Product Details

• Actors: Al Pacino, Dyan Cannon, Tuesday Weld, Bob Dishy, Bob Elliott
• Directors: Arthur Hiller
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• VHS Release Date: May 19, 1993
• Run Time: 110 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630024752X
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,704 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
During a downturn in his career, Al Pacino starred in this unfortunate comedy about a guy coping with a new romance, a house full of kids, and a new play--and doing a bad job of it. Pacino is a playwright who is convinced that he's about to have his first stage success. As opening night approaches, his wife bolts from the marriage, abandoning him with five kids (only one of whom is his). While he tries to juggle rewrites and a potential entanglement with a flighty actress and a demanding producer and director, he also has to solve his baby-sitting woes. Talk about trying to do it all. If only the material was as funny as Pacino, who may have made this film out of allegiance to its writer, Israel Horovitz, whose play The Indian Wants the Bronx gave Pacino one of his breakthrough roles in the early 1960s. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a rare Pacino comedy!, December 11, 2003

By	Cubist (United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Author! Author! is a guilty pleasure. It features Pacino in one of his rare forays into comedy (the other being the underrated and little-seen '70s gem, Scarecrow) as a beleaguered New York City playwright who has to juggle a houseload of kids, a wife who is cheating on him and a play that he is struggling to get off the ground.

This is a sweet, endearing film that isn't too sappy as to give you diabetes. Pacino really keeps everything grounded and delivers a wonderfully understated performance. He lets all the kids ham it up and deliver the best lines, especially, as one reviewer pointed out, the youngest one who is a really good little actor. What happened to that kid? And you've got veteran thesps like Tuesday Weld, Dyan Cannon, and my personal fave, Alan King, who doesn't do enough films, IMO.

This is one of those comfort movies that you end up turning on partway through on TV and then watch all the way to the end. There is just something about it that is so fascinating to watch. Maybe because it was so reviled by critics and ignored by audiences that it now languishes in Cable TV limbo awaiting a possible DVD release... some day?

This film is also a great snapshot of NYC circa the late '70s early '80s. The film uses its locations so well and anyone who has lived there (or still lives there) will instantly recognize certain places and areas. It's almost like stepping into a time machine to a New York that doesn't exist anymore.

Watching this movie makes me wish that Pacino would do more comedies but sadly, he has a rep for doing intense dramas and is probably only offered these kinds of films anymore.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good film but..............Don't be fooled, July 28, 2006

By	Dennis Smith (East Brunswick, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Author! Author! (DVD)

Well I love this film........................the video version........There is a problem with the dvd version and the version that has been shown on TV.......................It's missing the last scene..........If anyone has seen this film they will remeber after Ivan and the kids leave the resturant and read the review in the NY Times. The next scene is him in the waking up the next morning in bed and the kids are crowded around him with more reviews from newspapers and hitting him with a cake. Well that scene in cut from the dvd/tv showings. It ends when they read the NY Times review when they leave the resturant...........What A jip.............Now it's finally going to be relesed here in the US. I don't know if I'm going to get it. After seeing the import version. Also............the beginning credits is supposed to have the NY skyline as it's backdrop...................................No t here either.....................So I'm sticking with the original VHS version.........

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorites!, November 20, 2002

By	Kelly K. Coyle "generally annoyed" (Michigan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I can't think of any other Al Pacino movies, well except Godfather, because I'm neutral about him. But this is such a sweet, over-looked movie! The kids are great, especially the youngest little boy, most of the Al's children are adopted from his horrible wife, and she is a putrid specimen of womankind! Obviously this woman read Moll Flanders, or something. . . she deposits variously fathered children with Al like he's the bank.
Al is a Broadway playwrite, living in my favorite city, New York. He's a vegetarian, looks lovingly after his 5 or so kids, while trying to write a play, get over his awful, awful wife and have a relationship with Dyan Canon. Read: He's stressed!

I put this movie in my ever-growing "Sunday afternoon, I don't feel like doing anything because the weekend's almost over" category. It will make you feel a little better about Monday.