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After establishing himself as a creative force in television with shows like Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley, Garry Marshall was given a shot at the big screen and gave us Young Doctors in Love, a 1982 comedy that was intended to be a lampoon, in the style of Airplane or Blazing Saddles, of a television genre that is certainly rich for lampooning...the daytime soap opera; however, Marshall really misses the mark here.
The story we are given is like a soap opera, with multiple storylines and characters that float between the different stories. The primary story here is the star-crossed romance between an insensitive but brilliant intern with childhood issues named Simon August (Michael McKean) and an intern named Stephanie Brody (Sean Young) who has health issues of her own. We are also introduced to a drug addicted intern (Taylor Negron) who romances a prickly head nurse (Pamela Reed) in order to get the key to the hospital medication cabinet that she wears around her neck and a deranged hitman (a pre-Seinfeld Michael Richards) who has been sent to the hospital to kill an ailing mob boss (Tito Vandis) who is under the watchful eye of his son (Hector Elizondo) who visits him in the hospital dressed in drag.
Marshall's idea is golden but it is clear from the direction and writing that Marshall really doesn't understand the genre. There is a lot of over-the-top physical comedy going on but the stories are played too-straight faced. Marshall's approach to the story shows little understanding of daytime soap operas and unfortunately, this becomes even more obvious when Marshall gave actual soap opera actors cameos who do understand the genre and actually provided some of the funniest moments in the film.
The screenplay by Michael Elias and Rich Eustis attempts some knowledge of the genre but it is above most of the actors, especially McKean and Young, who clearly don't have a clue what they're doing here. On the other hand, Negron and Reed are very funny and Elizondo steals every scene he's in, providing evidence as to why he has become Marshall's good luck charm and has appeared in every film Marshall has directed.
The film does provide a laugh here and there, but I never got the feeling that I was watching an actual Airplane-like satire...it just came off as an over the top slapstick comedy that takes place in a hospital and not a very funny one. The best thing about the film is its economy, clocking in at about ninety minutes and even that ninety minutes is a very long ninety minutes.
After establishing himself as a creative force in television with shows like Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley, Garry Marshall was given a shot at the big screen and gave us Young Doctors in Love, a 1982 comedy that was intended to be a lampoon, in the style of Airplane or Blazing Saddles, of a television genre that is certainly rich for lampooning...the daytime soap opera; however, Marshall really misses the mark here.
The story we are given is like a soap opera, with multiple storylines and characters that float between the different stories. The primary story here is the star-crossed romance between an insensitive but brilliant intern with childhood issues named Simon August (Michael McKean) and an intern named Stephanie Brody (Sean Young) who has health issues of her own. We are also introduced to a drug addicted intern (Taylor Negron) who romances a prickly head nurse (Pamela Reed) in order to get the key to the hospital medication cabinet that she wears around her neck and a deranged hitman (a pre-Seinfeld Michael Richards) who has been sent to the hospital to kill an ailing mob boss (Tito Vandis) who is under the watchful eye of his son (Hector Elizondo) who visits him in the hospital dressed in drag.
Marshall's idea is golden but it is clear from the direction and writing that Marshall really doesn't understand the genre. There is a lot of over-the-top physical comedy going on but the stories are played too-straight faced. Marshall's approach to the story shows little understanding of daytime soap operas and unfortunately, this becomes even more obvious when Marshall gave actual soap opera actors cameos who do understand the genre and actually provided some of the funniest moments in the film.
The screenplay by Michael Elias and Rich Eustis attempts some knowledge of the genre but it is above most of the actors, especially McKean and Young, who clearly don't have a clue what they're doing here. On the other hand, Negron and Reed are very funny and Elizondo steals every scene he's in, providing evidence as to why he has become Marshall's good luck charm and has appeared in every film Marshall has directed.
The film does provide a laugh here and there, but I never got the feeling that I was watching an actual Airplane-like satire...it just came off as an over the top slapstick comedy that takes place in a hospital and not a very funny one. The best thing about the film is its economy, clocking in at about ninety minutes and even that ninety minutes is a very long ninety minutes.