Movie review: ‘How to Beat the High Cost of Living’

FloridaGator80
A promotional photo from “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.”

I really enjoy re-watching films from the late 1970s and early 1980s. I graduated from the University of Florida (can you tell by my blog’s name?) in 1980 and had to see all films the first time at a theater or up to a year later when the VHS came out. The look back is a nice tweak of memories of those days. So, I’m looking at “How to Beat the High Cost of Living” from 1980 and it isn’t a good film, but it has more depth to its story and very good to solid acting by the three headliners: Susan Saint James, Jessica Lange and Jane Curtain. You can easily find “How to Beat the High Cost of Living” on streaming services and find out what it was like when inflation was hitting 18 percent!

‘How to Beat the High Cost of Living’
(1980; 105 minutes; rated PG; directed by Robert Sheerer and starring Susan Saint James, Jane Curtain and Jessica Lang)

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF THE MALL

“How to Beat the High Cost of Living” showcases three women who plot a caper to steal money out of a shopping mall’s “money machine,” which is an advertising gimmick for the mall in the movie. All three are having financial woes of one form or another, have challenging personal relationships and are all dealing with inflation hitting a dizzying 18 percent – consider that in this year of 2024 with single-digit inflation.

(CLICK here … for all my reviews of movies)
(CLICK here … for a chronological list of my reviews)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of ‘007’ movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of sports movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of war movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of Christmas movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of horror movies)

The film highlights how women were coming out of the traditional shell of being “housewives” through the three main characters: Susan Saint James (from a working-class home struggling to get by after her husband left her and pays not enough in child support as well as finding out she’s pregnant with her new boyfriend); Jessica Lange (from a wealthy home, but has a failed antique shop she loves that her husband closes by suing her to satisfy the IRS); and finally Jane Curtain (from an upper-middle-class home whose husband abandoned her completely without support).

A promotional photo from “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.”

Each of the three long-time friends has her own motivation for “How to Beat the High Cost of Living,” but it all boils down to one thing: They need money and they need it now. Hence, as circumstance drives each, a plan is hatched to rob a clear sphere at the local shopping mall. The sphere is part of a mall promotion and will hold up to a half-million dollars in cash and the person who guesses closest to how much will win a prize.

A promotional photo from “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.”

“How to Beat the High Cost of Living” has a straightforward plot, but it doesn’t fall victim to too many stereotypes. Each scene along the way manages to incorporate each headliner – such as when they head out to do their robbery, each has a problem specific to her situation that makes each one late – and so moves the film along a smooth, continuous track.

A promotional photo from “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.”

The only out-of-place philosophy is why Lange remains mad at her husband. She gets hacked off because he sues her over the $36K he’s out on her failed business over the past three years. All she needed to do is declare bankruptcy and they’d be clear with the IRS. Today, it wouldn’t have even been an issue. They would have her immediately file bankruptcy and then had a good laugh or two about beating the government. Ah, well … as they say, you need to suspend your disbelief.

Naturally, you’ll see everything coming, but it’s still a nice ride with “How to Beat the High Cost of Living” and Saint James and Lange do the best acting, along with supporting cast member Dabney Coleman as Curtain’s love interest. Curtain doesn’t do a bad job, but she’s simply not as gifted for acting as the other two women.

Let me now take a look at some of the cast, starting with the trio of headliners …

  • A promotional photo from “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.”

    A Primetime Emmy winner and seven-time nominee and three-time nominee for Golden Globes, Saint James plays “Jane” and she’s raising two kids and then gets the imposition of her cranky aged father coming to live with them. She does the best job of acting in this one as she is smooth and conveys her character better than the rest – you can just see her balancing her children, father and boyfriend all at the same time. “How to Beat the High Cost of Living” is the only film of her work on 10 motion pictures that I’ve seen of her. Of course, I recall her best for all her work on TV with the sparkling “Kate & Allie” (co-starring Curtain) and the better-remembered “McMillan and Wife” with Rock Hudson. She also was on a variety of tee-vee shows including “M*A*S*H” and one of my favorites: “It Takes a Thief” with Robert Wagner. Her other film that I recall is “Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows” (click here to read my review).

  • A promotional photo from “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.”

    A two-time Oscar winner and four-time nominee and five-time Golden Globe winner and 11-time nominee, Lange as “Louise Travis” is a better actor than Saint James, but she only periodically shows her A-game in this one. She knocks out her character (and nearly her husband Richard Benjamin as “Albert Travis”) with aplomb, but given her acting CV, she could have accomplished more on screen. I liked Lange in “Tootsie” with Dustin Hoffman (an Oscar and Globe win) and she also won an Oscar for “Blue Sky.” Along with her Oscar and Globe wins and nominations, she’s won three Primetime Emmys and had seven nominations. Click here to see all her acting credits …

  • A promotional photo from “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.”

    A two-time Primetime Emmy winner and three-time nominee and a Golden Globes nominee, Curtain as “Elaine Houghton” is the weakest link in the acting chain among the headliners. Unfortunately, some of the writing caused her character to be a little forced, but she doesn’t elevate the character and, yet, doesn’t let it fall flat and drag the film down. I’d say that’s a positive vote, but I believe she could have done a better job. Curtain is best known for her work on “Saturday Night Live” (two of her Emmy nominations) and she won and had the other nominations for “Kate & Allie” with Saint James. She was simply putrid in the grand stinkbomb called “C. and Stiggs” (click here to read my review) and was in the under-appreciated TV series “Third Rock from the Sun” as well as the film “The Spy Who Dumped Me” (click here to read my review).

Next are a few from the supporting cast …

  • A promotional photo from “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.”

    A Golden Globe winner and two-time nominee (not for this one), Coleman plays police officer “John ‘Jack’ Heintzel” and does his usual solid job. He’s the cop who catches Curtain driving drunk and falls in love with her and has a couple of solid scenes projecting his character’s emotions. Coleman was also in another female-empowerment film in 1980: “Nine to Five” (click here to read my review) with Jane Fonda, Lilly Tomlin and Dolly Parton, but he was a total asshat in that one instead of the likable, sensitive guy he plays here. Coleman won his Globe was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for his TV series “The Slap Maxwell Story” and was nominated for a Globe and nominated for an Emmy for “Sworn to Silence.” I liked him in “WarGames” with Matthew Broderick (click here to read my review) and in a small part in “You’ve Got Mail” with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (click here to read my review). He was also in the so-so football film “North Dallas Forty” (click here to read my review). He died at 92 of a heart attack in May 2024.

  • A promotional photo from “How to Beat the High Cost of Living.”

    A Golden Globe winner and nominee (not for this one) and a Primetime Emmy nominee, Benjamin plays randy veterinarian “Albert Travis” and is Lange’s husband. He does a good job in his earnest pursuit of Lange and makes sure that a character that could have dragged the film down did not manage to accomplish that feat. Frankly, I’ve liked Benjamin more as a director (“My Favorite Year,” “Milk Money,” “Little Nikita” or “The Money Pit”) than as an actor (“The Pentagon Wars” – click here to read my review; or “The Last Married Couple in America;” or “Westworld;” or “Portnoy’s Complaint”). Benjamin won his Globe for “The Sunshine Boys” and was nominated for a Globe for “Diary of a Mad Housewife” as well as being nominated for a Primetime Emmy for the TV series “He & She.”

  • Curtain’s fellow SNL alumnus, Primetime Emmy nominee Garrett Morris, has a small but hilarious turn as “Power & Light Man.” He’s the guy Curtain calls when her power is cut due to non-payment. Morris listens intently as she lies and makes up a story then tells her what an excellent performance and hangs up while giving a maniacal laugh. I especially enjoyed Morris’ work as a regular on the TV series “2 Broke Girls” and was in the movie “Coneheads” with Curtain and a variety of SNL He played a machine-gun toting police sergeant in “The Anderson Tapes” (click here to read my review) with Sean Connery.
  • A two-time Oscar nominee (not for this one) and two-time Golden Globe nominee (not for this one), Eddie Albert plays “Max” and he’s Curtain’s aging father with a potty-mouth and tough-guy attitude from being a former Marine. He comes to live with Curtain after his wife leaves him … for another woman (scandalous in 1980)! Albert does an OK job here, but the character is a little too blustering and teaching his grandson how to deal poker and granddaughter how to serve beer to his cronies is one of the few discordant notes in the film. He is best-remembered as being the gentleman farmer on TV’s “Green Acres” while earning Oscar nominations for the original “The Heartbreak Kid” and “Roman Holiday” while he got Globe nominations for the original “The Longest Yard” with Burt Reynolds and “The Teahouse of the August Moon” with Marlon Brando. I thought he did a good job in the anti-corporate film “Head Office” (click here to read my review). Albert died at 99 of pneumonia in 2005.

“How to Beat the High Cost of Living” is one of only two non-TV productions for director Robert Scheerer. He he had 71 credits in a career from 1960 to 1995. The only other movie he directed was an animated effort of a “Tarzan”-like film. Maybe that’s why this one fails with such a strong cast. Scheerer died at 89 in 2018.

Overall, the film, despite early “treatments” considering having A-list stars of the day as headliners, including Jane Fonda, Raquel Welch and Diane Keaton, the final production produced the trio of women you see, with only multiple Oscar winner Lange from the A-list. I’d say “How to Beat the High Cost of Living” fell by the wayside on lack of overall star power. Bluntly, it appears more a movie made for TV than a big-screen effort as much for production values as the lack of star power.

“How to Beat the High Cost of Living” was the 75th ranked film at the U.S. box office for 1980 with ticket sales of $7.5 million, according to The Numbers website. The No. 1 film was obviously “Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back” with $209.3 million and trailing far behind was “Nine to Five” at No. 2 with $103.2 million (I use the original spelled-out title of the film instead of what it became on posters) and at No. 3 was “Stir Crazy” at $101.3 million, according to Box Office Mojo. Here are the films from 1980 that I’ve reviewed for my blog:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Personal notes: Albert’s birth name was Edward Albert Heimberger; Saint James’ is Susan Jane Miller; Coleman’s middle name was Wharton; and Morris’ middle name is Gonzalez. Also, Benjamin has been married to actress Paula Prentiss for 61 years as of August 2024.
  • A body double was used to show the brief view of what was supposedly Curtain’s bare chest as she did a striptease on stage at the mall.
  • Real banknotes were utilized during the filming because the director believed the audience would spot phony money and detract from the scenes with the cash.
  • Lange’s character drives a 1969 Mercedes-Benz 280 SL convertible.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “As an outdoor scene was being filmed, a man drove by and yelled, ‘Jane, you ignorant slut!’ in reference to Jane Curtin‘s and Dan Aykroyd‘s “Point/Counterpoint” running skit on Saturday Night Live (1975), and the crew cracked up laughing.”

© Chuck Curry and A Gator in Naples, 2024.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without
express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner
is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that
full and clear credit is given to Chuck Curry and A Gator in Naples
with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Unknown's avatar

Published by FloridaGator80

Leave a Reply