GOLDIE HAWN as Judy Benjamin ion PRIVATE BENJAMIN (1980)

GOLDIE HAWN

It’s hard to truly appreciate a daft comedic performance. We’re all too quick to excuse the comedic and embrace the dramatic. We forget what a terrific actress Goldie Hawn truly is cause she’s so identified with making us giggle and she makes it all look so gosh darn easy. My brother gets mad at me every time I talk about how genius Goldie Hawn is in this film but it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to.

She’s Goldie, as common as our refrigerator or new cell phone. We know what we are getting when we go see a Goldie film. We expect it. We want it. And no Goldie performance crystallized why she made us fall in love with her than this film. She makes all her choices around: 'my character will have fabulous bangs' and works from there, but so what. What she does with a line and to her other actors is pure magic.

Starting from 'Laughin' to 70’s bedroom romp comedies, FOUL PLAY to SHAMPOO. When we hear that she wanted consideration for 'Sophies Choice' and 'Frances' – we smile - we laugh but not to her face. She still wants one more leading lady opportunity, and I'm sure she'll get it someday... with her bangs and all her other charms. We snicker at the notion, even the consideration, that she could have been Sophie. Really Golds? But Goldie Hawn is a truly gifted talent never-the-less, in comedy and drama. Look at the two dramatic moments in Private Benjamin: when talking to the girls at the campfire or showing her dead husband in heaven one of their wedding gifts. She can bring a tear to the eye and put a lump in your throat faster than any player out there. Signs that it’s not all gags and winks and eye-brows… and ass (she would want me to mention her ass – she loves her ass).

Nominated for an OSCAR – she must have known she didn’t stand a chance next to Sissy Spacek and Mary Taylor Moore for their two powerhouse signature roles but she already won for Catus Flower but it’s still a big achievement. The first comedy nomination in a leading category in years.

Vincent Caby said “Miss Hawn, even when she must look sort of wilted, like the figure on the top of a week-old wedding cake, is totally charming as the bemused suburban princess who forsakes a house with a live-in maid, her membership in the country club and her role as man's best friend to find life's meaning in the service. She's an enthusiastic farceur, but her characterization is so firmly based that she can slip from slapstick to romantic comedy and back without losing a beat.”

Judy Benjamin is a Barbie Doll-like bride whose attempt at a second marriage (she was divorced after six weeks in the first) is cut short when her new husband is felled by a heart attack while making love to her on their wedding night. Judy's domineering father (Sam Wanamaker) treats her like a child so she turns to a surrogate dad who just happens to be an army recruiter. Before she can blink her eyes, our heroine is in basic training in Biloxi, Mississippi. Can Judy find herself at age 29 ( Ok we’ll let that line slide) and win some self-esteem through achievement? Or will she fall back into old patterns of reliance upon men as savior figures? The men who want to make all her choices for her like dear old dad, Colonel Clay Thornbush (Robert Webber), and Henri Tremont (Armand Assante), a French doctor. Even, Captain Doreen Lewis (Eileen Brennan) pressures Judy to conform to regular U.S. Army standards.

Those early scenes when Judy arrives on base you want them to last forever. Which maybe why they tried turning the basic training camp into a series.

The signature scene – a scene that I have probably watched a 100 times easy ( Im cuing it up at this very moment I loved it so much) is the moment where she stands to tell Captain Lewis that Army must have made some mistake. It just kills me. Like the best Woody Allen or Laurel and Hardy. From Chaplin to the brilliance of the best comedies ever. These two gifted actors: Eileen Brennan and Goldie Hawn fight and relish each little moment and listen to each other and absorb and ignore and react and go for what they want harder and quicker than any pair ever on screen. It’s true movie magic, 'lighting in a bottle' as they say. Scenes that like don’t just happen – they happen only between gifted comedians and serious dramatic actors. That truly can do both.

The spoiled little girl goes up against a woman who’s most likely fought and chewed her way to every post, every promotion. It’s a match made in comedy heaven those two Captain Lewis and Private B and the movie loses it luster when we lose our antagonist Captain Lewis. But those battle with the two of them together are priceless. They seem connected. A gifted comedian in a scene has to be both generous and selfish. Available to the other actor but hard pressed about what he or she wants. When Judy gets up and refuses to sign herself back over to her father (and big sunglasses wearing sobbing mother – fantastic cameo by Barbara Barbie) – and stands a salutes Captain Lewis - We feel the change happen deep within Goldies

Very funny, very talented – shes not afraid to the be the butt of the jokes or lead the way. All hail Goldie Hawn. Take a close look at the ending too: Goldies face. Beaming as she throws up her veil into the wind. Her face goes through the entire film. Beginning, middle and end. Hitting very clear all the points she just traveled. Crystal clear and shiny. Underneath, it's her also commenting on her own persona, and her characters journey. It's a very pro-feminist piece of film-making. And then there she goes walking off into an unknown future...a better world without marriage. Something Ms.Hawn took to heart. We may never have another like her. Her daughter may be talented and follow closely in her mothers shoes and even share the same DNA – but she doesn’t come close. No one ever will.


I can see her now, reading my script with Kurt laying next to her. I call her up, "So Goldie what do you think?" 'Well I know know one thing...She'll definitely have bangs. Mustard bangs in little pieces'. I wish...