User Reviews

I AM A HUGE MAUREEN O'HARA FAN. There--I've said it, and now you'll know why this review will be biased.

It was a few years back, late '90s, and I had just seen "McLintock!" over at my grandparents house. My grandfather was a huge John Wayne fan, and he watched the movie constantly. I love the Duke too, but I was amazed at Ms. O'Hara, who played his bitch of a wife. Not only was she gorgeous, but she could also beat the snot out of just about anybody (even the Duke himself) and look good doing it. That's a quality I wish I had, so I was quite taken with her. At any rate, I also managed to see "The Christmas Box" on TV, and I was a bona fide fan. While larking through Wal-Mart, I saw this movie--"Only the Lonely." It was a bargain video, only about $7, so I was all over it.

The plot has been discussed at length--John Candy (Danny) falls in love with Ally Sheedy, only mom Maureen doesn't think it's an appropriate match. One of the jarring highlights of this movie comes when Mom From Hell meets Girlfriend From Funeral Home--she sees her, turns to John Candy and says, very matter-of-factly, "Where are her breasts?" What a Mom thing to say--it even manages to make YOU feel uncomfortable. Like it's YOUR mother and you're anticipating how the evening will turn out. Makes me squirm just thinking about it. Not surprisingly, the dinner doesn't go so well--how could it when you're dining with Medusa? Seriously though, Maureen O'Hara's character quite frequently seems to be a HORRIBLE person with no regards for the feelings of others. She's callous, arrogant, and impatient, yet I would love to meet her. An example of her temperament comes early in the movie. She's having coffee with Danny, and she's telling him how healthy she is and how well she can see. All the while she's pouring orange juice into her coffee. When this is pointed out to her, she exclaims, "Damned cartons! They're all decorated the same." Total, prompt, upfront denial of her inadequacy. It isn't her fault, it's the carton maker's lack of imagination that is the problem.

The summary quote is my favorite line from the movie, and I've learned to mimic Maureen O'Hara's delivery of it quite well. When Danny tells her he can't help with the trick-or-treaters because he has a date, this is her retort. It just sounds hilarious when you hear it. The Halloween conversation between John Candy and Maureen O'Hara is, I think, the best in the movie. She paints herself as a poor helpless old lady, only we know better. John Candy's character, Danny, has a tendency to imagine his mother stuck in fatal situations (can ya blame him?), and his overactive imagination causes the friction in his relationship with Ally Sheedy. It also provides some amusingly goofy sequences where accidents that wouldn't happen to anyone happen to Maureen. (POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD.) She falls through a manhole AND gets murdered by a trick-or-treating homicidal maniac. Each time her dying words illustrate her selflessness (which of course she doesn't have)--after the manhole incident, she says "I hope you enjoyed your baseball game, Danny." Who can guilt you into submission better than your mother? This is a great movie to watch with your family, because it just might make everyone feel better about their mothers. After all, you could have Danny's.