Arthur

Arthur; comedy, USA, 1981; D: Steve Gordon, S: Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli, John Gielgud, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Jill Eikenberry

New York. Arthur Bach is a cheerful millionaire whose life consists of being drunk and hanging around with prostitutes. But behind that cheerful life he is hiding his lonely side and is searching for a woman to love. His older butler Hobson is ironically his only true friend. His grandmother Martha threatens to take away his fortune unless he marries Susan, a daughter of the influential tycoon Burt Johnson, who has fallen in love with him. Although Arthur doesn't love Susan, he agrees to marry her. But one day he meets and is fascinated by Linda, a waitress that steals a tie for her dad because she is too poor to afford one, and falls in love with her. When Hobson dies, Arthur starts thinking about his life and decides to cancel his wedding with Susan and be with Linda, even if he has to live a poor life. The wedding is canceled and Burt is furious, but Martha changes her mind and still let's Arthur keep his fortune.

Steve Gordon's only film as a director before his too early death, "Arthur" is a nutritional, intelligent and fun little comedy, a rare 80s film that has confidence in its "soft power": its distinctive charm and lovable characters. Some classic directors, like Bunuel and Pasolini, would have probably been horrified by its story that has sympathy for its upper class title hero, since it is difficult to root for an almost billionaire who enjoys in decadence and laments that he is missing something in his life, but at its core this is a gentle, romantic, touching and humane story about the search for real life values and love, and without a lot of philosophy leaves a strong and serious attitude with unobtrusive messages. "Arthur" is not laugh out loud funny, but it still contains a lot of amusing jokes, thanks to wonderful, delicious dialogues. In one scene, Arthur and Linda are in a stable, where horses are kept behind doors with bars, and she mischievously says to one horse: "Don't worry, I talked to the warden, we're gonna get you out of here!" 

In another funny scene in the opening act, Arthur feigns the prostitute he brought to a fancy dinner is actually a "princess" from a small country: "It's terribly small, tiny little country. Rhode Island could beat the crap out of it in a war!... It's 85 cents for a cab from one end of the country to the other". In the moment where Susan's father threatens to destroy him if he doesn't make his daughter happy, Arthur immediately jokes: "But let's just say I make her cranky. For cranky, I guess you'd probably just break my ankles?" Excellent John Gielgud portrays the wise butler Hobson with a unique dignity and charm, undermining his character's strange friendship with master Arthur who admires him more than his father. He has some of the best snappy lines, for instance in the moment where he is at the doorstep and Linda's shabby father opens the door: "May I come in? If you and your undershirt would walk two paces backwards, I could enter this dwelling." Dudley Moore delivers one of his best performances as the title hero, but he is much better when he plays Arthur sober than when he plays him as a drunk, since the latter's "alcoholic slang" can get a bit annoying after a while. The movie lacks at least one crucial scene where it is shown that Arthur donates some of his money to the poor or less fortunate ones, which would have articulated his transformation by love much more efficiently. The forced happy ending is rather unrealistic and does not work, and it would have been much better if Arthur was sober in that finale, to underline his "maturity leap". Christopher Cross' song "Best That You Can Do" is simply perfect, even better than the film itself, and helps pull it to the better position in the viewer's opinion, which is already positive since Gordon shows such care in writing that "Arthur" feels like a lost E. Lubitsch comedy.

Grade:+++