Fools’ Parade (1971)

(On Cable TV, October 2021) A surprisingly older James Stewart anchors Fools’ Parade, a Depression-era comic thriller in which a just-released ex-con with a sizeable check in his pocket gets involved in a number of adventures to protect his hard-earned money. Playing with his usual drawl, good-natured persona and exaggerated squint (the character is missing a glass eye), Stewart does have some company in the cast: It’s a shock to recognize a young Kurt Russell in a supporting role (meaning that you can jump from 2021’s The Fast and the Furious 9 to 1936’s Rose-Marie with this one degree of separation), or have George Kennedy play the heavy. It’s billed as a comedy for obvious reasons—it ends well, for one thing, and there’s one sequence that ends with a surprising bang—but the tone is not always jolly. Clearly shot in the muddy 1970s, it’s a film drowning in browns and blacks, which does take away from a comic atmosphere. Still, it’s reasonably entertaining: Where else can you watch Stewart with sticks of dynamite strapped to his body, genially threatening to blow up the bank if his reasonable demands aren’t met? As you may guess, Fools’ Parade doesn’t quite fit together: a bit too sombre for pure comedy, and too comic for pure thrills. But it does work, largely thanks to Stewart being so effortlessly watchable.