Friday, Nov. 04, 1966
Memory Lane
Mister Buddwing fritters away nearly two hours helping James Garner to identify himself. His name isn't really Buddwing. But soon after he wakes up in Central Park with a blank past, he shoots significant glances at a Budweiser truck (Budd) and a jet plane (wing). Easy. Thus begins, again, the old amnesia plot. Remember? This time around, forget it.
Jean Simmons as a drunken socialite, Suzanne Pleshette as a beddable actress and Angela Lansbury as a goodhearted chippy are among the memory prodders Garner encounters before he learns for sure that he is not a dangerous escaped lunatic being sought by the police. He is something much worse: a serious composer who has Sold Out to make tubs of money with a record company, only to find that the price of success is marital unrest in Mount Kisco.
Now and then the real composer stands up to pound out a refrain on the piano. "It's the slow movement from my jazz octet," Garner muses vaguely, although by the set of his shoulders he looks more like a split end hating himself for goofing a touchdown pass. Anyway, music distracts him from the dialogue, which runs to such sturdy old chestnuts as: "There are names for women like you," and raises the suspicion that the real escaped mental case has holed up somewhere and begun churning out scenarios about amnesia.
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