A Fish in the Bathtub (Joan Micklin Silver, 1998)

Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller in A Fish in the Bathtub

Cast: Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Mark Ruffalo, Jane Adams, Missy Yager, Paul Benedict, Doris Roberts, Louis Zorich, Phyllis Newman, Val Avery, Bob Dishy, Pamela Gray. Screenplay: John Silverstein, David Chudnovsky, Raphael D. Silver. Cinematography: Daniel Shulman. Production designer: Deana Sidney. Film editor: Meg Reticker. Music: John Hill. 

Joan Micklin Silver's A Fish in the Bathtub has some funny lines, but an overall shrillness makes it not as much fun as it wants to be. The scene in which Sam (Jerry Stiller) yells "Shut up!" repeatedly at Molly (Anne Meara), his wife of 40 years, at a card party where their closest friends are gathered is a touch too painful. The rest of the film is a slow and sometimes awkward process of reconciliation after Molly decides she's put up with too much -- including the large carp that Sam has inexplicably brought home and keeps in the spare bath -- and moves in with their son, Joel (Mark Ruffalo), and his wife, Sharon (Missy Yager). Joel and Sharon have  been having their problems, too: She wants another child and he's not so sure, plus he's indulging in a flirtation with one of his real estate clients -- an unnecessary subplot. The actors are all pros, and they do what they can with the material, but the movie feels like an overextended TV sitcom episode. 

The Ritz (Richard Lester, 1976)

The Ritz (Richard Lester, 1976)

Cast: Jack Weston, Rita Moreno, Jerry Stiller, Kaye Ballard, F. Murray Abraham, Paul B. Price, Treat Williams. Screenplay: Terrence McNally, based on his play. Cinematography: Paul Wilson. Production design: Philip Harrison. Film editing: John Bloom. Music: Ken Thorne.

The Ritz is not as funny as it wants to be -- or at least as I wanted it to be. Richard Lester sets the wrong pace for the action: uninterruptedly chaotic. Farce needs discipline and precise timing, but Lester lets everything devolve into a haphazard jumble of situations, one -- the identity switch between the brothers-in-law played by Jack Weston and Jerry Stiller -- intruding on another -- characters with elaborate fixations, like Paul B. Price's manic "chubby chaser." Noise drowns out many of Terrence McNally's best lines, though Rita Moreno and F. Murray Abraham in particular still manage to get a few good laughs with them. Unfortunately, time has also cast a pall over the anything-goes sexuality that takes place in the film's setting, a post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS gay bathhouse, which makes The Ritz very much a period piece.