Robert J. Maxwell
In the middle of World War II, in the absence of many men from the usual breeding pool in Los Angeles, Sonny Wisecarver (Patrick Dempsey), a fifteen-year-old boy who is tall for his age, runs off with two grown women. Woman number one is six years older than he is, and dim witted and horny. Woman number two is ten years older, and horny and dim-witted.The first time it's with Thalia Balsam, the common-law wife of a great bruiser named Carlo and the mother of two babies. They get married in Yuma, spend a night together, and get caught. The love affair is broken up by the stern and cynical judge who is not influenced by Sonny's apparent charm.The second time, he runs away from his job in a tuna-processing plant with the wife of a overseas Marine. This time there's no question of love on the part of either party. They get caught, the affair is broken up, the same judge now sends Sonny to a camp run by the California Youth Authority. Sonny doesn't like the camp and runs away.With all these tabloid headlines, Sonny becomes a hero -- dubbed "The Woo Woo Kid" -- and all the restless young women salivating over him. He's "the perfect mate" who really "knows how to make love", say the papers. "He's done it again!", says the Newsreel voice.At first, my impression of Sonny Wisecarver was that he was just a dumb high-school kid who committed a foolish and impulsive act, running away from home and from school with a pretty woman he had a crush on. But, listening to his ironic and self-pitying narration, I began to think he might be one of those people who hunger so rabidly for attention that they'll take a nose dive off the Empire State if a camera is rolling.Then, with his escape from the corrections facility, the clinical picture became a little clearer. He seemed less like a wayward and naive teen ager and more like a good example of what's now called "anti-social personality, socialized type." A generation ago he would have been called a "sociopath" and before that a "psychopath." His stimulus hunger takes him wherever whimsy dictates. And meanwhile he's "laying pipe", as he puts it.The writers and director try their damnedest to make us like Sonny. Like Forrest Gump, he seems at once good-natured, generous, stupid, and perceptive. Whether you'll yield to those demands depends on your ability to swallow some scenes that are obviously contrived for the purpose of making the film itself likable and up tempo. For instance, when Sonny leaps off a train on which he's been identified as a fugitive, he runs at full fifteen-year-old speed down a rural road pursued by ladies in high heels. The scene is ludicrous, but whether a given viewer buys it or not is problematic. And it raises the question of what else has been falsified for the sake of promoting our identification with this poor love-sick child.Dempsey is adequate, but he's outmatched by both of his female partners. Thalia Balsam, Martin's daughter, captures the defeated but not hopeless, impoverished wife perfectly. She's big-eyed and sweet and speaks with an endearing lisp. After she's out of the picture by order of the court, the writers wisely give us a shot of her wounded expression while reading about Sonny's second adventure. See, for her, it really MAY have had something to do with "love". And Beverly D'Angelo as the second kid-napper outclasses Dempsey as the defiant and aggressively sexual, cheating wife of the Marine. The direction is functional, the musical score is all 1944 big band and Billy Holiday, and the production design by Dennis Gassner is evocative. One shot shows Balsam's fingernails painted a deep scarlet -- not the glossy, long, claw-like shrimp-pink of a Hollywood actress, but the clipped and gnawed fingernails of a working girl wearing cheap-looking polish. In a way it's a pretty distasteful movie. I don't mean that to refer to anything remotely connected with the sex or the affection, but with the fact that this movie tries to make a heroic figure out of someone who has little regard for his parents, his friends, or his own future. Doing deviant stuff isn't necessarily funny. Taking off without explanation from home and school leaves baffled and worried parents behind. Balsam's character winds up betrayed. D'Angelo's husband is cuckolded. And it's all a big joke?
Pepper Anne
In the Mood is like a 1940s version of Loverboy, which also starred Dempsey in the role of a young kid who manages to 'woo' older women while desperately trying to make things work with a girl his own age.
For those rent the video version, you'll get the mini-documentary of Sonny Elsworth Wisecarver, the man who's life 'In the Mood' is supposed to be based on. I'm not sure if this is shown during television broadcasts of the movie. But, even with the documentary of real-life Elsworth, it still seems hard to believe that the Woo Woo Kid shared the headlines with Hitler (the movie takes place during the second world war) unless of course, they were just small town headlines. It is a nice romantic comedy. Wisecarver (Dempsey) narrates his days as a love struck 15 year-old who's wild romances become exaggeratingly probed by the press and law enforcement, making him the idol of young teenagers, the grievance of adults, and earns him the nickname, the 'Woo Woo Kid.' All he wanted was to meet a nice girl his own age. But that seems like one tough task for Wisecarver to accomplish. It all begins with a marriage to a 21 year-old married woman who Dempsey tries to help save from a rotten, abusive husband. After making the headlines, Wisecarver is the target of all the older ladies looking to get their hand on the romantic, but naive young man.
It is a funny little film and one you'll likely enjoy if you've like Dempsey's and Brian MacNamara's (he plays Wisecarver's friend) early 80s movies. Especially good in this movie are Michael Constantine (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) as Wisecarver's clueless dad, and Beverly D'Angelo as one of Wisecarvers girlfriends (sort of). It is a funny idea that a young boy's love life is so ridiculously probed by everyone as he's just trying to get along.
dahfu
I must have watched this film close to ten times by now and I've enjoyed it every time. The script is charming, the acting great, the direction masterful and the sense of time and place very convincing. To top it off, it's even a true story. I love this film and I wish they'd bring it out on DVD.
