Alan Metter gave comedians room to make familiar material work. We recommend Back to School for Rodney Dangerfield's timing and the film's warmth, with the caveat that Metter is better at serving a performer than refreshing a predictable story.
Fi1m perspective
Rodney Dangerfield delivers another one-liner in Back to School (1986), and the predictable college plot can wait. Alan Metter lets the comedian's confidence do much of the work, giving us time to enjoy the delivery rather than demanding much interest in the coursework. We laughed at the nerve of those one-liners, which Dangerfield delivers as though their success were never in question. The film is worth an evening, provided nobody has come for a surprising story.
Metter's feature debut was the teen dance comedy Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985), with Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt in early starring roles. Before that came music videos and television comedy specials, including work with Steve Martin and Dangerfield. It is a background that makes his attention to performers unsurprising, though Back to School also shows the value of a supporting cast. Metter chose its key supporting players, and Sally Kellerman helps keep the comedy companionable when its humour gets blunt.
In that film, the screenplay by Harold Ramis, PJ Torokvei, Steven Kampmann and William Porter offers stronger individual lines than developments in the story. Metter keeps supplying jokes through the familiar stretches, a sensible response to the material he has. But some gags are pushed harder than their rewards justify, and the situations remain predictable however confidently the actors approach them. We like his willingness to let a performer find the laugh; we would like it more if the surrounding comedy were less dependent on that skill.
Moving (1988) put Richard Pryor at the centre, while the television comedy Working Tra$h (1990) paired George Carlin and Ben Stiller. Metter cast Stiller despite the actor differing from the original conception of the part, suggesting a practical eye for what a performer could contribute. Later came Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994) and the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen vehicle Billboard Dad (1998).
Metter described directing in terms of what an audience needed to see or hear next. That is a useful concern for a comedy director, although a succession of workable jokes cannot supply every surprise a story needs. Start with Back to School, where the leading man usually makes the shortcomings easy to forgive.
Biography
Alan Metter was an American film director. He directed the 1986 comedy Back to School, starring Rodney Dangerfield, as well as Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985) and Moving (1988). His other credits include Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994), Billboard Dad (1998) and Passport to Paris (1999).
Metter was born on 19 December 1942 in Sharon, Massachusetts, and died on 7 June 2020 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He began his career in advertising before directing music videos and television specials, including The Winds of Whoopie (1983), which he also produced.
