In the 1950s, television was live. Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows was the big hit on Saturday night. One week, Errold Flynn was the guest and created the premise for My Favorite Year.

Peter O'Toole plays Alan Swan, the womanizing, hard-drinking, unreliable movie star. Mark Linn-Baker is the young writer who is Swan's keeper for the week. There's the whole premise. How does this young man keep this crazy movie star on schedule?

What carries My Favorite Year is the dialogue and non-stop humor. The characters can be three-dimensional. The jokes are mostly clever; -- a cut above what you would expect from Mel Brooks.

Yes, this is a Richard Benjamin film, but it is Brooks' film producing, and as it so happens, Brooks was a young writer on Your Show of Shows. They say write what you know about; I think this film is a case of Brooks' remembrances as told to another writer, and Benjamin's directing. More chefs in this kitchen have made great soup.