Roxanne Review

Ever since the art of filmmaking began in the late 19th Century, novels, poems and stage plays have all been inspirations for screenwriters and directors in search of stories to tell through the medium of "moving pictures."

The most common type of adaptation, of course, is the straightforward transposition of a literary work (such as Peter Benchley's Jaws or Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October) and which, despite a few concessions to budget and running time limits, brings a popular best-selling novel to life on the big screen. 

Stage plays, too, get more-or-less faithful adaptations with a few tweaks here and there (shooting on location to "open up" the story's setting from the narrow confines of the stage to the wider vistas of a movie theater.  (In the case of West Side Story, which itself a roundabout adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, some of the more pungent lyrics by Stephen Sondheim were watered down for the Oscar-winning 1961 movie.)

There are also - as I just implied - indirect adaptations of literary works that take the basic premise of a novel, poem or play and use it as the backbone of a more contemporary screenplay, with a few allusions to the source that may (or may not) be obvious to the viewer.  

Such is the case of Roxanne, a 1987 romantic comedy written by comedian-actor-writer Steve Martin, who based his screen play on Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac.

To be honest, I've never seen either Rostand's play on stage or the straightforward movie adaptation which starred Jose Ferrer back in the 1950s, but Martin's screenplay takes its basic plot of an intelligent, romantic poet-swordsman who falls in love with a beautiful woman and attempts to court her despite having a longer than normal nose and updates it to 1980s America as a vehicle for Martin (The Jerk, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid) and the lovely Darryl Hannah as the titular love interest, Roxanne. 

In Martin and director Fred Schepisi's tale, the guy who made millions laugh with his "wild and crazy guy" routine on the 1970s iteration of Saturday Night Live plays Charlie (C.D.) Bales (who shares the same initials as Cyrano de Bergerac), the sharp-witted, jaunty and, yes, long-snooted fire chief of a small town in the Midwestern United States.

Although Roxanne dispenses with the epees and foils of Rostand's 17th Century settings (replacing them with, of all things, tennis rackets and golf clubs), it does echo some of the source's best-known scenes, such as the "duel" Charlie has with two drunks (Kevin Nealon, Ritch Shydner) who accost him on his way to the town's fire station.

The central plot, of course, delves into what happens after Charlie cute-meets visiting astronomer Roxanne Kowalski (Hannah) in the line of duty.  He is instantly attracted to this stargazing beauty who's as intelligent as she is physically attractive, but thinks he doesn't stand a chance with her because of his big nose.

For her part, Roxanne is not looking for love in this small town; she is hoping to discover a new comet over the summer and is renting a suitable house from Charlie's restaurant-owning friend Dixie (Shelley Duvall).

Yet for all her brains, she's also a healthy, sexy woman in her late 20s and is not immune to the rules of attraction, so when C.D. (another name for Charlie) hires a new professional firefighter to help improve the woefully inept performance of the town's all-volunteer fire department, it sets up the usual "two-men-in-love-with-the-same-girl" premise, but with a twist.

As you might expect, Chris McConnell (Rick Rossovich) is the hunky "perfect" guy Roxanne is more attracted to at first, partly because of his All-American boy-next-door looks, but partly because she thinks he's an intellectual whiz.  (He happens to be picking a philosophy book at a bookstore while Roxanne is browsing there, but it's not for him.)

Chris, too, is attracted to Roxanne because she's a hottie, but is flummoxed by one impediment - his nervousness around her.  Every time he wants to ask her out, he inevitably gets either tongue-tied or, worse, wants to upchuck. 

Oblivious to Charlie's own unrequited love for Roxanne, the hapless lunk turns to his boss for assistance, and though it probably breaks his heart to do so, C.D. agrees to help Chris woo Roxanne, first by giving him wonderfully-written love letters to ask the fetching astronomer out, then (in a hilarious scene) by feeding Chris "lines" via the town's mobile radio.

Of course, this being a romantic comedy, the story's eventual ending is never in doubt, but how Charlie eventually wins over the lovely blonde astronomer is still definitely worth watching anyway.

Roxanne is as good as it is not just because director Schepsi has a good sense of pacing and comedic timing, but also because its leading man and writer is equally adept with witty dialogue and physical comedy.

And though the screenplay does have its share of contemporary American broad comedy (such as references to Playboy Playmates and the Keystone Cops-like ineptness of Charlie's firefighters), it also reflects Martin's eclectic intellectual gifts, such as references to Rostand's original play.

C.D. Bales: [challenged to think of twenty jokes better than "Big Nose"] Let's start with... Obvious: 'scuse me, is that your nose or did a bus park on your face? Meteorological: everybody take cover, she's going to blow! Fashionable: you know, you could de-emphasize your nose if you wore something larger, like... Wyoming. Personal: well, here we are, just the three of us. Punctual: all right, Delbman, your nose was on time but YOU were fifteen minutes late! Envious: Ooooh, I wish I were you! Gosh, to be able to smell your own ear! Naughty: uh, pardon me, sir, some of the ladies have asked if you wouldn't mind putting that thing away. Philosophical: you know, it's not the size of a nose that's important, it's what's IN IT that matters. Humorous: laugh and the world laughs with you. Sneeze, and it's goodbye, Seattle! Commercial: hi, I'm Earl Scheib, and I can paint that nose for $39.95! Polite: uh, would you mind not bobbing your head? The, uh, orchestra keeps changing tempo. Melodic: Everybody. He's got...

Everyone: [singing] The whole world in his nose!

C.D. Bales: Sympathetic: aw, what happened? Did your parents lose a bet with God? Complimentary: you must love the little birdies to give them this to perch on. Scientific: Say, does that thing there influence the tides? Obscure: whoa! I'd hate to see the grindstone. Well, think about it. Inquiring: when you stop to smell the flowers, are they afraid? French: saihr, ze pigs have refused to find any more truffles until you leave! Pornographic: finally, a man who can satisfy two women at once! How many is that?

Dean: Fourteen, Chief!

C.D. Bales: Religious: the Lord giveth... and He just kept on giving, didn't He? Disgusting: Say, who mows your nose hair? Paranoid: keep that guy away from my cocaine! Aromatic: it must wonderful to wake up in the morning and smell the coffee... in Brazil. Appreciative: Oooh, how original! Most people just have their teeth capped.
[he pauses, pretending to be stumped, while the crowd urges him on]
C.D. Bales: All right. Dirty: your name wouldn't be Dick, would it?

Although Steve Martin has made many movies since 1987 (including L.A. Story and the more recent Pink Panther reboots), Roxanne is one of my two favorites (the other one being the more gimmicky Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid) and is one of the few romantic comedies which I'll happily watch repeatedly.

In fact, this film is one of the few that I own in two formats (DVD and Blu-ray); when I ordered the DVD earlier this year I didn't notice that Amazon only had the pan-and-scan (full screen) edition in stock.  Having already opened it and watched it with others, I didn't think I had a valid reason to return it, so I ordered a Blu-ray edition so I could see it in its original theatrical release widescreen format.  Of course, this edition has really nicer picture and audio quality when played on my high-definition TV set, so even though it might seem to some as a "redundant" purchase, I don't regret it.