The Impostors

This wonderful 1930s-style comedy was overlooked at the box office. Since it was so obscure, I’m using slot number ten as a bully pulpit to tell you about it. The thirties gave us some of the best comedy on film, most notably the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy. Tucci wrote himself an old-fashioned comedy with a setup right out of the thirties: two starving, scheming actors stow away on a cruise ship peopled with celebrities and scoundrels. The plot is not too far from the Marx Brothers’ Monkey Business, and it is an odd coincidence that “Stan & Ollie” are the stars (Stanley Tucci and a wonderful Oliver Platt). Everybody gets to overact and, more importantly, everyone looks like they’re having the time of their lives.