For this week's forgotten/overlooked/underappreciated A/V, I've chosen the 1980 Dom Deluise comedy vehicle Fatso. Dom stars as an overweight Italian-American (what a stretch) who stuggles to win the battle of the bulge after the untimely death of this even heavier cousin at a young age. After various bad starts and missed opportunties in his diet, he meets a girl for whom he becomes infatuated; the young woman is equally smitten with him. Will his new relationship help or hurt his weight loss efforts?
The movie costars Anne Bancroft as his older, no-nonsense sister, who is equally supportive and demonstrative of Deluise in his dieting. Bancroft is a major force of the film; she also wrote and directed it.
This movie appeared frequently on TV in the early 80s, and I just saw it on cable last year (it's still on my DVR). I can sympathize with Dom's struggles--I just joined Weight Watchers last week, and I just came back from my first weigh-in after joining. I lost 4 pounds! What a great start!
Enjoy the film's trailer below. Thanks!
3 comments:
Congratulations, Brian...and I've never given this film a chance, in part because of the rather broad performances by DeLuise in much of his other work of that decade or so...but I probably should take a look, since I always did like Anne Bancroft's work, and DeLuise wasn't Always cartoonishly broad (or inappropriately so). (I suppose I could recall BLAZING SADDLES as easily as LOTSA LUCK.)
Thanks! And I'm glad you mentioned DeLuise's acting, as he is not the broad clown he usually plays elsewhere. This is certainly an understated DeLuise, at least throughout most of the film. There are moments of goofiness to be sure, but they are few and brief. Such moments build up slowly, say what they want to say, then stop when the time is right. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Congrats on a great start! My wife joined in January and is almost at 20 pounds! Keep it up!
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