BURT REYNOLDS & JULIE ANDREWS 'THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN'

Burt Reynolds in THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN Director: Blake Edwards Year: 1983 Rating: ***

There are two movies reported to have been what Burt Reynolds decided to star in instead of co-starring in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT for the role famously taken by Jack Nicholson... and along with being box office bombs, they embodied each sub-genre that rode Burt through six-years as box office king...

The second is the action-comedy STROKER ACE directed by collaborator/stuntman muse Hal Needham; and the first by a director Burt's said to have liked the best, Blake Edwards, in the romantic-comedy THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN...

From Blake Edwards' The Man Who Loved Women

Which is a far better vehicle for Reynolds, herein playing it safely and naturally as a doomed sculptor who, as we begin, has a myriad of women attending his funeral that, narrated by sophisticated shrink and ultimate love-interest (and the director's wife) Julie Andrews, keeps the viewer guessing on how he'll eventually buy the farm...

As that too is ultimately humorous while MAN rolls around dryly and coolly... without any big laughs... in that slow-burn fashion of Blake's game-changing 10: both depicting a wealthy mid-life-crisis-struck artist with everything who still complains about having too much... of everything...

Jennifer Edwards in The Man Who Loved Women

But it's the WOMEN who are the most intriguing... not only to gander at but to anticipate... ranging from extremely sexual married-Texan Kim Basinger, lovely-legged Marilu Henner, down-home Cynthia Sikes, 11th hour groupie Sela Ward while the cutest is the most subtle in Edwards' daughter Jennifer as a hooker turned secretary...

Overall making this Americanized 1970's-French-remake seem from that very decade of good-old-fashion jazz-soaked womanizing through dry self deprecation that surely suits Burt — despite  being on cruise control throughout.

Julie Andrews and Burt Reynolds in The Man Who Loved Women

Marilu Henner in The Man Who Loved Women

Kim Basinger and Burt Reynolds in The Man Who Loved Women

Ben Powers and Burt Reynolds in The Man Who Loved Women

Sela Ward and Burt Reynolds in The Man Who Loved Women

Sharon Hughes in The Man Who Loved Women

Ellen Bauer in The Man Who Loved Women

Jill Carroll in The Man Who Loved Women

The Women in The Man Who Loved Women

Kim Basinger and Cynthia Sikes in The Man Who Loved Women

Denise Crosby with Marlilu Henner and Jennifer Edwards in The Man Who Loved Women

Cynthia Sikes in The Man Who Loved Women

Burt Reynolds and Bruiser Reynolds in The Man Who Loved Women

Burt Reynolds and Bruiser Reynolds in The Man Who Loved Women