Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss turn out to be fantastic comedy sparring partners in 1991's hilarious WHAT ABOUT BOB?
Murray is flawless as agoraphobic, everything-phobic Bob Wiley. He can't leave his house or touch much of anything, except for his visits to his shrink. When that doc leaves town rather than deal with Bob, he deftly hands his worst patient over to fussy, passionately even-keeled newly published author, Dr.Leo Marvin (Dreyfuss).
Dr. Marvin is about to publish his first book "Baby Steps" and head out on a two week vacation to the Hamptons with his family.
When Bob decides to follow Dr. Marvin to his vacation home, hilarity erupts.
Leo's family is terrific, including his supportive wife fay (Julie Hagerty of "Airplane") neurotic son Sigmund (Charlie Korsmo of "Hook" and "Dick Tracy") and teenage daughter Anna (Kathryn Erbe).
With ABC's Good Morning America arriving at his perfect summer home on the water for his first national interview about the book launch, Leo is a mess. And that's BEFORE Bob shows up.
Murray is hilarious. He nails so many classic moments in 90 minutes, they're hard to count. "I'm sailing!!!" "Baby steps...baby steps..." among them.
The Good Morning America interview, Bob's bus ride from NYC and the dinner at the summer home are are classic Murray moments.
Murray has said since that he and Dreyfuss didnt get along at all during filming, but that it worked for the movie. Dreyfuss is really as pissed off and fed up with Murray as Dr. Leo is with Bob. Their acting styles could not have been more different. Dreyfuss has said for decades that working with Murray was horrible.
Director Frank Oz (In & Out, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) also says the set was very tense, with Murray, Dreyfuss, he and Disney all having conflicting thoughts on how to make the film better.
Whatever the process, the final result is very funny.
Like "The War of the Roses" it takes a very dark turn in the final act as Dr. Leo loses it.
Oz manages to bring it all together for a great ending.
WHAT ABOUT BOB? He gets a B.
Bob Wiley: [telling a joke] The doctor draws two circles and says "What do you see?" the guy says "Sex."
[everybody laughs]
Bob Wiley: Wait a minute, I haven't even told the joke yet! So the doctor draws trees, "What do you see?" the guy says "sex". The doctor draws a car, owl, "Sex, sex, sex". The doctor says to him "You are obsessed with sex", he replies "Well you're the one drawing all the dirty pictures!"
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