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Points of View
10 at 25: Still Moore's MasterpieceBritish actor commanded us to laugh, and we did.Tragedy is difficult, comedy virtually impossible. Human history offers sufficient evi-dence of that. Within our lifetime, however, we have been privileged to witness comic genius which, if only for a short time, commanded us to laugh out loud.Twenty five years ago, Blake Edwards released 10 to an adoring public that made it one of the top-grossing movies in 1979. An exercise in pseudo-biography (about a composer dealing with a midlife crisis) 10 is best remembered as the film debut of Bo Derek in braids. Few recall the cast included Edwards' wife, Julie Andrews, along with Dee Wallace (in a touching pre-ET role), Brian Dennehy (as a bartender in an idyllic tropical retreat for newlyweds) and Robert Webber (in a role that in another decade would have gone to Gig Young or Charles Grodin).With all the attention heaped upon Derek and Maurice Ravel, 10 would have been forgotten without the performance of its star, Dudley Moore. It was Moore who gave animation to the Edwards' burned-out protagonist; made the script come to life when he stumbled across the limousine carrying Derek to her wedding.Stunned by the beauty of this unknown bride, Moore follows the limo to a church where he tries to unobtrusively observe the ceremony. For his efforts, he receives a painful sting on his nose from a bumblebee and a ticket for running his vehicle into a Beverly Hills police car. Later, he returns to the church, seeking information on the newlyweds. To do so, he must endure a minister entirely without talent who has written the world's worst song and suffer the flatulence of Mrs. Kissel, a 200-year-old maid, who fails to balance tea cups.Having at last secured the name of the girl's father (a prominent oral surgeon), Moore undergoes extensive dental repairs (six teeth) before he is set free. He also rolls halfway down the side of his Hollywood Hills home. Julie Andrews and the police interpret his painful, mumbled efforts to communicate by phone as obscenities. Thus, bumped from the path of reason by the capricious boot of fate, Moore travels to a honeymoon hideaway where he collapses in a drunken stupor to the music of a mariachi band.In the funniest scene in the film, Moore eventually risks going into the burning sun and a temperature of 120 degrees. He wears a sweat suit, but no shoes, as a waiter carries him piggyback into the coastal waters between two potbellied Americans who hold mixed drinks topped by swizzle sticks. As the three stand there, in the middle of the water, the men reminisce. The friendly one points out that the other American was in the marines in World War II. To which Moore says something about having served with the RAF. The marine scowls, saying, "Why, I thought you had to be English to serve in the RAF.""I am English," Moore replies.The Marine looks confused, then responds, "That's OK."And the three idiots continue to stand in the water.Moore's celebrated scenes with Derek, coming after he orchestrates the at-sea rescue of her dim-witted groom, are almost anti-climactic by comparison. Suffice it to say, Derek reveals her fondness for another classical piece by Serge Prokofiev. In the end, Moore returns to Andrews. And they all live happily ever after.Were that true in Moore's life. A product of the sharp-edged British comedy of the 1970s that produced the Goon Show, Black Adder and Monty Python, Moore starred in a number of forgettable films (Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies, The Wrong Box, Foul Play, Bedazzled, Blame It on the Bellboy, Arthur, and yes, even Wholly Moses, with another underappreciated co-star Richard Pryor).Moore's talents were fully exploited in only one film -- 10. Like Chaplin, the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges, Moore commanded us to laugh -- and we did.But there was more to this gifted man than throw-away roles in Santa Claus: The Movie or Mickey and Maude. As he sat at the piano, late in 10, playing his own composition ("It's Easy to Say"), there was true passion and pathos, the hallmarks of genius.Moore died in March 2002 after battling a series of strokes and progressive supranuclear palsy, a severe form of Parkinson's disease. Near the end, he lamented, "Music is my main comfort now. But it is difficult to know that all the keys are there to be played and I can't play them." In the end, the man who gave so many happy moments to others could not use his hands at his beloved piano."