Easy Money ** (1983, Rodney Dangerfield, Joe Pesci, Geraldine Fitzgerald) – Classic Movie Review 8030

Director James Signorelli’s 1983 comedy Easy Money stars Rodney Dangerfield as Monty Capuletti, a grotesquely self-indulgent child portraitist who is left a huge inheritance by his immensely rich mother-in-law Mrs Monahan (Geraldine Fitzgerald) if he changes his lazy, smoking, boozing and gambling ways.

Monty Capuletti goes for the easy money, making life his hell, not helped by his smoking buddies like Nicky Cerone (Joe Pesci) and Scrappleton (Tom Ewell), or his bossy wife Rose (Candy [Candice] Azzara), or the fact that Mrs Monahan (Fitzgerald) isn’t actually dead.

This is a pretty good premise and there are certainly some funny moments in the movie, but both Dangerfield’s persona and the film start to pall fairly soon in this laid-back, quick-moving comedy.

However, the performances of Pesci, Fitzgerald, Ewell, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Allison Capuletti, Val Avery as Louie the Bartender, Tom Noonan as Paddy, Taylor Negron as Julio, Jeff [Jeffrey] Altman as Bill Jones, Lili Haydn as Belinda Capuletti and Jeffrey Jones as Clive Barlow help to keep the spirits raised quite a lot throughout.

It is a 15 certificate with some swearing.

Also in the cast are David Vasquez, Dennis Blair, Kimberly McArthur and Frank Simpson.

Easy Money is directed by James Signorelli, runs 100 minutes, is made by Easy Money Associates, released by Orion (US) and Rank (UK), is written by Rodney Dangerfield, Michael Endler, P J O’Rourke and Dennis Blair, is shot in Technicolor by Fred Schuler, is produced by John Nicolella and is scored by Laurence Rosenthal.

In his two most popular movies, Rodney Dangerfield plays Thornton Melon in Back to School (1986) and Al Czervik in Caddyshack (1980). Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) played Lucifer in Little Nicky (2000) and God in Angels with Angles (2005).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8030

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com