Another of these pictures is How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980), a would-be satire of middle-class Americana from the housewife's perspective. The original script was written nearly a decade before the movie was made. Supposedly the idea was embraced by at least four major studios, but problems arose when all the top female stars declined to appear in a film in which they'd have to share equal billing and screentime with two other top stars. (This sounds highly improbable, but not impossible.) The writer, Robert Kaufman, had a surprise hit film with Love at First Bite (1979), the Mel Brooksian Dracula spoof starring George Hamilton. That convinced distributors American International Pictures to finance How to Beat the High Cost of Living, with two of First Bite's stars, Susan Saint James and Richard Benjamin, also appearing in the new film.

How to Beat the High Cost of Living (not "Co$t," despite what it says over on the IMDb) appears to have done moderately okay at the box office, grossing $7.5 million domestically, but it was hardly a runaway smash. Today the movie is mildly interesting as a time capsule of that era, with endless references to inflation, the price of beef, Nixon, Carter, and Reagan, etc., and it's amusing to see the sights and sounds of 35 years ago (supremely ugly American automobiles, wallpaper, etc.) but the laughs are few and far between, and overall the movie plays like an expanded sitcom episode.

Olive Films' Blu-ray offers a nice transfer of this AIP/Filmways Pictures release. That is, once one gets past the first five minutes, consisting of notably dirty and soft title elements.

In Eugene, Oregon, longtime friends Jane (Saint James), Elaine (Jane Curtin), and Louise (Jessica Lange), are struggling in 1980's depressed economy. (Saint James and Curtin would later star together on the popular 1984-89 sitcom Kate & Allie.)

Louise owns an unprofitable antiques shop financed by her veterinarian husband (Benjamin), but this causes him tax problems so bad that he's forced to sue his wife and shutter the store. He's also having an affair with his amorous assistant (Sybil Danning).

Jane is divorced, perennially broke and troubles mount when her newly single WWII veteran father (Eddie Albert) moves in. She wants to marry longtime boyfriend Robert (Fred Willard), but he's as broke as she is.

Elaine returns home to find a message on her answering machine (high-tech stuff in 1980) that her husband is leaving her for another woman, and taking all their valuable possessions with him, leaving her unable to pay even the utility bills.

Together the three women hatch a plan to rob an entire day's worth of revenue from a local mall, where to celebrate its one-year anniversary, the cash is being put on display in a colossal plastic globe.

The cast is game but How to Beat the High Cost of Living is awfully bland, despite amusing little touches here and there. I liked, for instance, how the women plot their caper using refrigerator magnets of vegetables. Dabney Coleman plays a local cop who falls for Elaine, and their budding romance is almost sweet. But it's all terribly predictable and supremely mild. Unusual for this reviewer, I hardly took any notes while watching it; there just wasn't anything worth writing down.

One odd aspect about the film that's almost painful today is the manner in which women seem to default to "housewife" mode by condescending men. Louise and her husband argue about her business, which her husband and his accountants don't take seriously and regard as a "hobby." Elaine, speculating as to why her husband left her says, "I probably spent too much of his money on clothes." The three friends don't take charge of their lives but rather embark on something incredibly foolish and could easily land them in prison. When the caper begins to unravel, some of the reasons seem extraordinary sexist. Jane, for instance, gets a flat tire en route and rather than spend ten minutes simply changing it abandons her car. Indeed, all of the women arrive at the mall an hour late. Women.

Video & Audio

Shot in 1.85:1 spherical Panavision, How to Beat the High Cost of Living was processed at Movielab, AIP's usual printing service, where some of its titles later ended up lost when that company went bankrupt. The movie's first five minutes, including a long, animated opening title sequence, look pretty bad, but then the movie finally pops into reasonably impressive high-def clarity. The rest of the picture looks good for its age, with decent color and sharpness. The DTS-HD Master Audio is okay, reflecting the original mono mix. No alternate audio or subtitle options.

Extra Features

The lone supplement is a trailer that's not high-def nor does it seem to have been encoded properly, as it exhibits a strange jerkiness.

Parting Thoughts

As a time capsule and for its cast, How to Beat the High Cost of Living is bearable but it's no lost masterpiece of satire. Rent It.

Stuart Galbraith IV is the Kyoto-based film historian and publisher-editor of World Cinema Paradise. His credits include film history books, DVD and Blu-ray audio commentaries and special features.