My Favorite Year (1982)
While Lawrence of Arabia and Becket are the kind of epic, historical British drama you might first associate with O’Toole, My Favorite Year is completely the opposite. The American comedy follows a young man (Perfect Strangers’ Mark Linn-Baker) working as an assistant on set of a sketch comedy show, tasked with spending the week taking care of a washed up, alcoholic movie star (O’Toole). The more into Old Hollywood you are, the better this performance is. On the one level, you get Peter O’Toole playing an ageing, drunk movie star (maybe a little too real) in a lighthearted comedy. O’Toole gets to be hilarious, wild and insane, but still human and humane.
The second level? This character, a former swashbuckling leading man, was allegedly based on Errol Flynn. One of the greats brilliantly sending up a major movie star like this definitely makes My Favourite Year a must-see.