Movie review: ‘Foul Play’

FloridaGator80
A promotional still photograph from the movie “Foul Play.”

In the summer of 1978 the top of the box office was dominated by “Grease” (click here to read my review) as well as the magnificent, seminal comedy “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” but there was also a well-received comedy from Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase with “Foul Play.” They’d work together again two years later in a similar comedy-drama effort called “Seems Like Old Times” (click here to read my review), but this one is better and is easily their best together. It’s a crime-comedy-drama delight and you can’t go wrong if you haven’t seen this one. If you saw it before, it holds up well in the more than 40 years since its release. And, you certainly don’t want to miss a pre-“Arthur” Dudley Moore!

‘Foul Play’
(1978; 116 minutes; rated PG; directed by Colin Higgins and starring Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase and Burgess Meredith)

A GREAT COMEDY-DRAMA WITH AN INTRICATE PLOT

(NOTE: I expanded this review with a bit more opinion, some more trivia and the updating of links on Nov. 5, 2016. I again expanded it on Aug. 2, 2018. I again expanded it on Nov. 2, 2022. I again expanded it on Feb. 16, 2026.)

“Foul Play” is a comedy-drama that works from beginning to end and has two great comedians as headliners; a superior supporting cast doing great work; and several tiny parts so well done that you wished they could expand those parts and therefore the film by another 30 minutes. Plus, there’s a chase that you’ll really find “far out.”

“Foul Play” is at its heart a Goldie Hawn-Chevy Chase vehicle. Both do wonderful work, making the intricate storyline here come alive. At first you begin to believe this will be a Goldie-driven project, but Chevy holds his own early and ultimately is his co-star’s equal. Both are bolstered by a neat supporting cast that doesn’t miss a beat in making sure this one is truly special.

A promotional still photograph from the movie “Foul Play.”

The plot is simple, but at the same time is convoluted as there’s an assassination of the Pope planned in San Francisco. An undercover cop passes information to Hawn, but without her realizing he has slipped her some key evidence in a pack of cigarettes (he was trying to quit and asked her to hold it for him so he’s not tempted to continue to smoke). The passing of the information in a cigarette pack (remember when movies could show a good guy with cigarettes?) then sets off hilarity, crime and ultimately the good guys winning out.

A promotional still photograph from the movie “Foul Play.”

Hawn and Chase, who got two Golden Globe nominations for his work here (best actor in a comedy and best motion picture actor debut, although his first film was actually “The Groove Tube” from 1974), are admirably backed up with award-deserving performances by veteran actor Burgess Meredith; a young(er) Dudley Moore in what some call his first “American” film; and Rachel Roberts. Also good are Marilyn Sokol and Brian Dennehy.

In “Foul Play,” Hawn plays “Gloria Mundy” and she is a recent divorcee who needs to “take some chances,” according to one friend and get out of her librarian mode (she works in one). After a passing meeting of Chase at a pre-wedding party, Hawn meets an undercover cop who passes her the evidence about the assassination. From then on, she’s pursued by the killers as the day of the hit approaches.

Here’s a look at your headliners:

  • A promotional still photograph from the movie “Foul Play.”

    An Oscar winner and nominee and Golden Globe winner and eight-time nominee, Hawn is her usual flighty self at times, but she also comes through as strong, decent and intelligent. She dispatches the role with an ease that is anything but easy. In addition to dodging bad guys and watching couple of elderly ladies play Scrabble, she also beats up a little person and crashes a bordello. Don’t worry, it all fits in here. Hawn won her Oscar and Globe for “Cactus Flower” with Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman. She has also been in the under-appreciated drama “The Sugarland Express;” was nominated for another Oscar and a Globe for “Private Benjamin”;” and was in “Overboard” with longtime significant other Kurt Russell.

  • A promotional still photograph from the movie “Foul Play.”

    Comedy legend Chase plays “Lt. Tony Carlson” and does it all here: he offers his bumbling “Saturday Night Live” persona (but only for a moment); he’s funny and endearing; but he also gives good value in the dramatic quarter. It’s a much better role for him than “Seems Like Old Times,” but that one has better physical comedy for him. In addition, Chase has been in “Caddyshack” (of course), “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (as well as the original “Vacation” – click here to read my review of the holiday one) and, unfortunately, he was simply wooden and awful in the execrable “Dirty Work” with fellow comedian Norm Macdonald (click here to read my review of that stinkbomb).

Still, two supporting actors keep pace with the stars.

A promotional still photograph from the movie “Foul Play.”

Meredith as “Mr. Hennessey” and Roberts as “Gerta Casswell” are bookends in the good-bad game. Meredith is the nurturing but karate-trained landlord to Hawn and she’s the villain’s nasty sidekick who also knows martial arts.

Both play their respective parts to the fullest and appear to be having fun. The two older actors get into a hilarious fight and after dispatching her into a piano and slamming the lid, Meredith proclaims, “… she was one tough old mama.”

  • Meredith is most fondly remembered as “Mickey” in his Oscar-nominated role in “Rocky” has also been in “The Day of the Locust” (another Oscar nomination), other “Rocky” sequels as well as “Grumpy Old Men.” He died at 89 of melanoma and Alzheimer’s disease in 1997.
  • A promotional still photograph from the movie “Foul Play.”

    Roberts has also been in “This Sporting Life” as well as “Yanks.” She had a somewhat light career of 54 acting credits spanning four decades after the first in 1953. Roberts took her own life at 53 in 1980, just two years after this film was released.

As to the best and funniest supporting actor, look no further than Moore as “Stanley Tibbets.”  In the best single scene of the film, as Hawn flees from the killers, she goes into a bar, meets Moore and asks if he would take her home. They go to his “pad” and the laughs just keep coming as fast as his over-sexed character pulls down a lighted and mirrored Murphy bed; turns on an erotic film; and finally winds up chasing an inflatable doll floating about the room.

  • An Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner for the original “Arthur,” Moore is outrageously funny in this one. He is even better in the legendary comedy “10” with Julie Andrews and Bo Derek (click here to read my review) and he was nominated for a Globe for it. He was also in “Bedazzled” and didn’t have a prolific career in acting – just 48 credits in a career spanning four decades beginning in 1961. Moore died at 66 in 2002 of pneumonia.

The rest of the expanded supporting cast does a solid job, but nothing that stands out enough to write about it except at the top of this talented heap is Sokol as Hawn’s best friend “Stella,” who is well-armed to defend herself from men, while Dennehy as Chase’s partner “Fergie,” who is stoic and competent. Dennehy died at 81 in 2020 of sepsis.

I’d say the best “small” scene is when Hawn is on an apartment building’s ledge as she tries to escape from the killers. It’s raining as she looks in a window and sees two elderly women playing Scrabble. Hawn tries to get their attention but the two are chatting away as one puts a profane word down (six points, I recall) and the other expands it to a 12-letter word heard most often in Martin Scorsese films. However, she misspells it with a “u” instead of an “o” in the word “mother.”

“Foul Play” also has a nice chase scene where Hawn and Chase commandeer a limo only to find a tourist couple from Japan inside. One of the people involved in one of the crashes in the chase likes to say “far out” and Chase ultimately mocks him with it. “Far out.”

For “Foul Play” it was a tough time to challenge for moviegoers’ dollars with “Grease’s” run in that summer of 1978. “Grease” had the No. 1 film for 16 out of 17 consecutive weekends (the lone miss in the middle of the run to “Animal House”). “Grease” debuted first, then “Foul Play” and then “Animal House,” which starred Chase’s SNL peer, the peerless John Belushi. As it was, “Foul Play” earned $44.9 million to keep it just outside the top 10 for the year. With “Grease” and “Animal House” at No. 1 and No. 3 respectively, it was in competition that year with “Superman,” “The Deer Hunter” and “Heaven Can Wait.” Tough competition. Here are films from 1978 that I’ve reviewed:

Assorted cast notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Hawn’s middle name is Jeanne and her nickname is “Go-Go;” Chase’s full birth name is Cornelius Crane Chase; and Meredith’s full birth name was Oliver Burgess Meredith and his nickname was “Buzz.”
  • “Foul Play” was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “Farrah Fawcett was in line for the role of Gloria. The studio opted for Goldie Hawn when Spelling-Goldberg Productions, the producers of Charlie’s Angels (1976), warned all the studios that ‘they would be sued for damages if they employed me,’ Fawcett told The Associated Press in 1979. She was still under contract with Spelling-Goldberg when she left the show. Fawcett is visible in the background at the party scene where Hawn’s character is introduced.”
  • A promotional still photograph from the movie “Foul Play.”

    One of Hollywood’s best-known little people, Billy Barty, plays “J.J. McEuen,” a Bible salesman beaten by Hawn (remember, it’s all in context). Barty was also in “Willow,” “Legend” and a string of TV appearances including on “The Golden Girls” and “CHiPs.” Barty, whose birth name was William John Bertanzetti, was 3-foot-9 and he died at 76 of heart failure in 2000.

  • Bruce Solomon, who plays “Det. Scott,” was just coming off a two-year stint on TV’s cult fav “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “When Gloria is escaping from the apartment where she’s being held, she punches Turk in the right side of the face with the brass knuckles, but when we next see Turk (in the Archbishop’s office), it is his left eye that is black and blue, not his right one.”
  • “Shirley Python” plays “Esme” the snake in its only credited role in film.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “In the movie theater, the amount of popcorn in the container varies several times between shots.”

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