Tootsie

TOOTSIE (15)

D: Sydney Pollack

Columbia (Sydney Pollack & Dick Richards)

US 1982

116 mins

Comedy

W: Larry Gelbart & Murray Shisgal

DP: Owen Roizman

Ed: Fredric Steinkamp & William Steinkamp

Mus: Dave Grusin

PD: Peter Larkin

Cos: Ruth Morley

Dustin Hoffman (Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels), Jessica Lange (Julie), Teri Garr (Sandy), Dabney Coleman (Ron), Charles Durning (Les), Bill Murray (Jeff), Sydney Pollack (George Fields), George Gaynes (John Van Horn), Geena Davis (April)

Dustin Hoffman plays Michael Dorsey, an unemployed actor, nefariously difficult to direct and told by his dismissive agent that nobody on Broadway or in Hollywood wants to take the risk of working with him.

Desperate for work, he goes to an audition for a daytime soap dressed as woman and is immediately hired by the unknowing directors, later becoming the talk of the town for 'her' sassy performances. Things get even more complicated for Michael when he falls in love with one of his co-stars, but she only knows him as Dorothy Michaels.

This classic 1980's comedy could have gone the other way with it's subject material, resorting to bad taste or easy jokes, but instead is full of great dialogue and characters on a par with the similarly themed Some Like It Hot (qv).

It's well publicised that there were many on-screen spats between Hoffman and director Sydney Pollack, two perfectionists both fighting over how best the vision should be realised. In the end, it all worked out, and whoever got their own way did a brilliant job.

9/10