Heckler: Why don't you get a new muffler, lady?!
Nora: Why don't you try living on a teacher's salary!
Nora: Why don't you try living on a teacher's salary!
Max Dugan Returns is a 1983 dramedy film written by Neil Simon, directed by Herbert Ross, and starring Marsha Mason, Jason Robards, Donald Sutherland, and Matthew Broderick in his film debut.
Nora McPhee (Mason) is a high school teacher and widowed mother in Venice, California, who is having a crisis. Actually, multiple crises. Her refrigerator is busted, her doors won't lock, her students are failing, her son has a drug dealer for a friend, and now her car has been stolen! Nora could use a miracle. Enter Max Dugan (Robards)...
Tropes included:
- The Alleged Car: The McPhee family car wasn't in the greatest shape even before it was stolen.Michael: What's wrong with it?
Nora: It's a year older than you are. - Ambiguously Evil: It's not clear exactly what shady business Max was involved in or the exact reason that he spent 6 years in prison, but it's implied that he's a lifelong embezzler and Con Man with mob connections. He does admit that his suitcase full of cash is from several years of theft from a mob-operated casino.
- Bad Date: Nora and Brian are hitting it off, but Max's gifts are making things difficult, particularly when Nora drops her purse on a date and $5,000 in cash spills out!
- Blatant Lies: Max is an unending source of these, and Nora is forced to play along as she tries to keep Max's true identity secret.Norah: What am I going to tell Brian?
Max: I'd stick to lying. So far you're doing great. - Deadpan Snarker: Nearly every other sentence Max says has built-in sarcasm:Nora: How do I know [you're not lying when you say that] you really have six months to live?Max: We could sit here and wait.
- Nora has her moments as well:
Max: Well, why not take the good with the bad?Nora: When it comes from the same place I get a little suspicious. - Disappeared Dad: Nora is a widow, raising her son on her own. She also hasn't seen her own father in a while.
- Down to the Last Play: Michael just might win one for the team after all...
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Max is a sleazy crook who abandoned his family very early on. Towards the very end of his life, there's nothing he wants to do more than make up for it the only way that he can.
- Long-Lost Relative: Max Dugan is quickly revealed to be Nora's estranged father.
- The Mafia: Max considers his money rightfully his, but others don't see it that way.Brian: You know he's wanted in Las Vegas, not only by the police but by some very irate gentlemen who break your legs...
- Nosy Neighbor: Well-meaning Mrs. Litke doesn't know when to keep a secret. She's "more dependable than the CIA" for information, as one character puts it.
- Precision F-Strike: Nora really wants her son to succeed at baseball.Nora: Swing, Michael, just one swing! Hit the shit out of it!
- Sophisticated as Hell: Max will quote Kierkegaard or Schopenhauer in one sentence and talk like a gangster in the next. With his shady background, it's also an example of Wicked Cultured.
- Unexpected Inheritance: Played with. Max Dugan is very much alive, but he may not be for much longer, and so he intends to shower his daughter and grandson with gifts and money before departing.
