When the dictator of the Caribbean country of Parador unexpectedly dies, the powers behind the throne-principally, shady businessman Roberto Strausmann (Raul Julia)-need a quick replacement. Jack Noah (Richard Dreyfuss), a second-string New York actor in Parador on a television shoot, is drafted for the part, but as Noah settles into the role-falling in love with Madonna
(Sonia Braga), the dictator`s politically aware mistress-he begins to take his responsibilities seriously. He wants to do something good for the people, a prospect that makes Strausmann very nervous.
The actor who becomes his role-and through it, a better person-is one of those themes the movies have always been drawn to, perhaps because it represents such a seductive, self-flattering fantasy: Show business is ennobling, something even its worst enemies would never accuse it of.
There have been many versions of that plot over the years-the strangest is probably the 1958 British film ”I Was Monty`s Double,” starring the same actor (M.E. Clifton-James) who successfully impersonated General Montgomery during World War II. But given director Paul Mazursky`s penchant for raiding the films of Federico Fellini, the source of ”Moon Over Parador” is probably Fellini`s 1951 ”The White Sheik,” the story of a comic strip model who becomes as heroic as the character he portrays.
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But what was character comedy for Fellini becomes, in the coarsening process Mazursky always applies to his models, a shrill, bumptious farce. It`s no worse, really, than Mazursky`s 1986 transformation of Jean Renoir`s sublime ”Boudu Saved from Drowning” into the broad and heavy ”Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” but it`s unlikely to touch the same popular nerve. Next to the assuaging of materialist guilt, the fantasy life of actors is an extremely recondite subject.
When Mazursky attacks a European source-as he has done with ”Alex in Wonderland” (a takeoff of Fellini`s ”8 1/2”), ”Next Stop, Greenwich Village” (”I Vitelloni”), ”Willie and Phil” (”Jules and Jim”) and several others-he begins by making the implicit obvious and turning the casually observed into the heavily underlined. Most of ”Moon Over Parador”
seems to consist of Dreyfuss saying, over and over again, ”I think I`m starting to feel like a president!,” which leaves very little room for the audience to draw its own conclusions and make its own discoveries. Like a pedantic English teacher, Mazursky murders the works he explicates; from his condescending height, he seems to be afraid that the dumbo American audience won`t get it otherwise.
”Moon Over Parador” also contains several ringing speeches on the elevated, nearly sacred status of actors, but if that`s the way Mazursky feels, why has he made his cast look so bad? There`s hardly a performance in the film that isn`t trashed by the director`s taste for shtick-Dreyfuss` phony voice and snorting laugh; Braga`s melodramatic, ”Passionara” poses; Julia`s eye-popping menace.
The picture joins the long list of movies that have wasted Jonathan Winters (here as a CIA agent with an unfunny intestinal problem), but ”Moon Over Parador” reaches its real low point with an astoundingly hammy appearance by the director himself-in drag, as the dictator`s dowager mother. The best tribute Paul Mazursky could pay to the acting profession would be to get out of it.
”MOON OVER PARADOR”
(STAR)(STAR)
Directed by Paul Mazursky; written by Leon Capetanos and Paul Mazursky, from a story by Charles G. Booth; photographed by Donald McAlpine; production designed by Pato Guzman; edited by Stuart Pappe; music by Maurice Jarre;
produced by Paul Mazursky. A Universal release; opens Sept. 9 at the Water Tower and outlying theaters. Running time: 1:44. MPAA rating: PG-13. Strong language, adult situations.
THE CAST
Jack Noah……………………………………Richard Dreyfuss
Roberto Strausmann…………………………………Raul Julia
Madonna………………………………………….Sonia Braga
Ralph……………………………………….Jonathan Winters
Alejandro……………………………………….Fernando Rey
Himself………………………………………Sammy Davis Jr.