User Reviews

Really fun movie, with a tone and style all its own. It has the same zippy sitcom character of the set which is its main stage, and the comedic acting is often over the top. Yet it drives through some very subtle and deep ideas about what makes a celebrity tick, the price culture extracts from its most ballyhooed figures, and the scars divorce and drink can leave on those with the smoothest of surfaces.

The secret to this film's success is O'Toole, who gives up some of his most intimate and affecting moments on screen and intersperses them with ass-over-elbow feats of physical schtick that would make a Ritz Brother proud. What a shock we never saw much else from him after this tour de force. Richard Benjamin did go on to direct other films like "Shoot The Moon," but he never managed to get it all absolutely right the way he did here. It's so note-perfect, from the opening shot of midtown Manhattan 1954 with the cars, outfits, and bustle all coming together beneath the strains of Les Paul and Mary Ford's "How High The Moon" into a tight closeup of Benjy Stone carrying a cardboard cutout of his hero, Alan Swann, through an uncaring, jostling crowd.

I almost wish they could have made a sitcom featuring the King Kaiser crew, with of course Joseph Balogna, Bill Macy, Adolph Green and the rest all reprising their roles in a kind of "Remember WENN"-style show. O, what roads left untravelled. Balogna is so good, managing to carry off his Sid Caesar-inspired role with the same kind of aplomb that made the original Caesar early television's most dynamic and celebrated comedy performer. There's a nice scene early on where Stone sticks up for a prone Swann by telling Kaiser he can't fire the swashbuckler. "You're a big star now, and I'm sure you always will be," Benjy says. "But suppose, and I know it will never happen, you end up like this. I hope nobody does to you what you're doing to him." Of course Caesar did end up like this, strung out on substance-use problems that derailed his post-50s career, and knowing that gives the scene, both funny and tension-filled, a certain undertone of poignancy for those in the know.

Mark Linn-Baker could have taken it down a notch or two, and the Brooklyn idyll was to die for, and not in a good way. I'd like to know how the hell I'm supposed to lock lips with the woman of my dreams by stuffing my face with Chinese food and showing her old movies, but I don't think my repeated viewings have helped my love life much. It has given me many hours of pleasure though. This is one film that keeps on giving. With lines like "Plastered? So are some of the finest erections in Europe" "These must be his drinking socks" and "Tongue...Death," how can it do anything less?

The 1982 comedy MY FAVORITE COMEDY was a lovingly made period piece that takes place during a wonderful time in entertainment history...the infancy of live television in the 1950's (or more specifically, YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS). This laugh-filled comic romp follows the adventures of Benji (Mark Linn-Baker), a gopher for COMEDY CALVACADE (this film's version of YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS), who is excited when a swashbuckling actor of the period named Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole) has been booked as a guest on the show turns out to be a skirt-chasing alcoholic who Benji is put in charge of keeping under control until showtime. This movie is a lovely valentine to the 1950's with exquisite period detail and an intelligent screenplay that invokes the period so beautifully. O'Toole gives the performance of a lifetime as Swann, an alternately laugh out loud funny and heartbreakingly warm performance that earned him an Oscar nomination, yet somehow Linn-Baker somehow manages to hold his own and never allows O'Toole to blow him off the screen. O' Toole and Linn-Baker get solid support from Lainie Kazan as Benji's mother, Joseph Bologna as King Kaiser, the star of Comedy Calvacade, Cameron Mitchell as a not-too bright gangster, and Adolph Green as the manic producer of the show. A good looking, smartly-written superbly written comedy that documents a long gone era in entertainment history and tells a warm and amusing story as well.

From the opening notes of Nat 'King' Cole's great recording of Stardust, this film just steals your heart. If you are old enough to remember TV's Show Of Shows, live every week, this is a real treat. Peter O'Toole is magic as an Errol Flynn like movie star, swashing every buck in sight, charming the socks off one and all. The final scene of the live broadcast, with the mayhem caused by the gangsters invading the stage, is a classic. A delighful 90 minutes. 8/10

Jane

Have you ever watched a film and wished it wouldn't end? Where you loved all the characters, adored each scene, and laughed at every joke, even after you'd seen the film so many times that you could quote the dialog? MY FAVORITE YEAR is that kind of movie!

Directed with gusto by Richard Benjamin, the film is both a loving tribute to Sid Caesar's 'Your Show of Show', and the remarkable talents that brought it together each week, and a sincere homage to Errol Flynn, whose antics and larger-than-life persona, in the waning years of his life, still had a kind of magic that could enthrall a shy young fan, or make a woman swoon.

Three dynamic performances dominate the film. Mark Linn-Baker, as Benjy Stone, based on the young Mel Brooks, is a shy kid who hides his insecurities behind a rapid-fire wit. The dazzling young star in a staff of comedy 'pros', Stone suffers from an unrequited love from fellow staffer K. C. Downing (Jessica Harper), and has an inspiration, inviting legendary swashbuckler Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole) to appear on the show. As King Kaiser, star of the hit series, Joseph Bologna captures much of Sid Caesar's legendary physical 'presence' and irreverence to authority. When threatened by gangsters over a 'too close to home' series of parodies about crime boss Karl Rojeck (portrayed with brute menace by veteran actor Cameron Mitchell), Kaiser 'thumbs his nose' at them, mimicking the gangster mercilessly. "I'll KEEP doing it!" he taunts. "Why? Because it's FUNNY!"

Then there is Peter O'Toole's 'Alan Swann'. With his own career a roller coaster ride of alcoholism, resulting in the near destruction of his health, no actor could have 'channeled' Errol Flynn better. Just as Flynn, by the 1950s, was a nearly burned-out roué, his classic good looks long gone, O'Toole's matinee-idol appearance, after years of self-abuse, had aged into a gaunt mask, making Benji Stone's film montage of 'classic' clips more poignant. What Flynn still had, in abundance, were charm and a ready wit, and O'Toole's 'Swann' is so enchanting a personality that you can't help but love him, and root for him to succeed.

From the opening nostalgic strains of Nat King Cole's rendition of 'Stardust', through Benjy's futile effort to attempt to keep Swann sober (Red Skelton loved to tell how he kept Flynn sober on his program...he emptied all of the actor's bottles of vodka, replacing it with water...and Flynn couldn't tell the difference!), to a riotous Swann dinner with Benjy's family, to the near-disastrous broadcast, with Swann developing stage fright, and Kaiser brawling with mob enforcers...MY FAVORITE YEAR has one glorious scene after another, each unforgettable!

One of the AFI's '100 Greatest Film Comedies', MY FAVORITE YEAR will bring a tear to your eye, even as you laugh. It was a time of legends, and heroes who would live up to boyhood dreams.

Film comedy doesn't get any better than this!

Peter O'Toole is at the height of his comic powers in this wonderful homage to Errol Flynn, the 50's, and early live TV. Alan Swann (O'Toole) is a swashbuckling, aging, alcoholic actor billed to appear on television - which is fine until he realises that the thing is going to be broadcast LIVE, which is unthinkable. This prompts severe stage fright and heavy drinking, as he is cojoled with endless patience by his adoring young minder, Benjy Stone, (Mark Linn-Baker).

The film is funny, brilliant, sad, stirring, inspiring, exciting - unique. The cast is perfect from top to bottom A tour de force by O'Toole. Watch it. 'My Favorite Year' should become one of Your Favorite Films. 9 out of 10.

I was born in 1958, so I never saw Your Show of Shows, and needless to say, I never knew there was a famous or infamous incident involving one of my boyhood idols, a very drunk Errol Flynn.Dennis Palumbo, in what is ( sadly) apparently his only effort as a script writer, has taken this incident and woven a very human and very funny film from it. Benjamin's direction is excellent, and Peter O'Toole ( playing, it must be said, a variant of himself), is wonderful, as is most of the rest of the cast. Benjamin shows a sure comic touch in his debut. In short, like Quiz Show, one of the best movies about the fifties, and one of the best movies about the early days of television.

Peter O'Toole clearly makes this movie work, playing Alan Swann, a washed up, alcoholic, swashbuckling type movie star (in the mode of Errol Flynn) who has one last chance at glory when he's invited to be a guest star on the TV show "Comedy Cavalcade" starring "King Kaiser" (Joseph Bologna) - clearly a take off on Sid Caesar's "Show of Shows."

Set in 1954, described as "my favorite year" by Benjy (Mark Linn-Baker) - who is given the job of keeping Swann sober and making sure he shows up for the show, the movie provides an interesting look at the era of live television, where any mistakes would be instantly seen by the viewers (no retakes here.) Consistently humourous rather than outrageously hilarious, the movie also benefits from a solid supporting cast, featuring the likes of Bill Macy and Selma Diamond among others.

6/10

Peter O'Toole, who's been known to take an occasional drink himself, probably had a lot of experience to bring to the part of Alan Swann, swashbuckling movie star of bygone years who's gone to seed. O'Toole has a tax problem and he's agreed to do an appearance on a top rated television comedy show of the Fifties to satisfy Uncle Sam's lien on his future income and to avoid deportation. But by now he's a boozy shadow of his former self and the star of the show Joseph Bologna assigns his most junior writer, Mark Linn-Baker to keep him in reasonable condition to perform.

As it turns out it means bringing O'Toole into his world which is Jewish Brooklyn of the Fifties, something I'm somewhat familiar with myself. Baker and O'Toole become a marvelous comedy duo themselves here. I'm surprised they did not team to do a whole lot more films than this.

O'Toole's performance succeeds on a lot of levels. Yes it's pretty funny, sidesplittingly funny at times. But there's also an element of sadness in it as well. You see in film clips the man O'Toole once was and now only commands attention by making a public spectacle of himself at times. I knew someone like that in my life, one who hardly had any kind of a career, but also HAD to be the center of attention at all times and usually did it by getting riotously drunk and acting abominably dumb. He had a certain charm and could get away with it, a lot though not the way O'Toole does.

Based on Mel Brooks's recollections of having to work with Errol Flynn, the film lets you know it's Flynn were remembering. Note the almost step by step choreographed duel recreation of Flynn and Basil Rathbone's final duel from The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Joseph Bologna is great as the egotistical comedy star and the Brooklyn vignette has a great performance by Lainie Kazan as Baker's most Jewish mother and Lou Jacobi as his most Jewish uncle.

Still it's what goes on and what's between O'Toole and Baker that makes My Favorite Year an all time comedy classic.

Mel Brooks welcomes Errol Flynn to Sid Caesar comedy television show in the 1950s, and Jimmy Hoffa tries to ruin it all. That's essentially the plot of this fictionalized recounting of a week in the Saturday evening comedy showbusiness, a vehicle for Peter O'Toole to play a drunk and out of control actor of yesteryear with his best years behind him, guiding the young Mark Linn-Baker through the intersection of movies and real life to find the truth of the man who entertained the world as a swashbuckling hero on screen but who's too terrified to get out of his car to meet his own estranged daughter in Connecticut. Built on nostalgia, solid character work, and strong comedy, My Favorite Year is a fun comedy with a wonderful central performance by Peter O'Toole to anchor it all.

It's 1954 and the young Benjy Stone is the junior writer for "Comedy Cavalcade" with King Kaiser with their guest that week being the famous British born actor Alan Swann. Swann has grown a reputation as a wild and out of control man with a major drinking problem. There are great concerns that the show's cast and crew won't be able to wrangle Swan to even appearing for rehearsals. When he shows up late and stinking drunk, Kaiser gives Swann a single chance, hinging on Benjy's ability to get Swann to every rehearsal on time. So starts Benjy's weeklong effort to keep his movie idol sober enough to work and out of trouble.

Swann is an effortlessly charming man who, when combined with his fame, has absolutely no trouble attracting the eye of young women. Benjy, on the other hand, is hopelessly in love with K.C., played by Jessica Harper, a co-worker at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and his love is completely unrequited. And yet, despite these supposed differences, there are a multitude of similarities between them. Swann's real name is Clarence Duffy, and that along with most of his biography was created by the studio when they discovered him in Manchester. Likewise, Benjy's real name is Benjamin Steinberg, and he changed his name because he thought Benjy Stone would look better going across the screen. Benjy takes Swann from Manhattan to Brooklyn to have dinner with his family, and it's like going to another world that Benjy almost wants to hide, much like how Swann's hid his own past. This forms the basis of the endearing relationship that really forms between them.

What follows is a series of episodes as Benjy does his best to keep Swann under control, failing almost every time, only to be saved by Swann's own sense of self-preservation and habitual control over his life. The first night they're together, Swann takes Benjy to The Stork Club where Swann immediately eyes an attractive woman with a date and plans on stealing her away. Swann incorporates Benjy into his plan, which succeeds with Swann dashing away with the woman and making the morning papers for his escapades, but he still manages to show up for the rehearsal, saving Benjy's skin.

What ends up making up the movie's emotional core is the idea that Benjy espouses towards the end. With Swann realizing that the show is live moments before air time, he loses all of his confidence and finds a bottle to lose himself into, but Benjy, in a desperate attempt to get Swann to be anything like the heroes he portrayed in the movies, tells him that a man who portrays such heroism on film can't be a complete coward in real life. If the rest of the show had gone as planned, maybe Swann would have just settled comfortably in the bottle, but there's another subplot that comes to fruition.

Kaiser plays a character named Boss Hijack in a regular skit thinly modeled on a New York labor leader and gangster named Karl Rojeck. Rojeck doesn't like the sketch and threatens Kaiser if he doesn't stop it. Kaiser, of course, plans on going through with it, so Rojeck sends some men to make trouble during the show. That trouble spills over onto the stage where a fistfight breaks out that the audience thinks is just part of the show. Swann, slightly sloshed, runs toward the action and helps successfully fight off the hoods, providing him his best moment in years, maybe even his life, showing that he does have some real bravery in him, having faked it for so long.

Benjy as the point of view character feels such warmth towards Swann after all this, finding that his hero could be both less and more than his own dreams of him, using Swann's advice to get K.C. and even come to greater terms with his very Jewish mother and his very Filipino step-father, the sort of background he feels like showbusiness would look down on.

It's a sweet and endearing little movie really anchored by O'Toole. As the past his prime actor, he portrays Swann as a man caught in an empty situation with no desire to get out of it. He can get away with just about anything, and he also gets blamed for a lot that he didn't do. It evens out in a way. It's also empty, but in the way Benjy gets Swann to accept some kind of responsibility, first by injecting himself into a fight and then by visiting his daughter, he becomes a fuller person. It's sweet, and nice.

There's a lot to enjoy in My Favorite Year. It's a nice movie with a simple endgame that it achieves with energy and humor. O'Toole is very good, and the movie is filled with amusing supporting performances like Joseph Bologna as King Kaiser and Adolph Green as Leo. There's a lot to enjoy in the easy charm of the film, much like Swann.

This was a very funny comedy set in the New York City of 1954-55, and involving the likes of three or four figures that normally did not have much in common, though three were in the entertainment field, and they would occasionally (or almost occasionally) work together. The fourth was less funny, but would (in his own way) be as much a figure of historical interest (even more so since he vanished).

In 1954, live television was the major part of the nightly line up of shows, especially variety shows. And the leading one of the day was Sid Caesar's YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS, with it's skillful blending of musical numbers and high comedy - satire skits. Even today, years after most of the shows have vanished (except for those on kines-cope) they remain legendary. Caesar had (for awhile) Mel Brooks working as a writer on his show. He also, on one occasion, planned to have Errol Flynn appear as a guest. Flynn did variety shows occasionally - he once appeared on Steve Allen's show, spoofing TO TELL THE TRUTH (he was one of three people claiming to be Flynn, one of the others being an overly confident Don Knotts wearing a little mustache). The story about Flynn's near appearance with Caesar was not as pleasant - he decided to take a powder at the last moment and did not show up for the final taping.

Based on that story we have this film, wherein Flynn becomes Alan Swann, swashbuckling hero of films of yore. Swann is to appear on THE KING KAISER SHOW with it's star (Joe Bologna). Bologna is as mercurial and difficult as Caesar supposedly was, and when upset at some comments made by Brook's film version "Benjy Stone" (Marc Lynn-Baker), he appoints Stone to keep an eye on the notoriously tipsy and unreliable Swann to make sure he shows up for the show's rehearsals and final production.

The addition of Jimmy Hoffa is interesting to this mix. The teamster boss was not really well known in 1954 (his predecessor Dave Beck was more notorious), but Hoffa's career can be shifted a few years to fit in. For the purposes of the plot, there has been a weekly segment of the show (Kaiser insists on it, showing a substantial public spirit here that is just not evident elsewhere), spoofing the thieving union racketeer (here named Karl Rojeck - Cameron Mitchell). Rojeck only physically appears in one confrontation sequence with Kaiser, in Kaiser's offices: He is a no-nonsense, humorless gangster, and his eye-to-eye confrontation with Kaiser is memorable. It ends with him grabbing the over-sized homburg hat that Kaiser uses for his costume as his own and leaving the meeting with a definite threat in his voice. But although Rojeck the character never reappears, his ominous shadow follows the movie, with late deliveries of supplies to the show, and with "accidents" almost befalling Kaiser and his associates.

As the movie progresses we concentrate mostly on Benjy's growing friendship with Alan Swann. Yes he drinks and womanizes too much, but he does show the young writer what is worthwhile about living, and he even blends in with Benjy's family (his mother Lainie Kazan and her second husband and Benjy's uncles and aunts). In one scene Swann is his charming self with them at a family dinner on Eastern Parkway.

Alan turns out to be a fairly complex figure - he realizes his glamorous image is not at all like his real, flawed self. And he knows he is selfish at times. But he is also genuinely timid about one creature: the little daughter he barely knows who lives in Connecticut. This is his "achilles heel" and it makes the audience realize that for all the glamor and fame he is not a happy man.

How Alan (with Benjy's help) pulls himself together and shows he can live up to his image is the heart of the movie. Peter O'Toole gives his best comic performance in this movie, abetted by Linn-Baker, Bologna, Selma Diamond (whose face glows when O'Toole shows her what he has to make a woman happy), Kazan, Bill Macy and the rest of the film. It turns out to be one's favorite movie about that favorite year.

"Benjamin makes a good fist of not letting the farce run overboard and steers the narrative back to Alan's lucid understanding of reconciling himself with the pros and cons of becoming a beloved movie star, O'Toole, in another self-referential role after Richard Rush's THE STUNT MAN (1980), shows off a larger-than-life persona calibrated with equal measures of panache, kookiness and sentiment, although, does a legitimate Hollywood star need such sentimentality? It might just as well be a filmmaker's cunning approach to cater to common audience's fanciful wishful thinking, a sympathetic look of a star's messy private life, that's really rich! "

read my full review on my blog: Cinema Omnivore, thanks.

Exuding charm in every frame this is a lovingly made evocation of the early years of live television. Perfectly cast in every role and with a wonderful sense of period this will captivate you from the first scene all the way through to the touching finale.

Director Benjamin wisely filled his parts with only one star and the rest talented character actors, anything else would have thrown the balance of the film off. Of those character actors all are terrific but a few stand out. Mark Linn Baker is ideal as Benjy, the schlubby protagonist, Lainie Kazan a scream as his mother and Selma Diamond a no nonsense delight as the wardrobe woman with her ever present cigarette dangling from her lips. Though she doesn't have much of a part keep an eye out for Gloria Stuart in a lovely scene dancing with Peter O'Toole.

All of them and the other cast members are wonderful but the film wouldn't mean a thing if the part of Alan Swann wasn't believably cast. Fortunately the film makers were able to get Peter O'Toole, radiating star quality and charisma, and he could not possibly be better. Tender, humorous, dramatic, almost always over the top and also always a bit sad this is without question some of his best work in a career full of great performances. The fact that O'Toole himself at times behaved off camera as the character does in the film only adds to the pleasure of his work.

A beautiful jewel of a film.

This 1982 comedy has some very comic set pieces however there is not enough to save the viewer from wandering "How Much Longer".

Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker), the narrator, tells of the summer (in his "favorite year" of 1954) he met his idol, swashbuckling actor Alan Swann. Who is past his prime (Peter O'Toole). Alan also has a massive drinking problem and lack of empathy for everyone around him.

Keep in mind the time period this takes place in means is the early days of television. Television was Taboo for "Movie stars" and television was also live!

The main character is Benjy who works as a junior comedy writer for a variety show called Comedy Cavalcade starring Stan "King" Kaiser (Joseph Bologna) broadcast live from the NBC studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. As a special upcoming guest, they get the still-famous but in reality he is a hasbeen! Great performances! Great Cast! However with the bases load this film fails to deliver a grand slam. It hits a double and only two runners score!

Good enough to watch once!

I've heard people gushing about this movie for years and have always been interested in seeing it. I finally had the chance to see it for the first time today on TCM. I'm sad to say I was quite disappointed overall, but I did enjoy Peter O'Toole's performance immensely. This movie could have been truly amazing if the direction and editing were better. The cast is wonderful (I like Mark Linn-Baker, but a better director would have reined in his youthful over-acting here), the script is good and the story is charming. But the pace is tediously slow. As they say in the industry, you could have driven a truck through the pauses between the lines. Yikes. The movie could still have been tightened up in post-production editing, but no soap. And I'm not a youngster whose attention span has been irrevocably destroyed by the Internet. It's a sad day for me, I had been really looking forward to this movie. But, as always, Bravo O'Toole. What a treasure.

The best movies have moments -- scenes so powerful, or simply so note-perfect, that they live on in your memory after the plot is forgotten.

"My Favorite Year" has more than its share of these.

Other reviewers on this page have singled out the dinner at Belle Mae Steinberg Carioca's (Lainie Kazan's) Brooklyn apartment. They might also have mentioned the scene in which a titanically intoxicated Alan Swann (O'Toole)essays to "shimmy down" the side of a building, using a fire hose as rapelling gear, or the farcically climactic fight scene on live 50's TV.

But two other moments resonate even more strongly; they explain completely why Peter O'Toole was cast in this otherwise comedic role.

In the first, O'Toole's character interrupts his own plans for an evening of debauchery to fulfill a fantasy by dancing with an aging, but still glorious Gloria Stuart. Both onscreen and off, the audience is spellbound in the midst of the slapstick as these two senior-citizen actors seize the screen for the duration of their waltz.

Even more compelling is an important scene later in the movie in which Swann makes a quick trip to visit a young daughter whom he hasn't seen in years. He watches her from the car, but can't bring himself to get out and speak to her. The scene is played completely without dialogue. With the camera focused tightly on the warring emotions which play across O'Toole's face, no dialogue is necessary. It's a powerful, lump-in-the-throat moment every divorced dad will recognize.

I join others on this page in urging you to rent this movie for the laughs. As you laugh, however, stay alert for two of the truest moments ever placed on film. Enjoy.

This movie is hilarious and has heart. With the Brilliant chemistry of Peter O'Toole and Mark Linn-Baker. This movie deserved its oscar nomination for best actor.

Mark-Linn Baker plays Benjy Stone, who reminisces about "My Favorite Year" in this 1982 film starring Peter O'Toole, Joseph Bologna, Anne DiSalvo, Bill Macy, and Lainie Kazan. Set in 1954, Baker plays a young NBC writer for a live TV show starring a Sid Caesar type (Bologna). He is put in charge of a drunken film swashbuckler named Alan Swann (O'Toole) to keep him sober and make sure he shows up for the rehearsals and the performance. This includes bringing Swann (totally based on Errol Flynn) to his family's home in Brooklyn for dinner, riding on a stolen policeman's horse through Central Park, and witnessing Swann going over a rooftop with a fireman's hose tied around him. That's actually the good news. All goes well until Swann realizes it's going to be a live show. "I played before an audience once!" he screams. "I was a butler. I had one line. I forgot it." One of my favorite lines was made all the more hysterical by O'Toole throwing it away - when he's questioned about going to the Stork Club, he says, "Why not? It's been a year. Surely they've fixed the wall and replaced the bandstand." The film captures the egomania of the TV star with Bologna's fabulous portrayal of King Kaiser, who is being threatened by a mobster (Cameron Mitchell) due to his weekly impersonation of the man; their scene together is a riot. Mark Linn-Baker is delightful. The other actors fit their roles to a T. As far as O'Toole, what can be said? As Alan Swann, he is sheer perfection - dissipated but handsome, drunken but charming, frustrating but lovable - a man who hides his sorrows, fear and loneliness in drink and debauchery. A truly great portrayal that doesn't simply rely on the surface comedy but lets you see the man beneath.

Director Richard Benjamin gives us the feel of '50s New York and live TV in all of its excitement and keeps the pace going beautifully. A real treasure you won't mind seeing more than once.

Sometimes it's quite surprising to find out about a movie that no one has ever told you off before but turns out to be a real hidden treasure. "My Favorite Year" is a more than great comedy, that is fun, as well as funny to watch.

Key to what makes this a great movie to watch, is that it's being a fun one throughout. It's a fast going, snappy comedy, that doesn't necessarily force or exaggerate its comedy, to any extreme forms. It's playing things more subtly and more often relies on its dialog and actors, rather than on any comical situations. It makes the movie very pleasant and likable, also because it manages to maintain its good quick pace throughout its entire running time.

The story really doesn't matter all that much for this movie, other than taking the characters from the one place and situation to the other. I'm not saying that it isn't any good but to me it just wasn't important for what this movie was all about and trying to do. Even the weaker moments in this movie and its story still work out well, thanks to its characters and the actors portraying them.

Peter O'Toole plays Errol Flynn, even though his character is named differently in the movie. But he is Flynn and even plays some of the sequences out of some classic Errol Flynn movies. This all was great fun to watch and his presence truly adds a lot to this movie as well. He's perfectly classy and often despicable at the same time. But Mark Linn-Baker was also truly great! Whatever went wrong with his career? He was not only a great comedy actor but simply just a great actor in general as well.

The movie has a more old fashioned type of comedy vibe to it, like a '40's production, which is also the time period this movie is being set in (well, the '50's but still), so it's no big surprise or a coincidence all. If you are a fan of these type of snappy and screwball like comedies, from the '40's mostly, changes are you will also absolutely love this movie as well!

Anyway, this movie is an extremely fun and recommendable one, for everybody!

8/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

"My Favorite Year" gets better every time I see it and I've seen it a bunch of times. Peter O'Toole hits the ball out of the park with an excellent performance. Mark Linn-Baker isn't far behind. The rest of the cast are also great. Each cast member gets at least one moment to shine. "My Favorite Year" has more than one "rewind" moment. There are a ton of laughs in this surprisingly moving movie. "My Favorite Year" is in one one my all-time favorite movies.

Although Peter O'Toole is unquestionably the star of "My Favorite Year" in the part of an aging film star, whose major preoccupations are having sex with beautiful young women and getting roaring drunk, he's not the only actor to acquit himself well in this film. Joseph Bologna as King Kaiser, a TV comedian, imitates Sid Caesar with considerable success, Mark Linn-Baker is very good as a junior writer on the show assigned to make sure that Alan Swann (O'Toole's character modeled on Errol Flynn) is actually on hand when the show is broadcast, and Jessica Baker is charming as the young writer's love interest. But O'Toole dominates the comedy just as he dominated his best known dramatic films, and he is hilarious, reminding us that his star, when at its brightest, shown brilliantly not alone because he was physically beautiful but because the guy could really act. His imitation of a drunk is priceless, even though, in fact, O'Toole unfortunately had a good deal of experience to go with his acting talent on this particular matter.

I tried this movie twenty years ago in the 90s and I thought I just wasn't in the proper mood for it then, because I did not like it much. Now I watched it again because everybody else on IMDb seems to like it, if not love it. Everyone in this film overacts horribly and the only one who should be doing that is Peter O'Toole because of his flamboyant character. Not only that but every other person in this thing is almost constantly screaming their lines. The pacing is all off and the jokes stink; and most are recycled from better sources anyway. I could not watch five minutes at a time without muting it or pausing it. O'Toole getting drunk, horny and silly every other scene gets old after about ten occurrences. I cannot believe all the stellar reviews on here, unless all the critics were tipsy or high when they first saw it back when it first came out. Avoid if you like funny comedies that are more subtle, like "The Three Stooges." Also, I don't think Jessica Harper (KC) is pretty or talented as an actress.

My Favorite Year (1982)

**** (out of 4)

Washed up actor Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole) is given the chance to appear on a television show and the job of keeping up with him goes to young fan Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) who soon realizes that the former star and alcohol can lead to problems. I shall admit right at the start that I absolutely loved every single second of this movie. As a comedy this thing is pretty flawless as it keeps you laughing from start to finish thanks to one of the best screenplays from the era and not to mention the wonderful performances by everyone in the cast. The story is quite simple and there are certainly a few areas where the script appears to be talking about the real O'Toole but man, what a tremendous performance he gives. If anyone you know doubts that O'Toole was one of the greatest actors in the history of cinema then they just need to watch this film to see comedy done to perfection. I was really shocked at how wonderful O'Toole was at the humor but his comic timing can match up against the geniuses of the genre and the way he turns on the charm is just pure delight. I really mean it when I say that the performance is flawless and even with the one tender moment at the end, the actor is so terrific that you can't take your eyes off of him. Linn-Baker is also very good in the supporting role and we get strong performances from the entire cast including Joseph Bologna, Bill Macy, Jessica Harper and even Cameron Mitchell. The screenplay just offers up so many terrific lines that it's hard to imagine one film containing so many. I honestly think there were at least thirty quotable lines and all of them just constantly had you laughing. Some of them are quite clever while some of them have O'Toole just winking at you about his own reputation. MY FAVORITE YEAR is without question one of the best comedies of its type and it's also a loving tribute to the live television shows of the 1950's. There's no question that the film is a comic masterpiece but it also has a heart that's hard to match.

A perfect little gem of a film, which the other posters here have attested to quite well. Peter O'Toole fans and those who can remember that time in our history would do themselves a great service in seeing this movie. It gets shown on TCM once and a while (good on them), this is where I had re-stumbled upon it after many, many years. I am also delighted to hear that it was released on DVD a couple of years ago, and I am eager to check it out.

This is one of my favorite movies. Reason being, I remember seeing this as a kid with my grandfather, who was very much a part of that era. I've never seen anyone laugh harder at a movie, ever. Seriously. Though he passed away a long time ago, it's one of my favorite memories, of him just laughing out load in uproarious delight. That's what movies should do.

My Favorite Year is my favorite movie. After reading about this movie, I put my movie on my DVD player to observe a few details and wound up sitting through the whole movie, enjoying it from start to finish. And the following evening, I had to watch the movie again.

The beginning with the outline of New York City as Nat King Cole's "Stardust" played, was truly a magical combination, a high point with even more high points to come! Just what was it that made this movie so funny and so enjoyable? Was it the swash buckling washed out Alan Swann (played by Peter O"Toole) as he moved from one situation after another? Or was it Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) as he tried unsuccessfully to keep Swann out of trouble, only to wind up becoming an involuntary accomplice to Swann's wild schemes, and realizing that he was actually enjoying himself, having every bit as much fun as Swann? Maybe it was King Kaiser (Joseph Bologna), with his outrageous outbursts and unreasonable demands. King Kaiser's writing staff with those connivers, ready to tell their boss off, only to turn into a team of cowardly "yes-men", the moment he showed up, is worth its weight in gold.

Maybe it was the performance of Cameron Mitchell as Karl Rojeck as he had that face off with King Kaiser?

Come to think of it, the correct answer here is "all of the above"! It was sad, though, to see Selma Diamond, with that cigarette dangling out of her mouth, knowing that within 3 years, her smoking would turn her into the "Late Selma Diamoind" as lung cancer would claim yet another life.

The use of equipment used in the late 1950s as opposed to equipment used in 1954, is on little or no relevance unless you've been working in a television studio since the early 1950s. While a lot of work was put into the styles and fashions of the time, leaving no detail overlooked, I couldn't help noticing that some of the men wore their hair a little too long for the time.

But for crying out loud! This movie is a comedy, not a history lesson! Just sit back amid enjoy this movie, again, and again, and again, like I have!