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Newfield's The Terror of Tiny Town is the root of the experiment, molded by Alan Parker into a most gaudy Our Gang episode. Preadolescents populate the Pinewood Studios evocation of Prohibition-era New York, pinstripe suits and fedoras and flapper gowns in a junior high-schooler's approximation of period raffishness, "suddenly everybody wants to be in show business." Warring mobsters (John Cassisi, Martin Lev) and boxing promoter (Scott Baio) and aspiring songbird (Florrie Dugger) in the middle, snub-nosed diminutions of Edward G. Robinson and William Powell and George Raft and Glenda Farrell. Cream-spitting guns are a game-changer in a town of hand-thrown pies, speakeasies serve sarsaparilla and car chases are pedal-propelled, the plaintive janitor on the margins (Albin Humpty Jenkins) is a budding Bojangles. Jodie Foster as the resident vamp is 13 going on 30, purring for the hero to smear her lipstick and spearing her rival with a snarky wisecrack. "Ever see a broad carry a torch so high?" "Yeah. The Statue of Liberty." Hard-sell pizzazz with a side of freakishness, already Parker specialties. Meticulous simulacra of old Warners gangland, knowing forgeries of innocence, metallic kitsch for days. Slapstick massacres and pugilistic playacting, Russell's The Boy Friend for the Tinseltown dreams and Malle's Zazie dans le Métro for the custard orgy. The Paul Williams score enforces a sense of Jim Henson's Scarface Babies, the opening tune has it, "candy-coated." The Coens take up the note in Miller's Crossing, a not dissimilar game of dress-up. "Come on, let's go before your suspenders strangle you." With Paul Murphy, Sheridan Russell, Andrew Paul, Jeff Stevenson, Donald Waugh, Vivienne Mckone, Dexter Fletcher, and Bonnie Langford.
--- Fernando F. Croce |