'80s Roulette: THE LONGSHOT

Tim Conway tries to dig his way out of a career stall

I have (almost) every single movie released in theaters in the ‘80s in the United States on a hard drive and once a week, I’m going to hit shuffle and review whatever film comes up first.

Welcome to ‘80s Roulette!

JANUARY 17, 1986

The Longshot
Tim Conway, Jack Weston, Harvey Korman, Ted Wass, Brad Trumbull, Pat Li, Garry Goodrow, Dave Johnson, Dick Enberg, Anne Meara, Frank Bonner, Benny Baker, Yvonne Del Walker, Ernie Anderson, Jinaki, Anzio, Jorge Cervera Jr., Stella Stevens, Susan Tolsky, Ted Bolczak, Brad Logan, Stephen Ciotta, George DiCenzo, Edie McClurg, Hank Rolike, Eddie Deezen, Gregory R. Wolf, Don Draper, Maria Korman, Mickey Elliott, Joseph Ruskin, Ollie the Fish, Jonathan Winters, Kelly Conway, Virginia Vincent, James Bacon, Nick Dimitri, Buckley Norris, Pat Kehoe, Pat Studstill, Tom Finnegan
cinematography by Robby Muller
music by Charles Fox
screenplay by Tim Conway
produced by Lang Elliott
directed by Paul Bartel
Rated PG-13
1 hr 29 mins

Four sad-sack gambling addicts get tipped off to a horse race that’s going to be fixed, and they have to come up with the money to make a life-changing bet.

By 1986, Tim Conway’s film career had stalled out. In the ‘70s, he had some minor hits with the Apple Dumpling Gang films as well as The Prize Fighter and The Private Eyes, all with Don Knotts as his primary co-star. None of those films were blockbusters, but they definitely kept him in the public consciousness. On TV, he took several shots at finding a new vehicle that would fit him as well as The Carol Burnett Show did. He tried his own variety show, which lasted a little over a year. He also tried a sitcom called Ace Crawford, Private Eye, but it didn’t even make it to six episodes. He was struggling, and that’s often when artists dig deep and reinvent themselves.