Lying For Laughs

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

TITLE: HOUSESITTER

DIRECTOR: FRANK OZ

WRITER: MARK STEIN

THE BOTTOM LINE: Mental rather than physical farce, but good summer fun once it gets rolling.

It begins slowly, because the filmmakers couldn't find a way to jump-start their comic premise. It ends with a conventional promise of happily-ever- aftering, even though its cute central psychopath remains entirely uncured. But in the middle, Housesitter develops an infectious and quite original giddiness: it may be the first movie ever to play congenital lying for laughs and more or less get away with it.

They meet morose. Davis (Steve Martin) is an architect unappreciated by his firm and by a staid girlfriend (Dana Delany). He has built the latter a house in their hometown that suits his dreams but not hers. Gwen (Goldie Hawn) is a waitress of dubious but, as she tells it, colorful background. In the course of a one-night stand she learns of the house, standing as empty as her life, and decides to fill up both.

At which point the fun finally begins, and it turns out to be both an upbeat variation on the David Letterman nightmare and a mental rather than a physical farce. She simply moves into the house, inventing a secret marriage to Davis complete with details so preposterous that everyone, including his parents (Julie Harris and Donald Moffat), believes her. The assumption is that no one could possibly concoct a tale as wild as the one she tells.

Better still, after Davis discovers her ruse, he allows himself to be drawn into it; he hopes jealousy will warm his old girlfriend as his devotion never could. Before you know it, the fake marriage has turned into a troubled one, with the local minister providing earnest counseling and virtually the whole town worrying about those two nice kids trying to work out their problems.

Kids? Hmm. The stars are, frankly, a trifle mature for their roles. But ultimately the trade-off -- experienced deftness for youthful daffiness -- works to Housesitter's advantage. It never spins out of control. Hawn's shrewd ditsiness sets a lively pace, but she also finds something real and appealing in an unlikely figure. Martin's role is essentially reactive, but he has his moments, notably a hilariously infantile attempt to seduce his old flame, whom Delany plays straight as a board but much funnier.

Following What About Bob?, another film in which certifiable craziness intrudes on bucolic normality to funny effect, you'd have to say that director Frank Oz has staked out a comic country all his own. It's not a bad place to visit in the summertime.