The Curse of the Jade Scorpion stars director Woody Allen ("Small Time Crooks") as a wolfish, crackerjack 1940's insurance investigator named C.W. Briggs. There's no case he hasn't solved, not even the stolen Picasso ingeniously rolled up inside a telescope ("It took me five minutes just to find the nose!" he quips). But Briggs might be forced to give up bragging rights to being the best in the biz when he sways under the spell of The Jade Scorpion, and finds himself clueless in his most puzzling case to date.
The CEO of the company, Chris Magruder (Dan Ackroyd, "Pearl Harbor"), has hired his mistress, Betty-Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt, "What Women Want") as an efficiency expert to make improvements around the office, but all she really succeeds in doing is irritating and upsetting Briggs, who liked things just the way they were. The two verbally spar ala Tracy and Hepburn (while maintaining Allen's signature style) throughout the film. They're attracted to each other, and yet they despise each other. Allen is his usual bumbling anti-hero self, and Hunt, despite some clunker dialogue, holds her own as the brainy bitch (she says to him, "I'm smarter, faster and I can see right through you -- you're right to feel threatened by me.").
One night, while out on the town with their co-workers, Briggs and Fitzgerald are chosen as volunteers to go onstage with the performing hypnotist Voltan Polgar (David Ogden Stiers, "Tomcats"). Polgar mesmerizes Briggs and Fitzgerald with a jade scorpion on a string, making them think they are deeply in love. The acting and set-up reminded me very much of an Abbott and Costello skit, but it worked. Because Briggs set up the security systems for the wealthy who insure with his company, Polgar keeps the ruse going after the party is over, using the still-hypnotized Briggs to steal jewelry from those rich clients and bring the goods to him. Of course, Briggs remembers nothing afterwards, and he unknowingly winds up chasing the culprit who is actually himself.
Charlize Theron ("Wakin' Up In Reno") and Elizabeth Berkeley ("Becoming Dick") have small roles -- the former a brazen blond bombshell, the latter a pretty but mousy secretary. Needless to say, Briggs is hot after both of them, and needless to say, he beds neither. He's unwittingly saving himself for the woman he really loves Fitzgerald. Or is he just under the spell of the Jade Scorpion?
While I liked the movie, I did find the stage-production look and feel to be somewhat disconcerting. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion could easily have been a play, and was acted and motioned as such. But, it's pure 40's screwball, with a jazzy feel and silly, funny dialogue. That makes it one of the better Allen offerings of recent years.
The CEO of the company, Chris Magruder (Dan Ackroyd, "Pearl Harbor"), has hired his mistress, Betty-Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt, "What Women Want") as an efficiency expert to make improvements around the office, but all she really succeeds in doing is irritating and upsetting Briggs, who liked things just the way they were. The two verbally spar ala Tracy and Hepburn (while maintaining Allen's signature style) throughout the film. They're attracted to each other, and yet they despise each other. Allen is his usual bumbling anti-hero self, and Hunt, despite some clunker dialogue, holds her own as the brainy bitch (she says to him, "I'm smarter, faster and I can see right through you -- you're right to feel threatened by me.").
One night, while out on the town with their co-workers, Briggs and Fitzgerald are chosen as volunteers to go onstage with the performing hypnotist Voltan Polgar (David Ogden Stiers, "Tomcats"). Polgar mesmerizes Briggs and Fitzgerald with a jade scorpion on a string, making them think they are deeply in love. The acting and set-up reminded me very much of an Abbott and Costello skit, but it worked. Because Briggs set up the security systems for the wealthy who insure with his company, Polgar keeps the ruse going after the party is over, using the still-hypnotized Briggs to steal jewelry from those rich clients and bring the goods to him. Of course, Briggs remembers nothing afterwards, and he unknowingly winds up chasing the culprit who is actually himself.
Charlize Theron ("Wakin' Up In Reno") and Elizabeth Berkeley ("Becoming Dick") have small roles -- the former a brazen blond bombshell, the latter a pretty but mousy secretary. Needless to say, Briggs is hot after both of them, and needless to say, he beds neither. He's unwittingly saving himself for the woman he really loves Fitzgerald. Or is he just under the spell of the Jade Scorpion?
While I liked the movie, I did find the stage-production look and feel to be somewhat disconcerting. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion could easily have been a play, and was acted and motioned as such. But, it's pure 40's screwball, with a jazzy feel and silly, funny dialogue. That makes it one of the better Allen offerings of recent years.