, but I can well understand why someone thought it was worth remaking during the age of Dubya Bush. Some political satires can look very dated to later generations. "Fun with Dick and Jane", however, touched on concerns which remained relevant in 2005- and still do in 2023. 7/10.
"Fun with Dick and Jane" is a black comedy from 1977 which reflects this rather sour national mood. The title is taken from the title of one of the books in the "Dick and Jane" series of children's reading primers. Like their British equivalents, the "Peter and Jane" and "Janet and John" series, these books were sometimes criticised for only depicting white, middle-class families. At the beginning of the film the two main characters, Dick and Jane Harper, seem to be living the white middle-class American dream. Dick is a successful executive with a Los Angeles aerospace company which played a role in the Apollo moon landings. His wife Jane is a housewife whose main responsibility is caring for their son, Billy. And they all live together in a white middle-class house in an upmarket white middle-class suburb.
And then Dick suddenly loses his job. He may have played his part in putting men on the moon, but that cuts no ice with his boss, Charlie Blanchard, who needs to make cuts because of the company's difficult financial position. Dick fails to find another job and ends up applying for unemployment benefit and food stamps, while Jane's attempts to find employment are no more successful. They try appealing to her wealthy parents, but instead of helping they merely subject the couple to a patronising lecture about how hardship is good for the soul. Owing $70,000 on their mortgage, and unable to raise the money, Dick and Jane decide there is only one thing to be done. They will turn to crime. To be precise, to robbery, like a middle-class Bonnie and Clyde.
This is the sort of film that could never have been made in the days of the Production Code, which took a strictly moralistic view of law and order and forbade the sympathetic treatment of crime or criminals. By 1977, however, the Code had been in the dustbin of history for a decade, and Dick and Jane are very much the heroes of this film, not its villains. The villains in the first half of the film, when Dick and Jane are desperately trying to make ends meet, are the small-minded and unfeeling bureaucrats who administer America's welfare programmes. And in the second half, when they go on their crime spree, the real villains are the big faceless corporations they rob. Dick and Jane never actually hurt anyone, and are so hopelessly amateurish that the audience cannot help but root for them. Of course, in real life they would doubtless have been arrested after pulling off their first job, but black comedy is a film genre that has always enjoyed a certain immunity from the iron laws of probability which govern real life. For their final heist they decide to take their revenge on Charlie Blanchard, having discovered that he keeps two hundred thousand dollars in his office. As this money is a "slush fund" used for bribing officials, Dick and Jane realise that Charlie will never dare report its loss to the police.
Some aspects of the film are surprisingly left-wing for a Hollywood production made at the height of the Cold War; the general idea is that there is something rotten in the state of American capitalism and in the way the poor and unemployed are treated. It was no accident that the film's leading lady is Jane Fonda, possibly Hollywood's most left-wing star of the period. It was seen as her "comeback movie", her first big success since she won an Oscar for "Klute" six years earlier. The films she had made during the intervening period had not done well at the box office, something often attributed to her unpopularity with much of the American public following her controversial visit to North Vietnam in 1972.
This does not mean, however, that the film is solemn or preachy. Far from it; it is often very funny. Not all the jokes work, but Fonda shows that she could be as much at home in comedy as she was in serious drama, something not always apparent earlier in her career. (In "Cat Ballou", for example, she played her character with an earnestness which didn't fit in well with everyone else's jokey tone, and in "Barefoot in the Park" she was prone to overacting). Her co-star George Segal is also good here, although he was an actor I associated more with comedy than I did Fonda. (He had recently made another good one, "The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox").
I have never seen the 2005 remake of the film with Jim Carrey, but I can well understand why someone thought it was worth remaking during the age of Dubya Bush. Some political satires can look very dated to later generations. "Fun with Dick and Jane", however, touched on concerns which remained relevant in 2005- and still do in 2023. 7/10.