I had hoped to like this film a bit more than I did, and I certainly expected to laugh more. Sweet Liberty is an Alan Alda project through and through. In it, he plays a history professor whose historical novel is going to be made into a movie during one crazy summer in the little college town. Everyone is excited about the upcoming shoot, but Alda's excitement turns to disgust once the cast and crew arrive. He finally gets a look at the script and finds out that the movie will be sort of a sex comedy with little regard for historical accuracy. Alda then sets out with the screenwriter to try and convince the actors and director to film his own version. While all of this is going on, we sit through several arguments about Alda's relationship status with his girlfriend. We are also treated to the eccentricities of Alda's ancient mother played by legendary actress Lillian Gish. Overall, there is just too much going on, and the film never quite sustains any comedic momentum.The film has some genuine strengths. The cast is an eclectic bunch of old stars, new faces, and genial nobodies. Alda and Michael Caine basically play themselves and do a very good job. Michelle Pfeiffer is not only beautiful as hell, but she also gives a strong early performance as the lead actress. Bob Hoskins' character is well-written, but he plays the man in too shrill of a manner to be taken seriously. His screenwriter character has some wonderful points to make about using flattery to get the attention of the actors and director if you want them to change what they are doing. But he is just so hyper that you cringe whenever you hear his voice. Saul Rubinek is good as the hotshot, pompous young director who is only out to show the audience three things: People defying authority, destruction of property, and people taking off their clothing. That's what industry research shows that younger audiences want, he informs Alda more than once.There are other problems besides the annoying Hoskins character. I'm sure it would seem desirable for an icon like Lillian Gish to be included in just about any film at that time. However, her character and scenes are just not needed and end up being more of a distraction than anything else. Alda and his girlfriend have about the same argument at least half a dozen times. Another scene looks like it will give a huge laugh payoff, but it falls flat. In it, a group of stunt men are in a bar with some of the local re-creators of the Battle of Cowpens who will also be used as extras in the film. The stunt men are trying to tell the amateurs how to fall in the battle scene. One of the stunt men breaks out one of those harnesses that people use to get pulled backwards through doorways in bar fight scenes. And you think you are going to see one of the amateurs get unknowingly hooked up to it and taken for the ride of his life. But alas, they apparently thought it would be funnier for the guy just to fall down on his back like an idiot. Another missed opportunity! 5 of 10 stars.The Hound.

As a follow-up to his wonderful FOUR SEASONS, Alan Alda wrote, directed, and starred in SWEET LIBERTY - a film that explores the way movies unmake books and historical accuracy, and film productions on location upset local populations. It's a good follow-up film, but not as good as FOUR SEASONS because that film had some serious underpinnings about friendship and aging at it's center.In SWEET LIBERTY Alda plays Michael Burgess, who lives is a southern college town with his mother Cecilia (Lillian Gish). He is a professor of history, who has just written a carefully researched best seller about the events in the region from 1779 to 1781 when the British under Cornwallis invaded Georgia and the Carolinas in the American Revolution. I have mentioned this somewhat forgotten aspect of the Revolution in other reviews on this board, and how Cornwallis' actually had a clever scheme that could have worked (there were far more loyal Tories among the population there than further North), but how through the jealousy and foot dragging of Sir Henry Clinton (Cornwallis' superior) the scheme slowly unraveled. Forced by the Americans under Nathaniel Greene into a series of "phyrric" victories, wherein he lost more men than the battles were worth, Cornwallis decided to fight his way to Virginia and to have Clinton pick up his men there. This led to his defeat at Yorktown. Burgess's book deals with the diary of a local woman who witnesses these events. It also deals with her having a love affair with Cornwallis' "Green Dragoon", the notoriously deadly Sir Banastre Tarleton.Tarleton has appeared under a different name in Mel Gibson's controversial THE PATRIOT, as the cavalry leader who did not mince words with the rebels. He exterminated them. The most notorious incident was when he ordered the massacre of rebels who had been captured at the Wraxhall River. But this was 1780 so war crimes trials were never heard of, and General Tarleton lived to die in his bed in 1833. By the way - Tarleton never ordered burning alive civilians in a church to set an example (that was a Gibson invention). Particularly an Anglican Church. King George III, as head of the Anglican Church (and a serious believer in the religious rights of his flock) would probably have ordered Tarleton's arrest and execution for such an act.Burgess sells the rights to his book to a film company, and soon realizes the hurricane he has released on his sleepy community. Burgess finds that he is working on the screenplay with Mr. Stanley Gould (Bob Hoskins), who loves the book - but is constantly changing it to fit film consumers attention spans. The director of the film is little better than a presumptive kid named Bo Hodges (Saul Rubinek), who has a ludicrous theory of what people want to see (it includes mayhem, buildings being blown up, and people who are naked). Burgess has a close understanding with a fellow teacher named Gretchen Calsen (Lisa Hilboldt), which may lead to marriage. But both find themselves enthralled by the film leads, Elliot James (Michael Caine) and Faith Healy (Michelle Phifer). Both are temperamental egotists, but they can lay on the charm to improve their roles or enjoy themselves. Soon Burgess finds himself approving changes in the script that benefit Healy (which leads to counter improvements for the insistent James).On top of all this Burgess has problems with his mother, a kindly woman who is partly insane. This also leads to him trying to resolve an issue regarding her past and a love affair she claims she had.The changes range from the ludicrous to the insulting. Remember that Tarleton was known as the "Green Dragoon". A wealthy man, he dressed his crack cavalry regiment in green outfits, not in red. Hodges has James wear the traditional red uniform - American audiences expect "red coats". The culmination of the film is the so-called turning point in the war in the south, the American victory over Tarleton at the battle of the Cowpens (a bit of farmland - the victor was General Daniel Morgan, and it has been called the best tactical victory of the war). But Hodges wants to make it comic, with the Americans running around stupidly as the British bombard them. This, and a nasty confrontation between the film extras and the locals sets Alda up for leading his own revolution, and showing the film people just where to get off.SWEET LIBERTY works as a comedy, and is worth viewing. Besides Alda's growing frustration at the extremes of movie making, Hoskins friendly but ruthless script reworking, and Gish's comic insanity, and the obnoxious Rubinek, Caine does wonders showing ego and charm in it's turn (see his rendition of "Knees Up Father Brown" when going out), and Michelle Phyfer's twisting Alda around her finger. It is certainly a fine film comedy.

The "making of a Big Hollywood Movie" is certainly not a new idea for a comedy. Over the years there have been many movies like this--most recently David Mamet's "State and Main." What Alan Alda did for this movie is playfully comment on the state of the blockbuster (six years before Robert Altman's "The Player"). In 1986, the "blockbuster movie" was in its early stages. This film originally came out around the same time as Top Gun--case in point. Saul Rubinek plays the obnoxious Hollywood director (what? An obnoxious director?) who turns Alda's historical, and serious, book about the American Revolution into a romantic comedy, complete with big stars who take their clothes off. What makes this movie different from Alda's other films is that there are no serious undertones. Everyone is having a great time, and it shows. Michelle Pfeiffer, in one of her first starring roles, has rarely been funnier. Michael Caine struts his best comic stuff. And Bob Hoskins--how can you go wrong? The film has an obvious mid '80s feel (the music is terrible), and Alda's direction seems more suited for television, but this is still an enjoyable movie, less successful and acidic in its approach to Hollywood and its stars and blockbusters (compared to Sunset Blvd., The StuntMan, and of course The Player) but still worth watching.

Michael, a history teacher in a small East Coast town, has written a scholarly book about the American Revolution. Hollywood has decided to turn it into a movie, and cast and crew are descending on Michael's hometown to shoot the location scenes. The author gets a shock when he sees how is work is being revamped for the big screen. Alan Alda wrote, directed and stars in this good-natured romantic comedy. We are in classic Alda terrain here, the unspectacular small-detail world of domestic discord and couples who feel compelled to analyse their love lives. "You buy dishes together," ventures Michael, "and you invite people over. Then you talk about them in the bathroom while you're brushing your teeth." This is the microsmic universe that Alda loves to explore. Michael has three problems, all linked, which are currently exasperating him. Firstly, his aged mother (Lillian Gish) is very dotty and in need of care, something she steadfastly refuses to accept. Secondly, his lover Gretchen (Lise Hilboldt) won't cohabit unless he marries her. Thirdly, the Hollywood company which has come out east to make the film has desecrated his work by turning it into a lightweight (and historically worthless) love story. "I just wrote the book from which the movie has NOT been taken," fumes Michael. Faith Healey (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a method actress and a very big star. When in costume she is in character, even to the point of talking in 'colonial' English offscreen. Michael and Faith become romantically entangled, until Michael realises his mistake. There is no person at the core of the actress - just a creature voracious for the period detail that only Michael can supply. She was playing the part of a lover in order to draw from him what she needed. Elliott James is selfish and shallow, but incredibly charming and enormous fun to be around. A leading man who cares nothing for films, or even other people, he lives his life as one long party. Michael Caine parodies himself, and in the process turns in a commendable performance as the eternal matinee idol. Alda can certainly write. His dialogue always flows beautifully, and his understated characters are utterly believable. When Michael's 'authentic' 18th-century dialogue is spoken, the venerable cadences are gorgeous. Essentially, the film is about the artifice of movie-making. "Who really knows what happened a coupla hundred years ago?" asks the director (Saul Rubinek). The issue is, how far should film-makers go in disregarding historical truth in order to obtain audience approval? Films are, of necessity, separate and distinct from their source material - but in the trade-off between authenticity and popularity, where is the balance to be struck? A New England community such as this one is fiercely proud of its heritage, and indeed very knowledgeable about it. The guys who stage War of Independence re-enactments know in minute detail about the manoeuvres, skirmishes, equipment and ammunition which constituted real events and which form their living culture. It is an affront to these people for ignorant West Coasters to play fast and loose with their sacred lore. In a film about the artifice of film, Alda makes intelligent use of cinema tricks and conventions. Elliott insists on doing his own stunt work - and yet for his triumphant fall into the pond, Michael Caine is doubled by a stunt man. The blizzard scene is shot in glorious New England sunshine. The steadycam revolve shot which marks the romantic climax of the 'film' film is repeated at the romantic climax of 'our' film. With delicious malice, Alda satirises the internal dynamics of cast and crew. Bob Hoskins is the writer with no brains and no class who helps Michael understand the power struggles within the movie's little community, and how best to exploit these envies and vanities in order to get what he wants. Sword fencing is a subtle metaphorical strain running through the film. When we see Michael and Gretchen fencing in the opening scene, the play-fight represents the involvement and the conflict inherent in their relationship. The 'audience' of fencing masks on the wall stands for the public attention to which they will shortly be exposed. Newly-arrived film crew members unload Scottish broadswords, showing from the outset that there will be brash disregard for authenticity. Elliott and Michael sublimate their clash of wills in a protracted sword duel. We are told (and shown) that teenage cinema audiences expect three things in a movie: defiance of authority, destruction of property, and nudity. Alda's film complies with the formula, but also intelligently undermines it. Gretchen's quiet jealousy is excellent, as is Michael's stiff back, expressing vehement disapproval without moving a muscle. A film can stimulate eye, ear and intellect: it doesn't have to follow shallow formulae. If the action climax is a little too smug and convenient, Alda can be forgiven. He is making smart, literate films for grown-ups. Long may he continue.