Author! Author! is a 1982 American comedy-drama film directed by Arthur Hiller and starring Al Pacino, Dyan Cannon and Tuesday Weld.
Playwright Ivan Travalian (Pacino) has a new Broadway play, English with Tears, in rehearsal and in need of rewrites. His wife Gloria (Weld) leaves him, leaving him with custody of their five children: his four stepchildren from her previous marriages and his own son. Complicating matters further is Ivan entering into a relationship with popular film actress Alice Detroit (Cannon), who has taken the lead role in the play.
This film features examples of:
- Actor Allusion: When two of Ivan's stepdaughters run away from their father's home to live with Ivan and the police come to take them back, Ivan and the children stage a standoff on the roof of their building to convince the police and their father to let the girls stay. Al Pacino certainly has experience with standoffs with police, this time fortunately in a much lighter tone.
- The Cameo: Comedians Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding appear as Ivan's investors, brothers Patrick and Jackie Dicker.
- Contrived Coincidence: The producer of the theater production lies to investors, claiming that popular film actress Alice Detroit has already signed on to play the lead in the play, leaving Ivan no choice but to convince her to perform in the play over a dinner. Luckily enough for him, she confesses that she is a big fan of his and would love to perform in his new play.
- Disappeared Dad: While the main plot deals with a newly Missing Mom, the film deals with the repercussions on children with quite a few Disappeared Dads, as well.
- Spike's dad is a professional baseball player and Geraldo's father lives in Spain. Neither appears in the movie, but at least Spike's dad takes him in for a time until Spike requests to move back in with his stepfather.
- Bonnie's and Debbie's father appears in the film, but is apparently more interested in stopping child support payments than actually having physical custody of his daughters. It's stated early in the film that prior to going to live with him, they'd never met his new wife.
- Ivan eventually confesses to Alice that he was an abandoned baby as well.
- Missing Mom: The plot gets kickstarted when Ivan's wife Gloria leaves him and leaves their five children (four of which are actually her children from previous marriages) behind.
- Show Within a Show: English with Tears, the play Ivan makes in the film. Probably a Shout-Out to French Without Tears, a 1936 play by Terence Rattigan.
