Customer Reviews

All of Me

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

ALL OF ME is a hilarious comedy dealing with reincarnation, perfectly cast and written and blessed with bravura performances.

Filthy-rich Edwina Cutwater (Lily Tomlin) is on her deathbed. She employs the help of an Indian swamee and the beautiful daughter of the horsetrainer; Terry Hoskins (Victoria Tennant) to transfer her sprit into Terry's body so she may live again. The ritual is disturbed when Edwina's lawyer (Steve Martin) accidentally gets caught in the crossfire and inherits Edwina's spirit instead.

Soon, an unlikely friendship and romance develops while efforts are made to coerse the now-greedy Terry into submitting her body for Edwina's new life.

Very likable romantic-comedy. The scene where Martin and Tennant are attempting to have sex while "Edwina" fantasises about the cast of "Gone With The Wind" is hilarious. Tomlin and Martin are in top comedic form as is the breathtaking Victoria Tennant and the wonderful Dana Elcar.

A pretty murky DVD transfer is overlooked with such a great film.

The New York Times review quote... "The best American comedy since Tootsie" that appears on the cover of this DVD sums it up best! "ALL OF ME" achieves what few 80's comedies did, it manages to be smart and funny, superbly Directed by Carl Reiner. Before Steve Martin became king of the remake ("FATHER OF THE BRIDE", "SGT. BILKO", "OUT OF TOWNERS", "CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN") he scored big with this original comedy gem taking home a Golden Globe for Best Actor! Ms. Tomlin is flawless! A great comic team who only worked together again for a brief scene in the drama "AND THE BAND PLAYED ON" It would be great to see Martin and Tomlin team up again either on the big or small screen. About this DVD edition... overall poor picture (full screen) and sound (mono) quality! with only the trailer and scene selection as special features. I would love to see Anchor Bay get this title and do their deluxe style DVD treatment! Widescreen, original featurette, new cast and crew interviews! Until that time at least we have this great film on DVD! An inferior DVD edition but, at least it's on DVD! Look for it at your local major retail department store... in the bargain bin! Enjoy!

I love this movie. One of Steve Martin's greatest physical performances....truly amazing.

But this bare-bones, pan&scan DVD has been out for years.

This movies deserves a special edition....but I would be happy with just Anamorphic Widescreen.

If you have a 27" or smaller tv, get the movie.

I am waiting.

The movie, in and of itself, is a good one (4 stars); but the quality of the DVD is amazingly bad. If I had known that it was even possible for a DVD to come out so badly, I wouldn't have bought it. To boot, it's not in widescreen.

Imagine if you had to share your body with your mortal enemy, the one person you hated when they were alive, but even more now that they're dead? That's the situation plaguing Steve Martin in "All of Me."

Martin played lawyer Roger Cobb, in perhaps one of his greatest early films. Lily Tomlin also dazzles as dying and quite uptight heiress/millionaire Edwina Cutwater. The way these two conversed at her house in the earliest scenes of the film, they were practically shooting daggers at each other. I was waiting for her to punch him. Well, maybe not, but they really went at each other. the truth is, all Edwina did was feel sorry for her self. But being trapped in Roger and seeing life from another perspective taught her that life is what you make of it, and that everyone needs to live a little.

Though the beginning lacks any real interest, the film builds up to an interesting plot, and a very happy ending. However, I felt that some key parts were exceptionally well done. The parts I found exciting and funny are the scene where Roger struggles for control of his own body on the sidewalk, while screaming and flinging himself around. The bathroom scene, in which Edwina grabs his "Mr Ed." or "Little Fireman" too hard, sending him screaming around the bathroom in pain. Another is the attempted sex scenes. Why do I say attempted? Because the first one is performed when Edwina is sleeping, but she wakes up and Roger can't control himself anymore.


The basic moral of the story is that we have to learn to live, and life isn't always how you want it to be. If you like Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin and want to se a great film, then check out this classic 1984 flick!

By the way...if you want to save some money, I found a copy of this for six dollars at best buy...Just FYI

"All of Me," a 1984 romantic comedy/fantasy starring Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin, directed by Carl Reiner, catches all three stars at the top of their form. Tomlin plays Edwina Cutwater, spoiled rich brat of fragile health. Steve Martin is Roger Cobb, hapless lawyer of working class origins who'd really rather be a jazzman. Selma Diamond ("Night Court") is just right as Cobb's law secretary in a part that feels like it was written for her. Richard Libertini is over the top as Prahka, eastern swami, in a part that also feels like it must have been written for him. And then there's Victoria Tennant as Terri Hoskins, beautiful daughter of Cutwater's stable man.

After a lifetime of threatening to die any minute, Cutwater is actually dying. She makes arrangements with Prahka so as to transfer her soul into Terri Hoskins's tidy body. Then the heiress requires Cobb, as he protests all the way, to write the unusual will leaving everything to Hoskins. The heiress dies, Prahka trips, and her soul goes into Cobb's body, where it controls his right side.

Many people speak of Martin's gift for physical comedy, and praise his three inspired scenes early in the picture. First on the street, struggling to walk to his office building, then, somewhat later, his efforts to relieve himself, and to make love to Hoskins, all with Cutwater supposedly controlling half his body. Hilarious these three scenes are, as is his split personality courtroom scene. But they can't compete with the touching last scene, as Martin and Tomlin, their characters freed at last, do a wild and crazy jitterbug to "All of Me." They say you should dance as if nobody's looking; that's what these popular comic actors here achieve.

In my opinion, this is one of Steve Martin's best movies. It's a comedy with heart (my favorite kind) and the premise, together with the casting, works remarkably well. Lily Tomlin initially plays a super-rich, bed-ridden grouch. Her plan is to enter the body of a woman whom she has paid to allow her to possess her body on her death. Instead, through an accident, she ends up in Steve Martin's body, and they battle for control. Thus the title -- why not take "all of me"? I highly recommend this movie.

Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin both turn in amazing physical comic performances in this film. I'm talking Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin type skill. This was also a gender bender before they becane fashionable and eventually overdone. Is the plot silly? Sure. So what? The unrealistic is handled smoothly, making it easy to buy in to the story. Have some fun with Steve and Lily at their best.

This is one of the most enjoyable movies I have seen over the years. If you like the kind of slapstick comedy that Christmas Vacation, The Jerk, and Major Payne have you will enjoy this one. I would recommend this one to anyone who wants a good laugh!

I'm very disappointed because the product description read "Closed-captioned" and guess what, it is not closed-captioned. I don't have a problem with that, but I wanted to watch this movie (which I love) with my husband, who has a hard time understanding English and has never seen it. Now, I'll have to watch it by myself.