It struck me, watching Movie, Movie, that a parody is rewarding roughly in proportion to the pleasure originally conveyed by the model. This film, as everyone must know by now, is a double feature such as you might have seen at any neighborhood house some forty-five years ago. The first movie, "Dynamite Hands," is a sentimental prize-fight melodrama; the second, "Baxter's Beauties of 1933," is a sentimental backstage musical romance. Both are only slight exaggerations of the type, the humor deriving, in part from naivete revisited, but more from a persistent resort to infelicities of dialogue that wear none too well….

Larry Gelbart and Sheldon Keller wrote the screenplays. I'm sure they also laughed themselves silly as they roasted the chestnuts. I chuckled some, I confess, but it was a long two hours. Parody needs a substantial target—as, for example, Franklin Roosevelt was a sitting duck, but no...