ALL OF ME

(September 1984, U.S.)

For a time in the early 1980's, director Carl Reiner and Steve Martin were becoming like the Martin Scorsese/Robert DeNiro team of comedy. ALL OF ME was their fourth film together, and in my opinion, the only one worth a damn. Why THE JERK (1979) is so popular, I'll never know.

Steve Martin is at his physical comedy best as a man with the spirit of the recently deceased Lily Tomlin living inside of him. There seems to be almost a choreographed style in which Martin frantically moves his body around because Tomlin has taken over one half of it. During the courtroom scene where he loses all control of what he's saying and doing, it's easy to see where a similar sequence in LIAR LIAR (1997) may have gotten its inspiration.

Martin and Tomlin have great chemistry in this one and feed well off of each other's comic timing. I wouldn't mind seeing them in another film together.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Roger Cobb: "Ms. Cutwater, as your attorney, it is my duty to inform you that your will could be contested if you're deemed...not of perfectly sound mind."
Edwina Cutwater: "Why you presumptuous ambulance chaser. Are you insinuating that I am NOT of perfectly sound mind?"
Cobb: "No. No, I wouldn't do that. But I think practically everybody in the solar system WOULD."