Illegally Yours is an exhausting and boring movie experience. The movie is exhausting because so much happens at once audiences are not able to follow, and boring because what does happen has been seen time and time again. Peter Bogdanovich, who directed the picture, spoke negatively about the filmmaking experience throughout his career and even acknowledged it might have been payback for trying to self-distribute They All Laughed and getting into fights with the studio over final cut privilege of Mask. Yet, it is important to remember that this film was another attempt by Bogdanovich to piece his life back together after the tragedy of Dorothy Stratten’s murder. Given his upbringing and personality, the only way for him to do that was through making a movie. In Hollywood, one man’s screwball comedy is another’s therapy.

Illegally Yours centers around protagonist Richard Dice (Rob Lowe), a hapless but persistent young man trying to put his life back together after a string of unfortunate incidents that force him to move back home with his quirky mother and brother. When he is picked for jury in a murder trial and discovers the defendant is the girl he has loved since grade school (Colleen Camp), Richard Dice sees a perfect opportunity to put his high-minded vision for his life into motion. Thus, he is a juror by day and detective by night as he attempts to solve the murder and free the object of his affection, Molly Gilbert. It is not a stretch to see reflections of director Bogdanovich in the character of Richard Dice, down to the director’s signature large-frame glasses. As Richard does everything in his power to reclaim control of his life and spring his potential love from prison, the parallels between the fictional character and the real life Bogdanovich, whose work has always had a personal angle, intensify. It is understandable, then, that this screwball comedy includes darker elements such as infidelity, murder and blackmail since this was a rather troublesome period in Bogdanovich’s personal and artistic life.

What is strange about the set-up of Illegally Yours is how little the two leads interact until the final third of the movie. Richard runs around with his brother and two girls who also have a rooting interest in the trial, but since we know he and Molly are destined to be together by the laws of moviemaking, there is no romantic tension even when they finally cross paths. Instead, Bogdanovich attempts to elicit laughs through physical stunts, repetitive gags and outrageous circumstances. When Richard and his object of affection do connect, they bicker and squabble over their relative predicaments, leaving hardly any time for romance. By the time of the all-too familiar happy ending, it is difficult to see why Richard has for so long pined for this woman and even more difficult to understand why she would fall for him. This is made more grating by Camp’s unique speech pattern and affectations, which may be endearing to some but not to this reviewer.

Available information about the production reveals a bad time had by all due to a rushed schedule, lack of consistent oversight and short-shrift funding. Like Mask, Bogdanovich took the job because he needed money, but this script is not as well-written as Anna Hamilton Phelans’, and it is important to note that the style of screwball was far out of touch with the popular types of comedy in 1980s Hollywood. Once again, Bogdanovich believed he could educate modern audiences, reflected in his reverence for the classics. But rather than leading them to established titles, he simply created his own, lesser version. Lowe took the lead because he was hoping to recreate the success Bogdanovich had with Ryan O’Neal in What’s Up, Doc? Unfortunately, Illegally Yours has very little of the humor and wit present in the relationship between O’Neal and Barbra Streisand, and the complications of the plot, typically an enjoyable element of screwballs, bog down the action to such a degree that there are multiple instances when the movie is forced to pause so Lowe can give us more background. In retrospect, Lowe commented that Bogdanovich’s vision for the movie simply ran awry while, for his part, Bogdanovich blamed producer Dino De Laurentiis for necessitating a script rewrite and then re-editing the movie in post-production. Putting the fingers of blame aside, the movie simply does not hold up to the scruples and expectations of anyone who is a fan of romantic comedies, let alone the classics that this movie admires. Sometimes, all one can do is admit defeat and in the case of Illegally Yours it is best for everyone involved and watching to do just that and move on to the next project.