NOT TAILOR MADE: KINDERGARTEN COP, MY BLUE HEAVEN
In his book ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE, William Goldman has a chapter on writing star parts in scripts, and one of his lessons is to make the star part deliberately vague and flexible, so anybody could conceivably play. The reasoning is, if you make it too specific, and the star it's written for passes, you're up a creek without a paddle. The problem with that line of reasoning is all stars are not the same, and the proof comes in how they affect the rest of the movie. The part or the movie becomes tailored to affect their image, and what may have been essential and compelling material gets tossed aside (of course, it's not just stars; PRETTY WOMAN was changed to suit director Garry Marshall's tempermant). For me, two obvious examples in 1990 were Ivan Reitman's KINDERGARTEN COP, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Herbert Ross' MY BLUE HEAVEN, with Steve Martin.
There was a BBC documentary called NAKED HOLLYWOOD, where Reitman mentioned how he had come across the original script for KINDERGARTEN COP (by Murray Salem) and had it changed to fit him and Schwarzenegger. Even if I hadn't seen it that documentary, I would have known that from watching the movie. Arnold plays Detective John Kimble, who's hot on the trail of Cullen Crisp (Richard Tyson), a drug dealer. He's able to catch Crisp at the beginning, but the only witness to rely on is a junkie, and Crisp's mother (Carroll Baker), who makes Mrs. Bates look benign, effectively takes care of that little problem. Crisp has an ex-wife and son living in Oregon, but the department - wouldn't you know it - only has an old photograph of her. All they know for sure is where he goes to school. So Kimble and his new partner, Detective Phoebe O'Hara (Pamela Reed), go out to Oregon. The idea is, O'Hara, who used to be a substitute, will teach, while O'Hara looks for the ex-wife. Trouble is, O'Hara gets food poisoning on the plane, and can't teach, so Kimble has to play the teacher. Is there anybody who doesn't know how this is going to play out? Add to this that Kimble falls in love with a colleague, Joyce Palmieri (Penelope Ann Miller), even when he suspects she's the ex-wife.
Of course, predictability by itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. And I won't deny this comedy/thriller does have some bright spots. Chief among them is Reed, who's wonderful, and fully rounded. Yes, her food poisoning seems awfully convenient, but it's part of a character trait - she loves to eat, and is in fact engaged to a chef (Bob Nelson) - not just a plot device. And she's hysterical when she passes herself off as Kimble's sister Ursula to bring Joyce and Kimble together. Miller is quite winning as Joyce, and actually has believable chemistry with Arnold. And the early moments Arnold has with the kids - when he's out of his league - are actually well done. For the most part, the kids aren't made overly cute (though the kid who knows more than he should about sex is kind of obvious).
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