Friday, November 04, 2005

Freaky Friday (Gary Nelson, 1976)

My friend Han-up said his daughters liked this film so much. I picked it up at local Warehouse and we watched it this evening. Well, it's reasonably good. The plot is around a super-natural quiproquo, or body exchange. The daughter is Jody Foster and considering this was released in 1976, hey this is the reverse side of her stunning Taxi Driver appearance.

But this film is all Disney and almost over-disneying that Volkswargen flic with what's his name, Herbie, no. 53! Unnecessary car chases and absurd destruction. Baseball is good to see from this hemisphere, and the middle-class mother smokes! This fact alone can tell us we are back in the 70s and the kids at school are exactly dressed that way.

So I liked it all right. Then I found out the one my friend mentioned was the 2003 Freaky Friday! The two are based on the same story but different screenplays. (The 1976 version was written byt the original author of the novel.) Well, it gives us a nice occasion for a comparative study of retelling!