Movies You Ought To See: Welcome Back Mr. McDonald
Back to Banana Oil
This entry was posted at
00:20 GMT on 22 February 2003
So, minutes before the live broadcast, the lead actress in this Japanese radio drama decides that her character, a simple fisherman's wife in a small town in Japan, ought to have the far more glamorous American name of "Mary-Jane."
The lead actor accuses her of trying to glam up her role and demands that she stick to the script. She refuses to perform if she can't change the name.
Thus he, quite naturally, demands the director give him an American name too. The director, driven to distraction, says all right, all right, which name would you like?
Which name? (The actor hadn't thought this far ahead!) He glances left, right, up down, everywhere, ANYwhere for inspiration, and sees --
a discarded McDonald's bag. He draws his shoulders back, widens his stance, and declares regally that his new character name shall be "Donald-o McDonald-o!"
And now you understand why this Japanese film you ought to see is called Welcome Back Mr. McDonald.
This is one of those rare instances where I prefer the American title to the original. In Japanese, the film is called Rajio no jikan, which I understands translates roughly to "Running Time."
The basic premise is simple, and elegant. The minutes leading up to a live radio drama broadcast, then the broadcast itself. Throw in a bucket of Murphy's Law, and you've got a damn fine comedy.
Beginning with a "contest winning script" by an amateur playwright and simple housewife -- the contest only had one entry, by the by -- working through actors' overstuffed egos, and constantly trying to keep up with last-minute changes and mistakes and still have the damned broadcast make sense, forget about being any good, that is the sum total of this movie.
It plays out in real time, just about entirely within the radio studio and offices (with two brief trips outside, and cuts to a truck driver listening to the broadcast).
It seems so simple. It is so simple, actually, yet my mind keeps wandering back to it fondly. I've only seen it once, you see, about two years ago. Yet it remains in the back of my mind, warm and happy, giving me a giggle when I've an idle moment. That's the mark of a good movie, I think.
I don't want to share too many jokes, but one or two more are called for.
Having both main characters with American names, the director and his usual writers decide to relocate the story to New York. They get some sound effects together to sound like New York, and one of the effects has a machine gun in the background. One of the writers leaps up and says "Machine guns! Machine guns mean Chicago!" So it gets relocated to Chicago.
But now the male lead can't be a fisherman lost at sea, because there's only Lake Michigan... which also means that the tidal wave at the climax needs to be changed!
No, I will share no more. You ought to see it.
I was going to gripe about the fact that this excellent film is unavailable in the States, but I find that I'm wrong, or soon will be.
In this case I am happy to be wrong. You can pre-order it from Amazon now, and it will be released on 18 March 2003 everywhere.