Sunday, October 18, 2015

Her Life as a Man (1984)

Director: Robert Ellis Miller                                Writer: Joanna Crawford & Diane English
Music Score: John Cacavas                              Cinematography: Kees Van Oostrum
Starring: Robyn Douglass, Marc Singer, Robert Culp and Laraine Newman

With the huge success of Dustin Hoffman’s gender-switching film Tootsie, producers began casting about for a suitable project that could copy the same formula and ride on the financial coattails of that film. They found it in writer Carol Lynn Mithers’ story of becoming a man after dark in Greenwich Village in order to experience what it would be like. Screenwriters Joanna Crawford and Diane English moved the story to Los Angeles, in order to facilitate the production, and had their protagonist donning the disguise in order to get a job at a magazine that didn’t want to hire women. The subsequent TV movie was called Her Life as a Man, and is a criminally neglected entry in a genre that, because it has so few films, should be celebrating this well-acted and well-produced story. At a press conference prior to the film’s telecast Robyn Douglass attended wearing her male costume and fooled most of the reporters in attendance. The film was given decidedly mixed reviews when it was broadcast, with some reviewers feeling that it trivialized the feminist movement, especially after Douglass had appeared in Hustler and Playboy. But there were a few positive reviews that understood the intent of the picture and focused on the things that make it so charming.

The film opens on a cover version of the Four Seasons’ “Walk Like a Man,” and shows Robyn Douglass besting her boyfriend, Marc Singer, on the racquetball court. When her car won’t start he fixes it, then she goes to work at a small Los Angeles newspaper, The Southland Weekly, and discovers that she has been laid off because of declining circulation. The friends at her farewell get-together at a bar include David Paymer, Liz Torres, Carol Potter, and Douglass’s best friend, Miriam Flynn. She doesn’t tell Singer until they get home from dinner with one of his clients, and to end her miserable day she also gets a rejection letter from The Village Voice. Her job search during the next few weeks is as fruitless as it is disappointing. Then she applies for an opening at Sports Life, and is interviewed by the editor, Robert Culp. But when she’s turned down this time she knows that it’s because she’s a woman and he’s simply not giving her a chance. So Douglass decides to get a fake beard and wig and tries it out on Flynn by meeting her at a bar, similar to the scene in Tootsie when Dustin Hoffman meets Sidney Pollack in the Russian Tea Room. But it’s Singer’s help she really needs, to get the mannerisms and the attitude right to be a convincing man. After his initial shock, he agrees, and the montage, again set to the Four Seasons’ music, makes for a terrific segue to the second act.

Armed with a new identity, Douglass goes in to see Culp with a newfound confidence and this time lands the job. She’s so excited, though, that she meets Singer and his parents, Patricia Barry and Paul Napier, at the country club without changing first. Of course Singer thinks that’s the end of it, and he’s quite taken aback when he finds out Douglass plans to work at her new job as a man. She doesn’t think it’s enough just to get the job, now she wants to prove she can do the job. At the magazine she meets another writer, Laraine Newman, the token female who is forced into writing about gymnastics and women’s tennis. The two of them form a friendship and help each other with their writing. But the job has long hours and before long it’s interfering with Singer’s life, when Douglass goes away for the weekend for an interview--a very clever segment with Joan Collins pretending to seduce him/her--missing dinner engagements with clients, and in another parallel with Tootsie, missing a dinner he’s prepared. After Singer storms out in anger, he comes back a few days later to make up only to discover Douglass with Newman and again, like Tootsie, Newman thinks Douglass is gay. The ending, while pure Hollywood, is still incredibly uplifting and despite the negative criticism bespeaks a positive change for nearly all of the characters, not just the protagonist.

There’s no doubt that this is a TV movie, but while the weakest aspect of the film is the screenplay it’s not all bad. The humor misses at times, but when it hits it’s very good. The parallels with Tootsie are unavoidable, mostly because they were by design. But it works. The story is light and fun, a commentary on society without being preachy. What really lifts the production to another level is the acting by all involved. Robyn Douglass is perfect for the role, though she was a relative newcomer at the time, appearing in a half a dozen films after her debut in Breaking Away with Dennis Christopher. Marc Singer, is a great foil for her, surprised and disappointed in her at times, but never completely unsupportive in the way that a lot of similar characters are written. And though Laraine Newman isn’t quite believable as a writer, Robert Culp is given some incredibly bad stage directions, one of which is loading a shotgun during his interview with Douglass to show how macho his is. Finally, composer John Cacavas, who began his career at Hammer Studios in the early seventies, provides a catchy theme, which winds up becoming an integral part of the film. Her Life as a Man, while not quite up to the standards of Tootsie, is nevertheless a charming comedy that deserves a lot wider recognition.