Day 59 Legal Eagles (1986)

This is a quintessential summer movie from the 80s. It is a lighthearted murder mystery, with big stars, lots of humor and a hit song for the closing credits. The fact that it is not very memorable is also a sign that it perfectly fits the purpose of this project, trying to remember how I spent my summers in the 1980s. This was also a package production from Creative Artists Agency, C.A.A. , which at the time was the most powerful talent agency in Hollywood and might well have been The notorious Michael Ovitz was in charge and he basically invented the idea of a film “package” , bundling talent together and excluding other agencies from the creative process. Packaging made money but not always artist sense and this is a good illustration.

The premise involves putting together an assistant district attorney with a defense attorney, to conduct a defense in a convoluted murder trial related to an art fraud case and arson. Oh yeah, there is a romantic subplot as well. Clearly this was not intended as a treatise on the law, but rather a Tracy/Hepburn sort of plot where a couple comes together in spite of their differences and the sparks fly. When the film focuses on the relationship between Debra Winger’s Laura Kelly and Robert Redford’s Tom Logan, it mostly works. Her b.s. and his follow ups are usually good for a laugh every few minutes. They also make an interesting couple, despite his being 18 years her senior. In those days he could still play younger than he really was.

Where the movie goes off track is in the murder plot. Daryl Hannah is Chelsea Deardon, the daughter of a murdered artist who arrives in adulthood twenty years later and get involved in trying to recover art work that is supposed to have been destroyed in the fire that killed her father. Director Ivan Reitman and the two screenwriters Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Jr., turn Chelsea into the biggest airhead in movies. She fails to disclose information to her lawyers, she investigates crimes on her own with a gun in her hand and she gets framed for not just one murder but two. She also engages in an awkward one night stand with Logan which is supposed to be the basis of some humor and tension between the lawyers, but it feels so perfunctory that it could easily be excised from the script.

The usual supporting cast of excellent character actors from the 80s fills the background: David Clennon, Steven Hill, Brian Dennehy, Christine Baranski, John McMartin and Terrance Stamp. The art world is shown in the background as well with gallery’s, auctions, lofts and storage facilities. The contemporary art that gets used in the background will feel familiar to most of us, even if we are not a part of that community. There is an extended moment where Hannah does a performance art piece for Redford as the sole audience member. It is actually not bad but I am never sure how such a brief moment could succeed without the multi-media portals that are now available, but did not exist then.

I lived in the Los Angeles area all of my life before I moved to Texas last year. As a subscriber to the L.A. Times, I was privy to occasional bonuses, for instance, a mini poster for this film was inserted into the Calendar Section as a promotional tool. The back side had some other films featured, but I know I had the mini poster on the corkboard in my office for a year or two. I generally put up a full sized poster and then surrounded it with pictures, post cards and other movie ephemera from the period.