Mark IV

By John Skow

LITTLE MISS MARKER Directed and Written by Walter Bernstein

His nose is tuberous, his cheeks look as if they contained acorns, his eyes are little and mean. Walter Matthau, for it is he, allows these seedy features to slump into a look of distaste that is almost Fieldsian and says in a voice like that of a gear-grinding machine, "Put him down for a sawbuck, and don't let the kid out of your sight."

Matthau, who plays a hard-case bookie named Sorrowful Jones, has just violated his principles by offering credit to a tapped-out loser, taking in return only an

IOU, or marker, of dubious value. The marker in this case is the horseplayer's six-year-old daughter (ah, so, thinks the alert viewer, past whom no subtlety can be slipped, that's what the film's title means). Sorrowful does not deal in human flesh but just now he is distracted; a dim-witted killer named Blackie (Tony Curtis) is trying to muscle him into investing in a gambling casino.

Every time they film Little Miss Marker (the 1934 original, with Shirley Temple and Adolphe Menjou, a remake in 1949 called Sorrowful Jones, with Bob Hope, and another in 1963 called 40 Pounds of Trouble, with Tony Curtis in the Matthau role), there is a soggy moment when some of the air goes out of the farce. No getting around it; the despairing horseplayer must come to grief, because if he doesn't, Sorrowful won't have $10 worth of the live marker, who seems to have no real name and is always referred to as "the Kid," on his hands.

She is not a tiny tap dancer, like Shir ley Temple, with rouged cheeks and an anthropophagous smile; she is Sara Stimson, a cute, brown-haired, solemn-funny child. She is seven years old, and she does just fine. She and Matthau play a nice scene in his room, when she says she is hungry and he gives her some dry corn flakes in a bowl. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

"Goddam noise," says Sorrowful, and grudgingly gives her some milk. This is not really believable; nobody is that stingy, and nobody is slob enough to get corn flakes out of the box, as Matthau does, by sticking his paw in and grabbing a handful. It's just an actor doing a bit, and we are perfectly willing to watch him do it.

That's the way the film goes, not even momentarily credible, and not really funny, but expert and agreeable. Everything is first-class, starting with the imaginative titles, which show old toy autos and motorcycles scuttling about in front of a photomural of Manhattan in the '30s.

The supporting cast, including Bob Newhart, Julie Andrews and Brian Dennehy, is fine too. What is missing is the necessary conviction on the part of actors and director that the idea of using a little girl as a betting marker is the funniest thing they ever heard of. But you do not get that when you remake a remake.

--John Skow

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.