“Richard Crenna,” my father said, amused by facts in the past that I’d never know about. We’d just seen The Flamingo Kid, a very good comedy from 1984 that’s been forgotten by everyone. Place was packed and Richard Crenna, pushing 60, played the movie’s charismatic heel. My dad found that funny, I don’t know why. The two of them were born a few years apart, and early on my father wanted to be an actor. Maybe he remembered back when Crenna was starting out as a male ingenue, and now the guy had turned into a paunchy second lead angling for the camera. If my dad did think that, I must say Crenna’s hamming was admirable. If you can’t be young and beautiful, at least play your hand well. That’s what Crenna does. As does the whole movie, even though it’s now forgotten.
Matt Dillion, then 19, is showcased as a gangly colt of a boy who charms you without thinking about it. The kid lucks into a summer job around rich people and pretty girls in bikinis. Crenna takes him under his wing, Janet Jones and her bare blondness hover near him on the beach, Hector Elizondo, his father, worries. And in the end the boy sees his way clear and makes everybody proud of him. I thought it was so much fun but basically disposable back when I was a college boy watching it in December 1984. Now I think it’s something quite fine. The movie’s a significant notch above slickness, meaning it’s the kind of work slick people aim for but never manage to hit. Gary Marshall directed it and co-wrote it. He went on to make Pretty Woman, a triumph of slickness. I suppose that’s his landmark, but Flamingo Kid is his gem.
Half a decade later Matt Dillon starred in a small indie classic, Drugstore Cowboy, and nine years after that there was his greasy supporting role in There’s Something About Mary. What else did he have? I don’t know. He was so charming in Flamingo Kid, a teenager but a natural star. Followed by a well-paid career of pretty much zilch. It’s not like he wasn’t a movie star, but on the other hand, who cares. And the blonde girl who was so lovely and sweet. Flamingo Kid provided her with a showcase (“Introducing Janet Jones”) and when it was done, so was she. The movie itself only did so-so and now just try to find it. I suppose I feel so grim because I caught the film a few months out of college, and up on the screen I saw people who looked like they were successes, like they deserved success, and like they were succeeding. Everybody was so good at what they did and the theater was packed; people laughed and applauded. And then what? You watch a skillful, humane, audience-pleasing example of cinema, and 40 years later you think of futility and how nothing ever works out. At least Richard Crenna had the Rambo movies, but face it, the third one was a bomb.