MOVIE REVIEW : ‘MADE FOR EACH OTHER’ MADE TO LAST

Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna’s “Made for Each Other” was a delight when it opened in 1971, and it remains so is in its re-release (at the Beverly Center Cineplex).

It’s now 20 minutes longer, which is the way the Bolognas intended it, and it’s perhaps even funnier because there’s just that much more context and detail. Most important, it’s stood the test of time, proof of the Bolognas’ sure grasp of human nature; only Joe’s long sideburns and mop-top haircut reveal that it was made 14 years ago.

In many ways, “Made for Each Other” was a warm-up for the characters in the Bolognas’ locally long-running play, “It Had to Be You”--”two self-destructive people confronting the life force,” as Panda Gold describes herself and Gig Pinimba.

Panda (Taylor) and Gig (Bologna)--she’s Jewish, he’s Italian, both are in their ‘30s--meet at a Manhattan encounter group. Daughter of a small-time con man (and full-time philanderer), Panda--short for Pandora--has tried for a show-biz career but never made it beyond the Clue Girl in TV’s “Jackpot Quiz,” and has had a series of traumatic affairs with men as elusive as her own father.

Almost driven into the priesthood by his devout mother, Gig has also had a string of romances, all of which ended up with the girl on the brink of suicide. Obviously, the gamine Taylor and the tall, tousled Bologna in their intense neuroticism were made for each other.

As directed by Robert Bean, the two are wonderful in the roles they created for themselves. As satirists, they are consistently on target, but they always aim with compassionate, forgiving humor.

“Made for Each Other” is packed with funny moments, some of them painfully so. One of the best is when we get to see Panda do her act at the Cabaret Caprice, a showcase bar for new talent, apparently somewhere in the Bronx. Opening with a godawful rendition of “Fire Down Below”--from childhood Panda has worshiped Rita Hayworth--she segues into an impression of Marlene Dietrich singing “Falling in Love Again” from, as she announces, “Der Blaue Engel.” Taylor is so good at being bad that she brings back memories of Laurence Olivier’s Archie Rice in “The Entertainer.” Also good is Helen Verbit as Panda’s pushy astrology nut of a mother.

Taylor elicits real pathos in Panda’s absolute refusal to recognize her total lack of talent as an entertainer, and the Bolognas’ satire on the smothering aspects of an ethnic background seems all the more darkly hilarious now. Equally devastating is the sequence in which Gig takes Panda home to meet his awful parents (Paul Sorvino, Olympia Dukakis), and poor Panda desperately tries to cross herself correctly at the blessing of the meal. “Made for Each Other” (rated PG for mature themes) clearly was made to last.

‘MADE FOR EACH OTHER’

A Castle Hill release of a Wylde Films production. Executive producer Malcolm B. Kahn. Producer Roy Townshend. Director Robert B. Bean. Screenplay Renee Taylor, Joseph Bologna. Camera William Storz. Music Trade Martin. Art director Robert Ramsey. Costumes Elaine Mangel. Film editor Sonny Mele. With Taylor, Bologna, Paul Sorvino, Olympia Dukakis, Helen Verbit, Louis Zorch, Norman Shelly.

Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

MPAA-rated: PG (some parental guidance advised).