Northwest Herald from Woodstock, Illinois • Page 70

Page 6 SIDETRACKS NORTHWEST HERALD Friday, Febfuaiy 7, 1997 film Drescheiy Dalton work on-screen magic in 'Beautician and the Beast' By JEFFREY WESTHOFF The Northwest Herald Beautician and the Beast" reveals its agenda with a clever intra The Paramount logo turns into an animated cartoon moun- If r4 1 -J- Pochenko's gray castle. Without singing one song a good thing, considering Drescher's voice Joy wins over the children. For a former dictator, Boris also softens quickly, but the implication is that his prime minister, Kleist (Patrick Malahide), has always been the true hard-liner. However many groans the film's title may induce, writer Todd Graff produces a deft, witty script He includes plenty of one-liners tailored to Drescher', who commissioned the Elm as her "on hiatus" project between seasons of "The Nanny." "I just want to meet a guy who wears less jewelry than I do," Joy tells her mother before leaving for Europe. Drescher's braying delivery and her laugh, which sounds like a machine gun with adenoid problems, are instant tumoffs for some people.

But get used to the voice and you discover Drescher is a gifted comedienne. Her street-sawy career woman has become an endearing identifying character. Drescher has wonderful chemistry with Dalton, the erstwhile James Bond who reveals a knack for light comedy as the dictator in transition. Anyone who remembers Dalton in "The Rocketeer" knows this vaunted dramatic actor can be funny, maybe "Beautician" will give him the breakthrough he deserved in 1991. Beneath the jokes and the surface stereotypes (Boris enters as a Stalin lookalike) Dalton as he often does finds the humanity in his character.

Despite Graff warm script and the charming perfomances of Drescher and Dalton, "Beautician and the Beast" often is less than the sum of its parts. Lines that earn a chuckle ought to be getting a laugh. The weakness must lie in director Ken Kwapis That who doesn't give the script the visual oomph it deserves. The film runs long for a romantic comedy, the ending particularly drawn out While it's too bad "Beautician and the Beast" didn't receieve the tweaking that would have made it a better film, it's still a pleasant fairytale that shows princesses with higher expectations also can hve happily ever after. Come to think of ft, Snow White had an annoying voice, too.

icanngs www tainscape, and the camera pans down to a forest where Disneyesque creatures scamper about a glass-topped bier where a cartoon Fran Drescher is laid out like a poisoned Snow White. A handsome prince rides in, awakens her with a kiss and promises theyH live happily ever after. "I hardly even know you," this princess of Jewish-American extraction complains, riding off alone on his horse. As Drescher's character Joy Miller awak-ens from that dream, REVIEW we know this much about hen She wants a fairy tale romance, but no Prince Charming will win her heart with just one kiss. Joy doesn't even get a prince, but a former communist dictator Boris Pochenko (Timothy Dalton).

It doesn't take much head scratching to figure which Disney film "Beautician and the Beast" most resembles. Apart from "Beauty and the Beast," Drescher's film also draws on "The Sound of Music" and "The King and In her native Queens, Joy is a washout as a beautician. Unable to get any TV makeup jobs, she teaches beauty lessons at nighttime community college. Grushinsky (Ian McNiece), who works in the consular office of tiny (and fictional) Eastern European nation of Slovetzia, mistakes Joy for a fine arts teacher. He offers Joy the job as governess to President Pochenko's children, figuring she could help the younger generation adjust to the democracy creeping into the former Soviet bloc Trying to sell Slovetzia to Joy, Grushinksy says, "It's like Paris 50 years ago." Like Maria in "Sound of Music" and Anna in "The King and Joy finds herself fighting a two-front war with a pack of obstreperous children and their iron-willed father.

Her lime green and shocking pink Capri pants are the only splashes of color in Photo provided Fran Drescher (left) stars as Joy Miller, a New York City hairdresser who becomes a source of surprise and Joy to a strong-willed East European dictator, Boris Pochenko (Timothy Dalton, right). Straight-laced Dalton mes comedy on for size By JEFFREY WESTHOFF The Northwest Herald I knew (Fran Drescher) was a terrific comedienne and a very sexy lady. imothy Dalton the former James Bond who also has played Heath-cliff and Mr. Rochester and is most associated on stage with Eugene O'Neill and Shakespeare is con chauvinist you ever met" Hair choices helped make the character. Dalton marches on screen with a Stalin mustache he noted most dictators have mustaches- and his hair cropped short and spiked "For me, it was like a dog with his hackles up." He didn't have his hackles up during the interview.

Dressed in a charcoal gray slacks and suit coat over a slate gray polo shirt, Dalton, 50, looked smashing. As he spoke his native Welsh occasionally poked through a cultured English accent Dalton's lips often curled into a Chesire grin of contentment If he regrets falling into relative obscurity after his 1989 Bond film, "licence to Kill," it doesn't show. Timothy Dalton Actor someone's eyes, you know they are right" Dalton said, "and then they wUl be right 100 percent of the time." Drescher's character, Joy Miller, plays a beautician mistaken for a teacher then hired to instruct the children of Dalton's character, President Boris Pochenko. They're the type of movie couple who bicker furiously before realizing they're perfect for each other. Dalton said filming those early arguments with Drescher was fun.

"It's like a really good game of table tennis." He also enjoyed playing Boris, a former Eastern Bloc dictator grappling with the democratic spirit invading his country and, after Miller's arrival, his family. "You can have a ball with a part like that," DaftorfsaliirA dictator is also like the biggest sidered a Very Serious Actor. So he couldn't be happier someone finally cast him in a romantic comedy. Dalton plays a former communist dictator opposite Fran Drescher in "The Beautician and the Beast" He's the beast Sitting in a Chicago hotel suite to promote the film, Dalton said he was surprised to get the calL He had never met Drescher, who orgnrofoipptyijhf iilrh as a big-screca while her sitcom, "The Nanny" was on hiatus. "I knew she was a terrific comedienne and a very sexy lady," Dalton said.

But as soon as they began rehearsing, Dalton knew he and Drescher would make fine im-saeen parfaerLiThe minute you look in 4. v. vv -j. See DALTON, page 14.