Seems Like Old Times (1980)

I can't believe some posters are waxing nostalgic about this movie.

It stinks.

When Neil Simon is funny, he's pretty funny.

When he's off, it's excruciating to watch, and man is he off on this. I saw it when it first came out, and it seemed hopelessly dated then. I can only imagine what a relic it is now.

Yes, Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn were good in FOUL PLAY, but that had a great script going for it. This absolutely, positively does not.

The jokes fall flat, the scenarios are strained beyond belief, and it just comes across as a bit of Hollywood hopelessly detached from reality.

In fact, it might just be worse than MODERN PROBLEMS or UNDER THE RAINBOW.

Watch this at your own peril, unless you want to see Exhibit #A in Chevy Chase's unprecedented run at picking awful scripts.

Fmovies: "Seems Like Old TImes" is a blown opportunity. You have Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase in a comedy with a script by the great Neil Simon. How can you miss? Somehow they did.

The film starts out promisingly enough when Chase is forced to rob a bank. He goes on the lam and hides at his ex-wife's house. The ex happens to be married to the district attorney of Los Angeles. Ok. The set up has us interested but unfortunately Simon's script becomes repetitive. Ex hubby gets in trouble and runs to ex-wife. Ex wife tries to bail him out. New hubby gets angry at wife. This same situation is repeated over and over again. It's cute at first but the repetitiveness becomes old very fast.

The acting is fine. Chase and Hawn are wonderful together and prove their chemistry from "Foul Play" was no fluke. Charles Grodin is a master at looking bewildered and flabbergasted. You admire the performances and only wish there were more laughs. For me the funniest moment stars Chase's hand. He is hiding under a bed and Grodin sits down while stepping on Chase's one hand. With the other hand Chase shows us the agony he is in. It's quite inspired and funny in a most uninspired film.

But nothing else is comparable to that Columbia comedy/romance from 1942 wherein Cary tries to hide out in Jean Arthur's house and she tries to keep Ronald Colman from finding out.

Part of the problem here is the script. Neil Simon is a very fine writer of screen comedies, as everyone knows, but this is not one of his best efforts. It's all overdone--the humor, the situations, the dogs most of all, the whole plot is a lot of fluffy nonsense.

Anybody who thinks this is superior to FOUL PLAY, the previous outing with GOLDIE HAWN and CHEVY CHASE, hasn't got all their marbles. This is so far down the line from that previous comedy that mixed laughs with chills that it's not funny. Neither is the film.

Have to give this one a thumbs down for lack of sparkling wit. Goldie and Chevy and CHARLES GRODIN deserve better than this.

Seems Like Old Times fmovies. I wouldn't say Neil Simon's comic wit is at full steam in this light-hearted comedy, but there are certainly a plethora of laughs to go around.

Chevy Chase's Nick Gardenia is offishly matter-of-fact funny as only he can be, a writer and journalist (have you noticed Simon's protagonists are nearly always writers?) of ill-repute who somehow once ended up in a Mexican jail for 2 years and is now on the path to recovery when a couple of bank robbers kidnap and use him for a heist. His mug is prominently featured in the robbery photos and then the fun ensues when he goes to his ex-wife's (Hawn's) house to engender her help after being let go by the robbers and being fully on the run from the law.

The movie is mostly fast-paced slapstick farce, a host of retreaded clichés (the dogs, for example), and quick jokes. Charles Grodin is actually quite funny and charming as her straight-arrow District Attorney (soon to be Attorney General) husband, Ira. Given "Midnight Run," I think Grodin should be considered a mint for American glib comedy a la Albert Brooks.

It's pointless to go much deeper into the story as the plot merely drives slapstick scenes one into the next. The story is essentially the sum of its parts.

Goldie Hawn is in full-tilt cutie mode (she really was a doll) but carries the movie very well as a hopeless do-gooder who wants to help everybody, including her ex-husband and every stray dog in 10 surrounding counties. Chevy Chase often gives the impression of making comedy look effortless (think Fletch), but he is REALLY giving into pratfalling a la his SNL days in this one. The supporting cast with Guillaume and others is excellent.

This is completely worth a watch if you catch it as in many ways this movie is superior to the Hawn and Chase hit "Foul Play."

It is, count'em, 25 years of my loyal fanship to Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase, through thick and thin. "Foul Play" is their first go-round, and "Seems Like Old Times" is equally as timeless and great.

For the over 1000 times I have watched "Foul Play" and "Seems Like Old Times," I feel warm, giddy, and romantic every time as I look at this beautiful and funny pair. However, in "Seems Like Old Times," they are divorced. Hawn is the pretty but confused lawyer divorced from klutzy, easygoing novelist Chase turned bank-robbing fugitive and currently married to prim D.A. Charles Grodin. In fact, Hawn is so liberal she aids illegal aliens, a kleptomaniacal black chauffer, and faces the ultimate dilemma: Should she take in her ex-husband and come back and have fun with him or should she stay with her humorless current husband. Both men love her. Chase scoots under every bed due to intimidation by Grodin. Grodin does everything to get rid of Chase. Chase still has loving feelings for Hawn. This causes Hawn titilation, even insomnia with Chase hiding out in their house. When the two men finally meet, sparks fly. Not only do they get into a fistfight during dinner, but a court case looms over. Naturally, Grodin prosecutes Chase and Hawn defends him. Hawn wins. Chase kisses Hawn in front of an exasperated Grodin. Then Hawn and Grodin go away. They have car trouble, and Hawn unexpectedly gets to Chase's cabin in a rainstorm. She smiles at him. But that is the ending. Still, despite some flaws, "Seems Like Old Times" is a timeless small movie for those who want to laugh and fall in love. But why did it flop? Was it hard to accept Hawn and Chase as divorced? But the chemistry is still there, whether they get married or split up. Sure there are several romantic screen teams, such as Hanks and Ryan, Powell and Loy, and Hepburn and Tracy, but it is Hawn and Chase who do it for me and, of course, they are not married to each other in real life, but are married in spirit on screen.

This movie is absolutely hilarious! I first saw it a couple of years ago and had my belly aching from laughing by the time it was over. Yesterday it was shown again on TV and it had exactly the same effect on me throughout this second viewing. Playwright Neil Simon, who scripted this film had a real grasp on his prose all through the 70s and 80s, and this film is a delight for everyone familiar with his style of lining up one-liners in such a way that the viewer barely has time to breathe from laughter. All three leads are great. This is real evidence for all those who have doubts about Goldie Hawn's talents, since she is delightful from start to finish and once again proves that she was and still is one of the greatest comediennes Hollywood ever produced. A comedy classic of sorts.