As a TV man, Garry Marshall's record is sterling. The guy created Happy Days, Laverene and Shirley, and Mork and Mindy and wrote for and produced some of TV's greatest programs. As a film director, he'd made East of Eden, Nothing in Common, Dear God, The Other Sister, Overboard, and The Runaway Bride. Basically, his career over the last decade has been coasting on the success of 1990's Pretty Woman. His most recent films are characterized by a sugar content higher than a NECCO factory. His films show that the screen has a nearly unfillable tolerance for sentimentality, even if audiences don't.

But before he started producing five-hanky sob-fests, Garry Marshall made one truly great movie. And nobody appreciates him for it, which is a darned shame. 1984's The Flamingo Kid is like a gender-reversed Dirty Dancing with the dancing replaced by gin rummy and that doesn't do the movie enough credit. The Flamingo Kid is a coming-of-age film almost without peers. It's smart, wonderfully evocative (even for somebody who has no immediate connection to either its geography [Brooklyn and Long Island] or its time period [1963]), and well-performed. Nobody involved in The Flamingo Kid has ever been better, from Matt Dillon to Richard Crenna to Hector Elizondo to Janet Jones. OK, fine, you might find this movie to be every bit as corny as the rest of Marshall's body of work, but I think it's totally convincing.

Jeffrey Willis (Dillon) is in his last summer before college worrying about what's gonna come next. Kids play stickball in the street, the subway passes overhead, and it's hot, darned hot. Jeffrey's got an office job lined up, but he forgets all about that when two old friends (who got out of "the neighborhood") show up and whisk him off for a last day of fun at a ritzy Long Island beach club, the El Flamingo. Jeffrey falls in love with the lifestyle and gets a job first as a parking lot attendent and then as a cabana boy. He also falls in love with Carla (Janet Jones) and Carla's uncle Phil Brody (Crenna) also takes an interest in Jeffrey. Brody owns a car dealership and is the best card player at the El Flamingo and he sees in Jeffrey something of himself and begins to steer Jeffrey's life, much to the chagrin of Jeffrey's honest plumber father (Marshall regular Hector Elizondo). Will Jeffrey stay true to himself or will he lose his identity at the El Flamingo?

The answer to that question is a big ol' "What do you think?" But The Flamingo Kid isn't great because it creates some kind of suspense about where it's going. It's great because of its well-detailed fully textured realization of the material. The screen is filled with colorful characters both in the main supporting roles and along the fringes (the one joke parts — the sundial man, the fat boy who follows Jeffrey, the contortionist Brooklyn girl — are priceless). Most films these days feel like they exist in a vacuum inhabited only by the stars. The Flamingo Kid feels enough like reality for you to go with it.

And naturally much of the film's humor comes from how out of place Jeffrey feels in this world of affluence and how poorly he's able to adapt back to his working class roots. The best scene in the movie comes when Jeffrey visits Phil Brody's house for dinner and has his first experiences with aspic, TV remote controls, and decorative bathroom soaps. Because of Dillon's humanity, he's able to make this scene more heartbreakingly embarrassing than anything in, say, American Pie. Is the final message of the film that poor people are honest and the salt-of-the-earth, while rich people are superficial and false? Sure. And have you seen that kind of moralizing a thousand times? Sure again. But played with such conviction? Nah.

At this point, in 1984, Matt Dillon looked like a superstar in the making. He was good looking, he could act, and he was making an effort to work with quality directors like Francis Ford Coppola. Dillon didn't make the transition to mature stardom very well, which is a pity, because given the right roles (To Die For, Beautiful Girls, or There's Something About Mary) he's still capable of great work. And looking back at this early role, it's hard not to be impression with the way he was able to combine macho bravado and genuine sensitivity. You know that Jeffrey's eagerness to fit in in this foreign environment will lead to disappointment, but Dillon manages to make you revel in the character's cockiness, and hurt at his betrayal.

And Dillon has an amazing foil in Richard Crenna. Crenna has been a star of radio, tv, and film and this is him at his very best (unless you're a big Rambo, Sand Pebbles, or Wait Until Dark fan, all of which are totally justifiable preferences). His Phil Brody is avuncular and slimey and hilarious and charismatic. It's a performance totally divorced from actor's ego. Crenna puts himself out for ridicule frequently and comes out shining, even if the audience grows to relish hating him. And Crenna's scenes with Hector Elizondo are particularly good, watching these two character actors at the peak of their powers. Neither actor is stretching, but when they talk, sparks fly. Watching Elizondo slowly boil over as Crenna tries to step in as a surrogate father is just a master class.

As Crenna's wife, who never warms to Dillon, Jessica Walter offers up withering sarcasm with the best of them, which constrasts well with Jones's totally affectless sunny disposition. Jennifer Jones was never a good actress, but in this role, as the rich beauty queen, she fits in perfectly. And in smaller parts, I especially like Fisher Stevens and Bronson Pinchot.

The Flamingo Kid is like an early version of (as I already mentioned) Dirty Dancing or The Secret of My Success. It's got a great soundtrack, a simple message, and buckets of charm. If you get the chance, give it a watch. It's low pressure and high quality.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older