Just You and Me, Kid

Moviecut—Just You and Me, Kid

source: Just You and Me, Kid

I remember this film because of its seemingly-constant run on HBO in the early 80s, although it seems to have faded from public memory at this point. True, it's merely a bloated sitcom with a saccharine story, but there are some humorous moments and it's a fairly innocuous timekiller. The setup? Brooke Shields plays Kate, a teenage runaway with a "vicious" drug dealer on her tail (this is a PG movie, so he's not too vicious). He recruits her to make a pickup for him, but instead she runs off with his money; he bursts into her apartment while she's locked in the bathroom, and she escapes through the bathroom window wrapped only in a towel, which she loses in her flight. She winds up in a grocery store parking lot, where she hides in the trunk of George Burns's car. Stuck with the fact that he's got a naked teenage girl in his vehicle, he has no choice but to give her shelter. Despite Brooke's initial stubbornness, the expected warmhearted relationship develops and some convoluted hi-jinks play out as Burns tries to hide Brooke in his house without anybody catching on. A pair of nosy yuppies next door, as well as Burns's overly concerned daughter, threaten to expose the secret and blow Kate's cover. George Burns is just being himself, so if you enjoy him anywhere else, you'll probably enjoy him here. The other actors in the movie have a little trouble playing off him. Brooke Shields is clearly not a juvenile delinquent; she's way too pretty for that, and we never really see her doing anything bad on screen. She has the impossible job of trying to seem as if she'd be mixed up with a sleazy drug dealer, yet appealing enough to make the audience identify with her. Lorraine Gary is also here in another impossible role, this one as George's daughter, frustrated with Burns's odd ways and seemingly anxious to have him declared senile. A few sequences really work, like a funny bit when Burns has a bunch of his friends over for a card game, and they have to hide Kate from the police and Burns's daughter. Never mind the idea of a group of elderly men hiding a teenage girl from the police. The illogical ways the plot unfolds actually provide a lot of this movie's weird charm, sometimes nothing makes sense. For instance, Burns (in an obvious nod to Gracie) has a deceased wife who used to be part of his vaudeville act, but he also has a male companion who has been institutionalized--and at one point Brooke razzes him for being gay (actually her term is "a fag"; why is it that certain types of hateful slurs are seen as commonplace in films?). Part of the movie's intended emotional payoff comes from Burns and his friend being reunited, and of course Brooke will need a home and a way to stay "in the family", so Burns recruits his hypersensitive daughter to--get this--ADOPT Brooke, whom she never even meets on-screen! Despite this strangeness, the film is a harmless comedy that will bring a few smiles, especially for fans of George Burns. His endless string of one-liners should satisfy any fan of his dry humor.

Overall, Leonard Stern's breezy "Just You and Me, Kid" is a funny movie. It doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not, it just goes all in for the humor without insulting the viewer's intelligence. However, there's a questionable scene or two. Brooke Shields's character appears naked in a couple of scenes, even in scenes with George Burns's character. It should go without saying that it's cringe-inducing for an underage girl to appear * while co-starring with a fully clothed elderly man. Would they put a naked teenage boy onscreen with a fully clad elderly woman? Okay, so that's a side note. Otherwise, it's an enjoyable movie. It keeps the comedy coming with Burns's perfect style and timing. Also starring are Burl Ives, Lorraine Gary (Mrs. Brody in "Jaws"), Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz"), Keye Luke (Charlie Chan's #1 son and also the shop owner in "Gremlins") and Carl Ballantine. A fun time all around, despite that one unpleasant scene.

If you like George Burns' brand of humor you'll get a kick out of him here as the nonplussed octogenarian reacting almost mundanely as he discovers the naked Brooke Shields in the trunk of his Pierce Arrow. Bill Grant (Burns) can't let on to the grocery store box boy that this isn't just another one of his illusions. No one will accuse this flick of being a great movie but it's an entertaining hour and a half or so of understated humor about an unlikely friendship. I like the way Burns' character takes everything in good stride and manages to turn the tables on everyone who thinks he's half way to senile, including neighbors, the cops and daughter Shirley (Lorraine Gray). The icing on the cake occurs when the picture offers up the 'no shirts gang' - four veteran character actors of a bygone era who stage a levitation with young Kate (Shields) as their prop to evade the police. You can tell the picture was made a good number of years before political correctness set in, as Shields' character feigns distress that Bill Grant might be gay. But you can't fault a picture that cloaks it's entertainment in mirrors and drapes and offers valuable life lessons like 'good enough is never good enough', 'memories don't belong in drawers', and 'you can't walk away from yourself'. Oh, and can't forget - 'they flew well but landed poorly'. I threw that last one in there because it sounded cool. You'll have to see the picture for the context.

This movie comes from a time when movies were still movies. No quick cuts, only one popular music track, but a good old fashioned story of a grandfatherly former Vaudevillian befriending a troubled teen. You've got to love George Burns. You just have to. There's no reason not to. To me his quips, even though I understood the humor when this movie hit the theatre, is more endearing and funnier now with more punch than when I first saw the film. That, and the humor is clean without being childish. It's smart without having to be high-minded. The script is witty and Burns' performance is on the money for a man of his caliber or character. And there's Brooke, who, unlike her later roles, actually does a pretty decent job of portraying the wayward teen. Brooke knows this girl's character and is given fairly decent direction as to how to portray her. If I had one complaint it's that dialogue, at times, seems a little too mature for Booke's character, but that's more of a fault of the old guard Hollywood screenwriters who channel themselves through the characters they pen. Veteran stars come in to play support roles making for a very likable hour and a half light comedy. The plot driving the story forward is a little hard, but socially responsible films function to show the pitfalls of possible criminal behavior, and how innocents (and not so innocent) get caught up in nefarious doings. As such we have a light tone for what could have been a hard look at teenage delinquency. George Burns and Brooke Shields actually have a pretty good chemistry here, almost that one wishes they had done a few more films together. Either way, the film is now out on DVD thanks to SONY and Columbia Pictures archives. Grab a copy and watch it on a lazy weekend afternoon. Enjoy.

This hidden gem makes a lot of modern "comedies" look like the wastes of time they are. This is social commentary farce at its best. A "street smart" teen girl who is in trouble with a criminal "boyfriend" getting her fanny pulled out of the fryer by a more than able but branded "senile" (even by his own daughter) older man. This film is a perfect look at where we are now and how younger generations need to sometimes stop and be silent before they cause more trouble. At 42, I can say that because I can see precisely where Kate went wrong and where Bill did everything right. LOL Now in all seriousness, this is a brilliant work, with an icon of the previous generation working with someone who would later become an icon of the next, in a light and breezy but very likable and coherent plot of a comedy. Two people with absurd individuals around them finding common ground, but his was supposed to be a bomb?? This film was made for an audience that had not matured yet, and now it is being seen by many as the classic it is.

Bill Grant (George Burns) is a retired lovable vaudeville star. He discovers a young naked Kate (Brooke Shields) hiding in his car truck. She's a runaway foster kid hiding from drug dealer John Demesta. His daughter Shirl wants him to sign over his finances before he gives it all away to his old vaudeville down-on-their-luck friends including his catatonic best friend Max. He's got nosy neighbors Stan and Sue. Kate tries to take off and twists her ankle. Shirl calls the cops but his poker buddies pull an old trick. I love George Burns doing his lovable old performer character. Brooke Shields was a good child star who develops great chemistry with the old-timer. I don't know why she has to be naked or pretend to be naked in almost movie. The biggest problem is the weirdly dangerous clunky drug story in between the funny bits. The tone is all over the place. The movie is definitely trying to be funny but the drug story is so cheesy dark that it screws the movie up.

I didn't see the movie Just You and Me Kid when it was in the theaters theaters and I know that this movie was hated by the professional movie critics and is thought of as a box office flop but as a teenager in the 80's I watched this movie on a pay movie channel and I thought it was good and I enjoyed Brooke Shields and George Burns and also Christopher Knight. The movie is about a runaway foster kid played by Brooke Shields who is on the run from a dangerous criminal and winds up being taken in by an old man played by George Burns and despite some violence and off color humor and language I thought this was a cute movie and I can't believe it's not on DVD and I can't believe that it was never even put out on VHS video tape and I hope it will be put on DVD. I would definitely think of buying it!

After his best friend Jack Benny passed away in 1974, George Burns took over his role in Herbert Ross's brilliant adaptation of 'The Sunshine Boys,' winning himself an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in the process. Burns enjoyed something of a career resurgence, going on to make five films in the next five years. 'Oh, God!' might be the best of the lot, or Martin Brest's 'Going in Style.' It certainly isn't 'Just You and Me, Kid,' a movie so misjudged, saccharine-sweet and predictable that watching it sometimes feels like a form of cruel and unusual punishment. Burns stars as a vaudevillian comedian whose quiet life is upended when he finds Brooke Shields in the trunk of his car, who is fourteen, naked and on the run. The kindly Burns agrees to shelter the girl, as the cartoonishly cruel drug-dealers she's escaped from are closing in. The two form a friendship as time marches steadily on, with outside forces constantly threatening to separate them and send Shields back to the criminals. Together, however, they may just take down the drug-dealers once and for all; if Burns and his magic tricks have any say in the matter. 'Just You and Me, Kid' is a poorly written, unimaginative and tonally muddled film that tries in vain to balance drama and light comedy. Leonard Stern's direction is uninspired- in fact, he doesn't seem to have directed the actors at all. Burns really just plays himself, which he's very good at, so it isn't a problem. Shields, though, was very young and could have probably used someone to guide her performance. As it is, she's ridiculously wooden and something of a talent vacuum- it's a pity that she didn't have a more hands-on director to help her, or a good script to work with. She and Burns have nothing interesting to do together except recite overly cutesy, maddeningly bland lines from the lackluster, predictable screenplay. The comedy is so weak and formulaic that the laughs just don't come. Strangely, the story is full of unnecessary darkness as well- like the inclusion of the drug-dealers- that is at odds with the tone of the rest of the film. There are also many cheap jokes about Burns relationship to Shields, which are really unpalatable, and the dialogue overall is stilted and trite. The supporting characters are all caricatures of little to no depth and the cinematography is flat and ugly. The most egregious aspect of the film is the fact that Burns is brilliant, and his scenes without Shields have a sad, gentle power. He is effectively playing himself- a widowed comedian in his eighties- and does so effectively. To see him alone going about his business- whether he's remembering his departed wife, visiting a comatose pal, singing a tune or entertaining youngsters with his magic tricks- may not be an original experience, but it is an entertaining one (as well as a glimpse of a better movie that could have been made instead of 'Just You and Me, Kid'). Burns was such a genuinely charming presence that when it's just him, the film almost works. Why the writers felt the need to destroy what could have been a simple comedy-drama about an aging comedian by concocting this Brooke Shields on-the-run story is unfathomable. Though Burns is terrific, this film is lazy, unfunny and disappointing. While young Shields' wooden performance in the film may not be her fault, it's still a serious problem- though even if she had the talents of a young Jodie Foster the film would still be a dud. The lack of originality from the director- and in the screenplay- doomed this film to the realm of mediocrity long before the cameras started rolling. 'Oh, God!' this is not.