So I Married an Axe Murderer is an early Mike Myers attempt at comedy that is somewhat of an unsuccessful experiment, but it still has lots of funny parts and is entertaining as long as you don't demand too much of it. Myers plays Charlie Mackenzie, a San Francisco poet, and he also plays his own father, Stuart Mackenzie, an abrasive Scotsman. The Scotsman character is one that he cooked up for Saturday Night Live, but while it didn't quite work out for SIMAAM (So I Married an Axe Murderer) it led to him doing the voice for the ogre Shrek, which is obviously based on his Scottish voice, and we all know how that worked out.
Strange but funny in a strange way, but also sort of funny in a ha ha ha way, is when Stuart Mackenzie sings pop hits from Scottish singers. The Bay City Rollers and Rod Stewart get the Stuart Mackenzie treatment, with the Do You Think I'm Sexy? lead guitar break done on bag pipe. Bizarre! The most effective use of music in SIMAAM is a cover of Here She Comes with stellar production done by the Boo Radleys (you have to like a band named after the scary character played by Robert Duvall in To Kill a Mockingbird). The song is the theme for Harriet, and illustrates the intense feelings she evokes in Charlie.
Nancy Travis as Harriet Michaels, the mystery woman who steals Charlie Mackenzie's heart, is really good. She later married the producer, Rob Fried, and they had two kids together. I wondered if it was a casting couch audition situation, but she redeemed herself.
Charlie Mackenzie: How many people have you brutally murdered?
Harriet Michaels: Well, brutal's a very subjective word. I mean, what's brutal to one person might be totally reasonable to somebody else.
She was funny and cute and very likable, yet, she could also make you shudder with dread, thinking she really could be an axe murderer. She sang, she danced, she cavorted with Charlie, she sparkled, she sizzled, she spoke several languages, she sang "Only You" in several languages (just like the lounge singer who was murdered in Atlantic City!!!!!); but mostly she just fed Charlie straight lines:
Harriet Michaels: Do you actually like haggis?
Charlie Mackenzie: No, I think it's repellent in every way. In fact, I think most Scottish cuisine is based on a dare.
Which reminds me of another hole in the plot. Harriet works in a butcher shop; The Meats of the World, but after a scene where Charlie helps her out (actually just an excuse for an extended Mike Myers medley of gratuitous meat jokes) the butcher shop is never mentioned or seen again. You'd think that it would provide at least some opportunity for axe murderer situations?
San Francisco plays much more than a cameo role. In fact, San Francisco is the real star, and Mike Myers merely a supporting player. I wonder how a Canadian could have such an affinity for Baghdad-by-the-Bay, as Herb Caen used to refer to it. Great San Francisco scenes, but when it zooms in on the club called Roads it is in Jack Kerouac Alley, and it is where City Lights Bookstore or Vesuvio's bar would be. It was really jarring, because they had this great zoom in from aerial shot through the kitchen, like the scene in Good Fellas that was copied in Swingers. But then when they reach Jack Kerouac Alley, instead of Vesuvio's the bar where Jack (and I) used to drink, or City Lights Bookstore, that published Howl by Allen Ginsberg, among many other great works of literature, we find instead the totally fictional club, Roads. And where were the strip clubs like Carol Doda's on Broadway and Columbus, which was really right there just next to Jack Kerouac Alley?
[first lines]
Charlie Mackenzie: Excuse me, miss? There seems to be a mistake. I believe I ordered the *large* cappuccino. *Hello!* Look at the size of this thing.
Tony Giardino: It's practically a bowl.
Charlie Mackenzie: It's like Campbell's Cup-O'-ccino!
This was kind of a cute scene, but a little too cute. Can we have a moratorium on *Hello!* spoken like Jerry Lewis used to say *Lady!*? This would have been better placed in Cafe Trieste rather than Roads, the faux Vesuvio's. You know, there was another coffee shop that was right on Columbus and I once saw Rob Schneider in there drinking an espresso and writing. We made eye contact, and I was this close to doing the whole copy guy riffing on his name shtick, but I could tell by the look he gave me that was the last thing he wanted, and he was on a roll, probably he had just come up with a brilliant idea, like Deuce Bigelow, Male Gigolo. And I was never one to interfere with Great Art.
The faux Vesuvio's can be forgiven, however, because for the most part they really got the flavor of San Francisco down, and I'm not talking about Rice 'A Roni!!!!! No Ringold Alley, but still. The scene where Harriet scratches his back, directed by Charlie with references to the topography of San Francisco and Oakland alone is worth the price of admission.
Sometimes Mike Myers is cute and amusing in SIMAAM, but other times he is only trying to be cute and amusing, but failing miserably. Charlie Mackenzie is no Wayne, but perhaps Austin Powers can be seen as an extension of both Charlie and Stuart Mackenzie. for instance, there is a scene where Charlie drops his towel, but the full backal nudity is merely gratuitous. Later, he perfects the formula in Austin Powers, and it becomes hilarious.
Mike Myers poetry was a pretty good parody of the poetry scene. Kind of clever, especially with the jazz trio that backs him, but really bad. I have seen so many poets who had that forced cadence, but were just bad, not in a funny way. He reminded me a lot of a poet I knew, but who was actually very good and talented, but his poetry also had a great sense of humor. I think his name was Kevin Cline, not the actor, who spelled his last name with a K, but perhaps I am mistaken. However, if Kevin Cline or someone who remembers him from San Francisco State reads this, I would like to know what ever became of him.
Charlie Mackenzie: Harriet. Harry-ette. Hard-hearted harbinger of haggis. Beautiful, bemuse-ed, bellicose butcher. Un-trust... ing. Un-know... ing. Un-love... ed? "He wants you back," he screamed into the night air like a fireman going to a window that has no fire... except the passion of his heart. I am lonely. It's really hard. This poem... sucks.
There were lots of little cameos and small parts, like Bob Scarlatti, Cintra Wilson, Steven Wright as a pilot, and Alan Arkin, as Tony Giardino's boss, the Police Chief. Cintra Wilson is more of a local celebrity, as she had a column that was like the new, hip, Herb Caen that ran in the Examiner, the Chronicle's rival. Michael Richards (Kramer of Seinfeld fame) has a very amusing scene with character actor and Second City graduate Mike Haggerty.
Obituary Writer: There's another one here. Native San Franciscan. Plumber. Elliot, Ralph. Moved to Dallas, disappeared four months ago, body was found in a sewer.
Obituary Employee: Well, guy takes his job too seriously, life goes down the drain.
[both laugh]
Charlie Mackenzie: Did they mention anything about his wife?
Obituary Employee: All right, okay. Look, I know that we're talking about real people here. I'm sorry.
Charlie Mackenzie: No no, I'm serious. Did they mention the wife?
Obituary Employee: Look, I'm sorry you know. You know, I didn't mean to make a joke about other people's lives.
Charlie Mackenzie: No no, I'm really serious. Did they mention the wife?
Obituary Employee: You win, you win okay? I'm a bad person!
Obituary Writer: Just take it easy!
Obituary Employee: No, he's sayin' I'm insensitive! He's sayin' I'm a ****!
Obituary Writer: He's not sayin' you're a ****!
Charlie Mackenzie: [yelling] Did they mention the wife? Did they mention the wife?
Obituary Employee: No! No! They didn't mention the wife! Ya happy?
[speaking to the whole office]
Obituary Employee: YEAH! Oh yes, yeah. I'm insensitive! I'm a very insensitive man! Stop your job, look at the insensitive man! That's what they're paying you for!
[leaves]
Obituary Writer: He was my ride home.
Charlie Mackenzie: Understood...
In light of the subsequent Michael Richards melt down, the "insensitive man" tirade would seem to be prophetic.
Amanda Plummer is the daughter of Christopher Plummer and Tammy Grimes. She was in Pulp Fiction with Tim Roth. In So I Married An Axe Murderer she plays the strange sister of Harriet Michaels, Rose Michaels. Her best scene is where she makes Charlie breakfast after Charlie and Harriet have spent the night together for the first time:
Rose Michaels: Let me make you some breakfast.
Charlie Mackenzie: Oh, gee, you know, I'd love to. But you know, I'm really running late, but thanks!
Rose Michaels: What would you say to silver-dollar pancakes, fresh-squeezed orange juice, bacon, and Kona coffee?
Charlie Mackenzie: Well, that sounds great!
[Cut to Rose pouring cereal in Charlie's bowl]
Rose Michaels: Sorry. I didn't have those other things.
Charlie Mackenzie: No, no, that's fine. That other stuff will probably kill you... whereas "Froot Loops" are light, and reasonably high in fiber. I care for "Apple Jacks" a great deal.
Anthony LaPaglia could have been good as the friend who works as an undercover cop, Tony Giardino. The part wasn't written well, and he is forced to deliver some of the worst lines in the whole film. This scene is the worst:
Charlie Mackenzie: So Tony, what's the deal with your clothes?
Tony Giardino: What do ya mean?
Charlie Mackenzie: You look like Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch.
Tony Giardino: What do ya mean? I look hip!
Charlie Mackenzie: No no no no no no, you look like an undercover cop TRYING to look hip.
Tony Giardino: I AM an undercover cop trying to look hip.
I am not kidding; he is wearing a derby wrapped with a fuzzy pink feather boa. No, really. Anthony LaPaglia plays Detective Jake Malone currently on the crime drama Without a Trace. He usually plays either cops or mobsters. Here, he is playing a cop, but mostly is under utilized, though he does get in a few chuckle inducing scenes, and even a chortle here and there. Debi Mazar is Tony's girlfriend, but she doesn't really have any good material here, either. Best thing about her scene is it was filmed in Fog City Diner, and afterwards Charlie and Harriet walk home in the rain.
Faring much better than Tony and Debi is Phil Hartman who is fantastic in a small but intense role, a cameo, practically, where he is Alcatraz Tour Guide John Johnson (but his friends call him Vicky). Don't watch this film on TV because they will cut out this scene, guaranteed.
Preposterous plot, with huge gapping holes. The story of course, from the title you know, and I'm not giving anything away, that he thinks his wife is an axe murderer. He hears her say "Ralph" in her sleep, and Ralph is the name of one of the victims of Mrs. X, a mysterious woman who disappears when soon after the wedding her husbands are murdered. When Harriet introduces Charlie to Ralph, it is a woman. But later, they are still linking her to the murder of Ralph. In other words, if Ralph really was one of her ex husbands who was murdered, isn't a little too much of a coincidence to have a female friend also named Ralph? I say, if you bring in a female Ralph, then you can't keep the storyline about the murdered ex husband Ralph going. It is like the denizen of Amelia's bar who wanted to have her Kate, and Edith, too.
TOP TEN MOVIES WITH SOME SLIGHT CONNECTION TO SIAAM
1. Pulp Fiction (1994) ... Amanda Plummer is perhaps best remembered for this film.
2. The Fisher King (1991) .... Breakthrough role for Amanda with Robin Williams.
3. To Kill a Mockingbird (Collector's Edition) (1962) .... Robert Duvall played Arthur "Boo" Radley, which provided a name for a band that played Here She Comes.
4. Shrek (Full Screen Single Disc Edition) (2001) .... Mike Myers as the voice of the ogre Shrek owes it all to Stuart Mackenzie.
5. Austin Powers - International Man of Mystery (New Line Platinum Series) (1997) .... Mike is both Austin Powers and Dr. Evil, and his propensity for playing dual roles is foreshadowed in SIMAAM.
6. Dr. Seuss' The Cat In The Hat (Widescreen Edition) (2003) .... Myers is The Cat in the Hat, but he is no Jim Carey.
7. Wayne's World (1992) .... Myers created the memorable Wayne Campbell character for SNL. Who knew he could sustain a feature length film?
8. 54 (1998) .... Myers plays Steve Rubell, owner of Studio 54
9. Coneheads (1993) .... Phil Hartman showed the way as Marlax, and Mike Myers took note. Perhaps you could sustain a feature length film with an SNL sketch?
10. Rosemary's Baby (1968) .... Charles Grodin is Dr. C.C. Hill, and he also has a cameo in SIMAAM.
I care for "Apple Jacks" a great deal.
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International Available
"Best Mike Myers comedy"
""MEG, SHUT IT!""
"I care for "Apple Jacks" a great deal"
""I Think I'm Dating Mrs. X""