Of course, that's where the resemblance to truth ends: In this incarnation, Peter O'Toole charms the audience in a tour de force comic performance as Alan Swann, the Flynn character, who arrives to meet Stan "King" Kaiser, the Caesar character (aptly played by Joseph Bologna), quite smashed. Kaiser wants to kick him off the show, but junior writer Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker), an adoring fan, offers to take Swann under his wing and keep him off the drink until the show airs.
What follows is delightful: a series of pratfalls and picaresque New York City adventures turned both hysterically funny and sweetly serious by subplots involving Benjy's untouchable love interest, K. C. Downing (Jessica Harper), and crazy family (his mother hilariously played by Lanie Kazan), as well as Swann's daughter Tess, from whom he is estranged.
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