Skin Deep (1989) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) |
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A fortyish man is married to a sensible, attractive, accomplished mature woman. He's a successful writer, and his life should be blissful, but he's burdened by two liabilities: he drinks too much; and he just can't keep his eyes off younger women. His most trustworthy confidante is a savvy, compassionate bartender. Does it sound a lot like 10, the famous Bo Derek movie? That's because both films were written and directed by the same guy, Blake Edwards. Skin Deep could easily be a sequel to 10 with only some minor tinkering. The main character in Skin Deep writes popular books instead of popular songs, but he spends about twenty minutes of the film's running time at the piano, tinkling out mellow songs, and he spends no time writing or talking about books, so it seems that the author intended him to be a songwriter in the first place. Use a few search/replace actions on the screenplay to change the character's name to George Webber and his profession to songwriter, and you would never for a moment doubt that the film was originally written as a 10 sequel. For the most part, the Skin Deep characters are indistinguishable from their 10 counterparts, but the cast changed. Dudley Moore has gotten much taller, and is now played with equally rubbery aplomb by John Ritter. The calm Julie Andrews part is now played by Alyson Reed, and the wise Brian Dennehy bartender is now played by Vincent Gardenia in his penultimate film role. There are several young women this time around, but the hardbody Bo Derek role has been turned over to somebody with a really hard body, Raye Hollitt, better known as the muscular Zap from "American Gladiators." The tone of the two films is similar as well. Although they are superficially comedies, there is an undercurrent of sadness running just beneath the laughter. Skin Deep is the sadder of the two films, which would make sense if it were conceived as a sequel to 10. The George Webber character would be older in the sequel and some of his boozy regrets would be deepening into despair as he starts to pay the piper for his womanizing while the booze takes its toll on his body and psyche. John Ritter fills in nicely for Dudley Moore. Somewhere between his usual pratfalls and other slapstick moments, Ritter does some of the most reflective acting of his career. I do wish that the author had gone all the way with the character's change of professions, thus keeping Ritter off the piano. I had no objection to Dudley Moore's singing in 10, which fit perfectly into a character who was not a singer, but had other musical talents. Ritter, on the other hand, is utterly tone deaf. If the songs were really necessary (debatable) the script might have benefited from having them performed by someone else. For example, the bartender already worked in a piano bar, and the role could easily have been reworked to make him the performer. That change would not even have required recasting because Vincent Gardenia could sing well enough to handle that role. Per the IMDb ranks, Skin Deep ranks just below average within the Edwards career, and that is a substantial career! Here are the rated films in which Edwards receives a writing credit:
Apart from the occasional scene, I have never connected very well to the comedies of Blake Edwards. I invariably get interested when I read about them, and just as inevitably get disappointed. I did find a couple of the set pieces in this film to be very funny. The funniest takes place entirely in the dark, when our hero gets caught in flagrante by a cuckolded rock star boyfriend, and both men are wearing the guitarist's glow-in-the-dark condoms. The only objects we can see on an otherwise black screen are two glowing penises. This gag is brought back a second time to close the picture. |
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