Howard Zeiff: 50 Years of a Comedy Auteur

A MINOR comedy auteur to be sure, but one nonetheless, and some of his films are rated as modern classics by some.

Howard Zieff (1927-2009) first gained fame for advertising photography and commercial directing, famous for such humorous and well-remembered campaigns as “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish (to love Levy’s real Jewish Rye)” (or bagels or other products”, and Alka Seltzer’s “Mama Mia, That’s a Spicy Meatball!” Working with the likes of Buster Keaton at the outset of your career is good mojo for being a comedy director.

Zieff’s first movie Slither (1973) is handily his least well known, but it had a very hip cast for those days: James Caan, Sally Kellerman, Peter Boyle, Louise Lasser, Allen Garfield, Richard B. Shull, and Alex Rocco! That might be the most 1970s cast I ever heard of. And his cinematographer was no less than László Kovács. The movie turned 50 years old this year, hence the occasion for this post.

Hearts of the West (1975)

I came *this* close to including this movie in my wrap-up of comedy westerns, but it’s even more niche than that — it’s a comedy about the making of B movie westerns in the 1930s. Like just about all of Zieff’s films, it’s not as memorable as it might be given the epic ensemble cast, but is just sort of quietly pleasant. In their heyday, Peter Bogdanovich and Polly Platt might have made a comedy with this script and this cast that seared itself into our brains forever. Jeff Bridges plays an aspiring western star who inadvertently becomes a star; Andy Griffith is his mentor, and there’s Donald Pleasence, Blythe Danner, Alan Arkin, Herb Edelman, Frank Cady, Marie Windsor, Dub Taylor, William Christopher (Father Mulcahy in M*A*S*H), Richard Stahl, and back from Slither, Richard B. Shull and Alex Rocco. Unassuming though it may be, I’d gladly watch this little movie again anytime.

House Calls (1978)

This was Zieff’s first hit movie; more on House Calls and the ensuing sit-com based on it here.

The Main Event (1979)

This boxing comedy was critically panned but was one of the top films box-office-wise of the year. More on it here.

Private Benjamin (1980)

A favorite film of my wife’s and Goldie Hawn’s best starring vehicle by miles! If only more of her comedies could have been like this. The arc of the thing allows her to go from her broad mode as a pampered JAP, to a growth experience that makes her more admirable. It’s a modern classic. The same shape as the usual military comedy (e.g. Doughboys with Buster Keaton) but with an added feminist dimension. If they had allowed women in the armed forces sixty years earlier, it would have been great, for, oh, Mabel Normand or Colleen Moore. And another epic ensemble cast including Eileen Brennan, Sam Wannamaker, Barbara Barrie, Mary Kay Place, Harry Dean Stanton, Albert Brooks, Craig T. Nelson, P.J. Soles, Alan Oppenheimer, and Armand Assante, who (along with Brooks) would also be in Zieff’s next film. Meantime, there was also a Private Benjamin sitcom starring Lorna Patterson of Airplane! which ran from 1981 to 1983.

Unfaithfully Yours (1984)

Well, you’re taking a lot to remake a Preston Sturges comedy, even an imperfect one, and if you do so you had better fix it, and justify it. This one doesn’t, it’s even less memorable than the original. The stunt casting in the lead character (an orchestra conductor) seems inspirational. Originally it was to have been Peter Sellers (whom you’ll recall had played a concert pianist in The World of Henry Orient), but Sellers had died while it was in the early stages of development. So Dudley Moore, who actually WAS an orchestra conductor (and had played one in Foul Play) was cast. Part of the problem surely is that the female lead is Nastassja Kinski, who was beautiful enough of course, but not exactly a comedian.

The Dream Team (1989)

I am surprised to learn that this movie earned twice its budget at the box office, for I had never heard of it. It sounds rather tasteless, and critics were not crazy about it. It’s Cuckoo’s Nest-like premise has a bunch of mental patients wind up unsupervised in New York City, when their doctor who is supervising them is sent to the hospital. But a fairly legendary cast! Michael Keaton, Christopher Lloyd, Peter Boyle, Stephen Furst (from Animal House), Dennis Boutsikaris, Lorraine Bracco, Milo O’Shea, Philip Bosco, Michael Lembeck, Jack Duffy, and Donna Hanover (the controversial Mrs. Giuliani).

My Girl (1991) and sequel My Girl 2 (1994)

This movie was a huge box office hit, and another one I never heard of, though I wasn’t precisely the audience for it. It’s a drama for a young people. 11 year old Anna Chlmusky (whom I first knew of as Amy on Veep) gets her first period and loses her best friend (Macauley Culkin when he dies, due an allergic reaction to wasps. The adults in her life are played by folks we often (or sometimes) associate with comedy: Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Masur, and Griffin Dunne. To bring us full circle to where we began, the movie is a period piece, set in 1972.

Zieff’s career was going just fine, and he was not yet 70 at the time of his retirement. He was suffereing from Parkinson’s Disease. He was to live another 15 years after his last film My Girl 2.