The Lonely Guy

Starring:Steve Martin, Charles Grodin, Judith Ivey, Steve Lawrence, Robyn Douglass, Merv Griffin, Joyce Brothers, Candi Brough, Randi Brough, Julie Payne, Madison Arnold, Roger Robinson, Dan Hannafin, Joan Suveny, Nicholas Mele, Leon Jones, Richard Delmonte, Leslie Wing, Helen Verbit, Kenneth O'Brien
Director: Arthur Hiller
Studio: Universal Studios
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

lost in shipping
Great movies!

Steve Martin - The Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection (Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid / The Jerk / The Lonely Guy)
Starring: Steve Martin
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( S ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

My Blue Heaven / The Man with Two Brains
The Tom Hanks Comedy Favorites Collection (The Money Pit / The Burbs / Dragnet)
Saturday Night Live - The Best of Steve Martin
All of Me
Three Amigos

ASIN: B000K7VHT6
Release Date: 2007-02-13

Amazon.com

Steve Martin's funniest three films, The Jerk, The Lonely Guy, and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, are collected in the Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection with some corny bonus material that pales in comparison to Martin's stunning comedic performances. In The Lonely Guy, Martin's dejected character wanders New York streets with his fern plant searching for a lady to love. Scenes in which Martin calls his lady from his rooftop amidst scores of other lonely guys, or jogs into a diner wearing fake, spray-on sweat, seem more slapstick with each viewing. Martin's masterpiece is The Jerk, about Navin Johnson, a white guy born a "poor black child," who sets out for the city to become somebody. Navin, with hobo rucksack in tow, takes his dad's three rules--Don't trust whitey, Lord loves a workin' man, and See a doctor and get rid of it--to an extreme, after becoming a millionaire from inventing a reading glasses apparatus. Co-starring Bernadette Peters, The Jerk's bizarre humor still feels fresh in its satirical examination of race and class. Watching Navin change from a poor black child, to a gas station attendant, to a millionaire, to a drunken egomaniac, to a homeless bum, illustrates Martin's sheer talent for character sketching. If this Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection is a cake, The Jerk is definitely the icing. --Trinie Dalton

Customer Reviews:

lost in shipping.......2007-03-13

The first shipment got lost in the mail, so it took a little longer for me to get it but, once I got it the product was great. Thanks

Great movies!.......2007-03-10

If you enjoy Steve Martin , as I do, you will love these classics.

Average customer rating:

Unique Comedy
Clever
Brilliant in spots, but quite uneven.
He's just a wild and lonely guy
Man, did I really need this film.

The Lonely Guy
Starring: Steve Martin , Charles Grodin , Judith Ivey , Steve Lawrence , and Robyn Douglass
Director: Arthur Hiller
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Urban | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

4-for-3 Comedy | 4-for-3 DVD | Stores | DVD | Video

4-for-3 All DVDs | 4-for-3 DVD | Stores | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( L ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

The Jerk (26th Anniversary Edition)
The Man with Two Brains
All of Me
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
L.A. Story (15th Anniversary Edition)

ASIN: 0783230397
Release Date: 1998-12-15

Customer Reviews:

Unique Comedy.......2007-03-29

Given that this movie is nearly thirty years old, much of the content is dated. That being said, this movie is still hilarious. It all centers around Larry Hubbard played by Steve Martin, who on looking for love in NYC. The misadventures and mayhem that ensue can be gut wrenching. This film is similar in flavor to Airplane or Naked Gun. So if you like slap stick and sarcastic comedy, this flick may be a good fit.

Clever.......2007-01-27

Early Steve Martin films can be uneven, but the brilliance shines through in his understanding of human relationships.

This is a silly film. It has a number of 'throw away' gags. It als has a great love story behind all the silliness. It also helps that Steve Martin's silliness is genuinely funny.

Unfortunartly this DVD edition is not anamorphic widescreen. It is letterboxed, but the black bars are part of the picture, and the film transfer isn't very good.

Brilliant in spots, but quite uneven........2006-05-07

There were parts of this movie that were brilliant, others that were pretty good, and some that faltered a bit. Still, it addresses an aspect of life that is too often ignored in popular entertainment because it can be, well, awkward. The recent hit "The 40 year old Virgin" is a cousin of this movie, but not the same thing.

Steve Martin plays Larry Hubbard who is certainly no alpha male. He is a good enough guy and goes after the women society tells him he should pursue. This leads to him being walked over and pushed around by, in this movie, Danielle, but the name matters less than the type. As he leaves with all his belongings (he can carry them all plus the two bags of trash she asks him to take with him as she beds Raul), he ends up in a park. Warren Evans (played brilliantly by Charles Grodin) shows up with his meager belongings and asks Larry how long he has been a Lonely Guy. Larry is unaware of this term and slowly learns the pain and suffering the life of this class of persons endures unseen by most of society.

There are flashes of brilliance in this movie. My favorite is when Larry goes to a busy and upscale restaurant and asks for a table for one. The whole restaurant becomes instantly quiet and all attention is focused on him. As the captain leads him to his table a spotlight that could be used in an air raid shines on Larry all the way to his table. There are many other wonderful moments like this and I am sure you will have your own favorites.

The love story with Iris (delightfully done by Judith Ivey) is very good until they actually get together. Then things become quite awkward and artificial. In fact, the moment we learn she has had six husbands already, well, we leave wit and dive into shtick.

However, it is the relationship and insights shared between Warren and Larry that are really the heart of the movie and make it worth seeing. Grodin's Warren is the embodiment of the poor souls doomed to this existence and is an absolutely memorable character.

Good movie, but its unevenness keeps it from being great.

He's just a wild and lonely guy.......2006-02-05

While The Lonely Guy is first and foremost a comedy, one that descends into comic incredulity on a number of occasions, it really hits a few solid line drives in terms of the lonely guy angle. Steve Martin may be the star of this film, but Charles Grodin steals every scene he's in. He's the true lonely guy in this movie. Larry Hubbard, Martin's character, is really just a guy with really bad luck with women. After coming home to find his current girlfriend in bed with another man, Hubbard finds himself out on the street, struggling to get his bearings. That's where Warren Evans (Grodin) comes in. Warren really knows the ropes when it comes to loneliness, so he is more than qualified to instruct Hubbard in the art of living and being alone. Not all that much later, Larry meets up with Iris (Judith Ivey), a woman who tickles his fancy despite the fact she's been married more times than Larry has fingers on one hand, isn't all that attractive, is obviously lying through her teeth when she says she's thirty, and turns out to be something of a romantic psycho. Larry, of course, loses her phone number, beginning a whole series of misadventures serving to keep the two apart. Once he does meet up with Iris again, the world's most dysfunctional relationship begins. Iris, to grossly oversimplify things, doesn't want to be with a man she loves because she's afraid of being hurt again. All sorts of zany adventures ensue.

But what of Warren? Here's the guy I can identify with. While regular people are out having fun, Warren's playing chess with a sarcastic computer. He has life-size cut-outs of famous people all over the apartment so that it looks like someone is actually there when he throws a little party. He's a shell of a man who is never far from joining throngs of other lonely guys throwing themselves off the bridge downtown. Charles Grodin is just wonderful in this role. I must admit, though, that the two best scenes feature Martin. In one, we see him so desperate to find Iris again that he ends up going to the rooftop and shouting her name - only to be joined by lonely guys on all the nearby rooftops shouting the names of their own lost beloveds. In the other, we watch as Larry suffers the indignities of dining out alone. As he enters the restaurant, heads turn to stare as all conversation stops, and then a spotlight comes on following Larry all the way to his table. That's exactly what dining alone feels like.

The film ended up being a little sillier than I would have liked, particularly in terms of the relationship between Larry and Iris, and putting Steve Lawrence in your film is never a good thing (although we should all be thankful Edie wasn't with him), but The Lonely Guy is certainly a funny movie that should resonate with everyone who has ever been lonely (and I think that's just about every one of us).

Man, did I really need this film........2005-11-29

Thank you Steve Martin, after watching this film, I will be hanging from a light fixture.

Average customer rating:

The Lonely Man.
Like Henry King's "The Gunfighter," Levin equates victory with redemption...
Great Palance Western
Jack Palance at his best!

The Lonely Man
Starring: Jack Palance , Anthony Perkins , Neville Brand , Robert Middleton , and Elisha Cook Jr.
Director: Henry Levin
Manufacturer: Paramount
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

4-for-3 All DVDs | 4-for-3 DVD | Stores | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( L ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

The Tin Star
Yellow Sky
The Last Wagon
The Proud Ones
The Violent Men

ASIN: B00008CMR2
Release Date: 2003-04-22

Amazon.com

Apart from the inherent clarity and richness of its black-and-white VistaVision--a wonderful format--The Lonely Man could be mistaken for a mediocre "adult Western" episode from '50s TV. The sets look like sets, not living spaces, and people trade ponderous, pause-laden dialogue instead of talking. Jack Palance plays an ex-gunslinger--a papier-mâché death's head--trying to reconnect with son Anthony Perkins, who's grown up (or not grown up) hating him. Meanwhile, gambler Neville Brand, once shot by Palance, waits for henchman Elisha Cook to pick up Palance's trail so other henchman Lee Van Cleef can kill him (got that?). The backstory is so weakly imagined, and the scenes so wanly directed, we have no idea how many years of history the characters have shared, or how many miles separate them as they move toward showdown. Elaine Aiken, a curiously hard-faced blonde "introduced" here, was scarcely seen on screen again. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews:

The Lonely Man........2007-01-11

This is a movie I have always liked, the quality of the disc was very good and I have watched it several times.

Like Henry King's "The Gunfighter," Levin equates victory with redemption..........2006-11-06

Jacob Wade (Jack Palance) used to be a celebrated shootist just stepping into middle age and mortally weary of having to be asked to leave every town he rides into... To make matters worse, a few notorious outlaws, led by the vile King (Neville Brand), are also out to take him down...

Now he tries to do something for his boy Riley (Anthony Perkins) by catching and breaking mustangs in Echo Canyon, the best wild horse country in the territory...

Complicating the situations further is Jacob's bad relationship with a kid who hates him, and Ada Marshall (Elaine Aiken), a young woman whom Jacob met in a gambling hall, and shot a man on account of her...

Here is a thinking person's Western that deals with one ex-gunman who also is unable to shake his past and whose ultimate goal for taking root again is by lynching...

Levin shows a dark, depressing, and sadly realistic face of the west... In fact, the entire movie is a drama of characters... But watching the film, you would be able to feel how Levin equates victory with redemption...

Great Palance Western.......2005-02-11

When we think of Jack Palance today, we often think of him as a bad guy, like in Batman or Shane. But back in the Fifties, he played a variety of roles, quite a few of them sympathetically.

And one of his best starring roles came in this film, about a gunfighter trying to live down his past, and build a relationship with his estranged son, played by Anthony Perkins. To complicate matters, Palance is going blind, which he keeps a secret from almost everyone, and he is also being pursued by a revenge-minded gambler, played by Neville Brand, who was shot by Palance some time back.

This is a beautifully filmed, poignant Western that deserves to be seen.

Jack Palance at his best!.......2001-06-20

In this western, the only real format to aficianados, Jack Palance displays every ability expected of the finest actors. He is gracious, honest, even having been one of the bad guys. He is courageous to a fault, facing down a number of bad people at once at terrible odds. He even rates a traitors loyalty.

This movie is a must-see if you liked "SHANE", and are tired of "RIO BRAVO" reruns, but like the genre.

Description

After serving ten years for killing a rival gang's boss, Tachibana is expected to pick up where he left off in his career as hitman for the Hirakawa Syndicate.

When he is given Yuki, a prostitute, as a `welcome back' present, Tachibana finds himself drawn into looking after her, rescuing her both from a serious drug habit and a brutal pimp. When the pimp, whom he has beaten up, turns out to be a member of the larger Hokushin gang, it proves to have dire consequences for both Tachibana and Yuki.

Customer Reviews:

A MUST OWN!.......2000-03-22

"The forgotten 1958 film about Tinsletown, LOST LONELY & VICIOUS is so silly it mskes the real place seem sane by comparison."

Amazon.com essential video

One of Humphrey Bogart's finest performances dominates this unusual 1950 film noir, which focuses less on the murder mystery at the center of its plot than on the investigation's devastating effect on a fragile romance. For Bogart, already a noir icon, the Andrew Solt script afforded an opportunity to explore a more complex and contradictory role--an antiheroic persona in line with the actor's most accomplished and absorbing triumphs throughout his career.

For maverick director Nicholas Ray, the film posed the challenge of taking crime dramas beyond their usual formulas and into a more mature realm, as well as a chance to cast a jaundiced eye on the film industry itself. Its protagonist is Dixon Steele, a Hollywood screenwriter with an acerbic wit and a violent temper. Tasked with adapting a bestseller, he meets a hatcheck girl who's read the book, hoping to glean its highlights before writing the script. When she's found murdered, Steele becomes the prime suspect, and a tightening knot of suspicion forms around the writer.

Steele's only, inconclusive witness is a pretty new neighbor, Laurel (Gloria Grahame), and the couple fall in love even as the pressure mounts. At first the new relationship is a tonic to the hard-boiled writer, who plunges into his script with a renewed vigor and discipline. But as the police continue to shadow him, Steele's own penchant for violence erupts against friends, strangers, and even Laurel herself, whose feelings are increasingly eclipsed by suspicion that her lover is a murderer, and fear that he'll harm her.

Bogart conveys Steele's world-weariness and underlying vulnerability, and manages the delicate task of making both his romantic yearning and sudden, murderous rages equally convincing. Ultimately, that performance and Grahame's sympathetic work elevate In a Lonely Place into what has been called "an existential love story" more than a crime drama. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews:

good chemistry between Bogard and Gloria Grahame.......2007-06-25

Both are fine. Unusual role for Bogard as a Hollywood screewriter suspected of being a serial killer. Gloria Grahame, the woman next door Bogart is dating, starts having suspicions of her own about him.

No point going further into the plot, since it's been covered by others. Will only say it's a love story/murder mystery for grownups: Is he the killer, or isn't he? And if he is, will he end up doing away with his lovely neighbor Gloria?

Movie is slightly different from the book. Still, certainly worth seeing. For fans of Bogart, Nick Ray--and Gloria Grahame.

Classic psychological thriller.......2007-06-15

A down-on-his-luck screenwriter's (Humphrey Bogart) violent, antisocial temperament makes him a prime suspect in the murder of a cocktail waitress and ultimately alienates the woman he loves (Gloria Graham). Bogart's performance is sometimes perfunctory and unconvincing in the fight scenes, but he projects a frightening intensity in numerous intimate confrontations with other characters. He creates a character that Graham could believably fall in love with and then just as believably begin to fear later.

NOT AMONG BOGART'S BEST.......2007-05-26

I watched this last night after not having seen it in about 30 years, I think. It's only because of that and the raves from other reviewers that I decided to rent it. The opening stop-light confrontation scene was familiar, but seriously, I don't believe Bogie as a physical, tough guy like when I was a kid. Look at how tiny his torso is when he's not wearing a jacket! He looked great in a tailored jacket. His wardrobe here looks just like his off-screen Hollywood night-club style you can see in all the bios about him.(Cagney really was tough! When he worked with the Dead-end Kids,he didn't take any crap off them the way Bogie did on the CRIME SCHOOL set.) The scene where he beats up a healthy looking young college guy half his age is ludicrous.
Otherwise the plot and pacing are dreadfully slow, and the other actors are more nostalgic than convincing since they were mostly in film noir movies. Frank Lovejoy as the cop buddy was interesting. Especially with the presumably Russian sur-name 'Nikolai.' The only other movie I can recall Lovejoy being in wasn't 'I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI' where his name was 'Cvetic.' In reality, I'm pretty sure he was Irish. Gloria Grahame was good in a part that wasn't written very well. Jeff Donnell was interesting to watch as Lovejoy's wife. I don't remember seeing her in anything else, but she was in 'SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS' as Tony Curtis' secretary.
Oh, I also liked the actual location shooting around L.A. and Hollywood.
I don't know if I'll watch this again in another 30 years.

First Rate Noir from the 50s.......2007-05-17

The aptly titled "In a Lonely Place" is harsh and stark film noir. As the story opens, Humphrey Bogart is a struggling writer with a reputation for being hard to work with and mean tempered. Bogey lands a job doing screenplay but is too lazy to actually read the book! HB invites a hatcheck girl, who has read it, to his apartment to relate the plot. Irritable and bored, he dismisses her. No gentleman, he directs the girl to a nearby cabstand. By the next morning, she is dead and HB is the main suspect. Viewers know Bogey is innocent but the cops don't. Sultry neighbor Gloria Grahame, builds up HB's alibi and the pair are soon in love. GG is the perfect noir girl; her gloomy performance perhaps enhanced by her deteriorating marriage to Director Nicholas Ray. The crux of the film is how the continuing pressure from the Law eats away at Bogey, exposing his fragile personality and worsening his already bad temper. He loses it in Grahame's presence once too often and she begins to doubt him. Afraid to spurn his marriage proposal, she plans to run away. And then? This reviewer won't give away the ending, but the final scenes are good, solid no nonsense, and uncompromising. One can hear that door slam at the fadeout. Viewers should be alert for two big clues. With 20/20 hindsight, the perp is actually quite obvious, in fact the crime is solved in the middle of the film.... but only the most observant will notice! This is because many scenes pass quickly-ILP demands utmost attention. Some will hit that rewind button. ILP will doubtless be more rewarding with multiple viewings; it has certainly aged well. This reviewer is not a major Bogey fan but the guy is well cast here. True HB devotees should pounce. A final thought: Here is yet one more example of why old black and white movies should never be colorized.

A brave and intelligent twist to the "man alone" theme..........2007-01-02

There was a brave and intelligent twist to the 'man alone' theme in an unusually literate thriller which isolated its ambivalent 'hero' inside his own destructive personality... This man was not physically isolated as Robert Ryan ('Inferno') had been: he was an embittered Hollywood screenwriter who lacked self-discipline and confidence. The lonely place in which he was trapped was his own psyche...

Perhaps some people thought Bogart over-acted, played the writer like a thug aggressively touchy... but he played his role well. No gangster this time, or cop, or private eye... He was a Hollywood writer - tough, irritable, moody, edgy, introspective; his nerve-ends constantly steaming; living alone with his talent, his reputation and his typewriter; irritated rather than fortified by a diet of alcohol and nicotine. His temper was uncontrollable: anything, it seemed, could explode it; and his violence was more than merely verbal.

Bogart found himself suspected of a murder that he did not, in fact, commit... He might have been anti-social, but he was no criminal... But the stress within him, reacting to the pressures without, built up so strongly that his rages, always near boiling point, became explosive... He hit people without good reason... There came a time when he was on the point of murder: in blood-hazed rage he 'could' have killed...

One watched the reactions of his friendly and beautiful neighbor, Gloria Grahame, and of his two loyal friends, a policeman and wife played Frank Lovejoy and Jeff Donnell-fully stable and controlled in comparison with the violent personality of Bogart... With them, one came to wonder if he was not really a killer after all...

No, he was not... But the thoughtful irony was that you realized that, if circumstances had been only marginally different, he 'could' have been a murderer... It was only chance, rather than character, which prevented it... In this compulsively furious man, there were the black forces that are inside all of us... The difference was that he could not exercise his control over them...

Classic Steve Martin (The Jerk/Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid/The Lonely Guy)

Average customer rating:

Unique Comedy
Clever
Brilliant in spots, but quite uneven.
He's just a wild and lonely guy
Man, did I really need this film.

Classic Steve Martin (The Jerk/Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid/The Lonely Guy)
Starring: Steve Martin
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Comedy | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video