Comedy – The Magnificent 60s

What’s New Pussycat? (1965) ***

Being this was the age of the Lothario, what with James Bond and Matt Helm and Co surrounded by adoring women, you were hardly going to find many males in the audience feeling that sex addiction was a bad thing. Nor was commitment phobia likely to be high in the agenda of the females in the audience.

Really, there’s no real reason to go to any trouble to come up with justification for bedroom farce that borders just occasionally on screwball comedy. Let men be caught with their trousers down and women in various stages of deshabille and let’s hope there are enough jokes in between to keep the pot boiling.

The main problem here is that while Peter O’Toole shows a fine and unexpected gift for comedy, the two actors for whom comedy is supposed to be their metier mostly fall flat, Peter Sellers resorting to over-acting and Woody Allen in his movie debut trying to steal every scene and the best lines (he wrote the script) to boot.

There are a couple of cracking set-ups. In one a language teacher who gets her class of foreigners to repeat what she says finds that they are parroting every word of a crazy fight she is having with her lover. And a strip club, even one as high-falutin as The Crazy Horse in Paris, has rarely provided so many laffs. And in an echo of Cyrano de Bergerac, a man wakes up an entire apartment block trying to woo the lover of his friend.

Michael James (Peter O’Toole) seeks advice from psychiatrist Dr Fassbender (Peter Sellers in a dreadful wig) as to how to temper his sexual instincts. He is under siege from lover Carole (Romy Scheider) who is desperate to marry him. The repressed married doctor is mad keen on Renee (Capucine) but the minute she sets eyes on Michael she can’t get enough of him.

To make Michael jealous Carole flirts with Viktor (Woody Allen), her nervous wreck of a chum.

Soon Michael is juggling four lovers, Liz (Paula Prentiss) and Rita (Ursula Andress) as well as Carole and Renee. Eventually, for no great reason except it must have seemed a good idea at the time and it’s the ideal location for a bedroom farce, they all end up in a small hotel, where Michael has his work cut out, dashing from room to room, to assuage all his lovers, while Fassbender and Viktor try to snap up his leftovers.

This all takes place against a background of La Dolce Vita involving a revolving cast of fashionistas and disco dancers. Michael drives an antique car straight out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and he carries off style with great elan. Wherever he is, Michael is the center of attention, in a disco resorting to striptease, and you can hardly blame him for being unable to resist so many gorgeous women throwing themselves at him.

While Peter O’Toole (The Lion in Winter, 1968) seamlessly holds it together, Peter Sellers (The Pink Panther, 1963) and Woody Allen (Annie Hall, 1977) threaten to pull the flimsy structure apart, the latter in particular determined to turn it into a Woody Allen picture. But Peter O’Toole is sheer delight and, as misogynistic as it sounds, carries off with aplomb the central conceit of a poor fellow who just can’t get enough of women. His comedy instinct is first-rate, far better employed here than in How to Steal A Million (1966) and his drunken scene is a joy.

Peter Sellers appears to be spoofing himself while Woody Allen, years away from solidifying his screen persona, is, as usual, just himself.

It’s left to the female cast to add depth and virtually all come out of the experience with bonus points, Romy Scheider (Otley, 1969) and Paula Prentiss (Man’s Favorite Sport, 1964) in particular while Ursula Andress (She, 1966) and Capucine (Fraulein Doktor, 1968) raise the glamor stakes to a new high.

Director Clive Donner (Alfred the Great, 1958) does his best to keep the picture on an even keel while allowing it to lurch sideways whenever the comedy requires. Written by Woody Allen.

Good fun in parts.

The Sting (1973) *****

There was a time when movies had charm. An easy grace. A fluidity. The ability to hold an audience in the palm of their hands with the simplest of narratives. Sadly, that time is long gone. I doubt if any Hollywood director – so raddled now by self-indulgence and self-importance – would even know how to make this kind of souffle.

I haven’t watched this movie in decades. And I fully expected to dismiss it as having aged badly. Instead, I just adored it. In part that is due to what is surely the greatest male screen partnership ever. It wasn’t uncommon then and now for two top stars to be paired together, but usually the narrative had them in conflict. That’s not the case here. There’s a reason why Paul Newman and Robert Redford were credited in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) with inventing the buddy movie. Their screen personas just dovetail and they appear so comfortable with each other.

Sure, the story is a cracker, and the direction is impeccable, what with using long-gone techniques like the wipe, and the chapter headings, and, of course, the adaptation of the Scott Joplin music and audience exposure to the techniques of pulling the “big con” and the secret nose-stroking by which fraudsters identified each other. But while this premise would surely have worked with another duo, it would not have worked half as well.

This was Robert Redford’s annus mirabilis. It’s impossible these days to comprehend his impact, for the simple reason that stars rarely release two movies in the one year. Following Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Redford had been there or thereabouts without quite taking the final step required to become a box office sensation, indulging himself in worthy pictures like The Candidate (1972) and Jeremiah Johnson (1972), but the latter was decidedly under-performing until Warner Bros sent it long after initial release down the “four-wall” route that would prove pivotal to The Exorcist (1973), whereby a studio hired theaters to show a movie, paying a flat fee that covered an exhibitor’s costs and some profit rather than splitting the proceeds on a percentage basis.

But the double whammy of The Way We Were (1973) and The Sting sent Redford’s marquee value into the stratosphere. And he’s not the big romantic lead that he was in the Streisand picture, if anything he comes up short in the romantic department, dumb enough to seduce a female assassin. He’s always one way or another needing to be rescued from a self-induced calamity rather than the confident gunslinger of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with an adoring woman hanging on his every word.

There are a couple of other memorable pieces of acting that I’d like to draw to your attention. The first is Reford’s thumbs, which always seem to stick out, the reason for which is never explained and possibly they’ve been beaten by previous malfeasance into that position. The second isn’t Robert Shaw’s pronounced limp, but his menacing catchphrase “You follow?” which must be the toughest two words outside of swearing ever spoken by a gangster.

Seeking revenge on underworld kingpin Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), on-the-run con man Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) teams up with the more experienced Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman). The plan is to rook Lonnegan of half a million dollars. They’re going to do it with a racing scam, where they know the results of a race before anyone else.

But first Gondorff needs to find finance and needle Lonnegan enough to bait the hook. He achieves both by stealing Lonnegan’s wallet before using that cash for his wagers and cheating better than Lonnegan at poker.

Then Hooker has to pretend that he’s fallen out with Gondorff and willing to work with Lonnegan to screw two million bucks out of Gondorff. Meanwhile, to spice up the plot, maverick cop Snyder (Charles Durning) is on the trail of Hooker and the FBI are on the trail of Gondorff.

The payoff is so brilliant that audiences at the time reputedly cheered and I have to say I felt like doing so myself.

Robert Redford was nominated for an Oscar but I think the acting honors were even with Newman. The movie won the Best Film Oscar and Best Director for George Roy Hill (Hawaii, 1966) and usually when you come to re-evaluate Oscars you tend to mark down many of the choices because they don’t really hold up. This was up against The Exorcist, American Graffiti, Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers and the comedy A Touch of Class, so it wasn’t as though there was another better contender.

I like to think it won for bravura. Elan. In every department. Fresh and innovative, oozing charm and with the greatest double act in American cinema.

Director George Roy Hill (Hawaii, 1966) was on a roll and the screenplay by David S. Ward (Steelyard Blues, 1973) hit a home run.

There’s hardly been a more enjoyable Oscar-winner.

The Tiger and the Pussycat (1967) ***

Ann-Margret was taking a leap into the unknown when she decided, temporarily, to turn her back on Hollywood and revive her fading fortunes – and buttress her bank account – by heading to Italy. By the time she made that decision, Clint Eastwood would not have been deemed to set a sparkling template since his spaghetti westerns were not released in the USA until after she had departed for Italy. She may well have had her head turned by such critically acclaimed fare as the Oscar-nominated Marriage Italian Style (1964) or perhaps the prospect, like Burt Lancaster in The Leopard (1963), of being taken up by critically-acclaimed director.

At one point she had easily been the fastest-rising star in Hollywood, with contracts for movies from rival studios, at one time balancing the demands of around a dozen movies. Had she been born in the previous decade she would have headlined any number of pieces of fluff that attracted box office. Even so, after making a number of pictures that scarcely challenged her – from Bye, Bye Birdie (1963) to The Swinger (1966) by way of a couple efforts that stretched her screen person (Once a Thief and The Cincinnati Kid, both 1965) – she had discovered that she was still perceived as little more than a Bond Girl, or the Matt Helm equivalent in Murderers’ Row (1966).

Quite what she expected to find in Italy is anybody’s guess. Probably not a standard Italian comedy. Nor to be playing second banana to Italian star Vittorio Gassman (A Virgin for the Prince, 1965) – three-time winner of a David (the Italian equivalent of the Oscars) – who knew how to frame his performance for an Italian audience. But while a huge star in his homeland he had not crossed-over like Marcello Mastroianni to win international favor.

Top executive Francesco (Vittorio Gassman), alarmed at becoming a grandfather at the age of 45, and believing life has now passed him by, begins a relationship with Carolina (Ann-Margret), an art student less than half his age. She makes a good bit of the running, being attracted to older men.

So a fair chunk of the picture is Francesco unable to make up his mind, or then suffering guilt from an illicit affair, worrying that his wife will find out and at the same time considering running away with the decidedly energetic girl.

The scenario will be more familiar to Italian audiences than American. Affairs were often seen as opportunities for comedy rather than, as in Hollywood, drama and angst. Francesco has the example of his friend Tazio (Fiorenzi Fionrentina), brought to financial ruin by an affair, and all the friends of his wife Esperia (Dorothy Parker) are divorcees after their husbands have run off with younger women.

Despite his excuses for being away from home mounting up, Esperia is not suspicious. You would have thought his colleagues would have more of an inkling given the number of times he dodges work commitments.

If you are a fan of Italian comedy, this will be right up your street, a number of sequences where Gassman falls back on physical comedy or stretches his features every which way but loose and gives the impression of not being able to follow his dreams at the same time as being suffocated by them.

If you’re here for Ann-Margret, you’ll be baffled. Sure, she has the occasional opportunity to shake her trademark booty, and she has lost none of her screen presence, but the role, effectively of second banana to the male lead, could have been played by a dozen other actresses, and Ann-Margret doesn’t bring anything particularly innovative or exciting to the role.

She went into Italian exile for three years and the movies she made all bombed at the American box office so in effect, as far as Hollywood and American audiences were concerned, she had inexplicably disappeared and there wasn’t exactly a long queue seeking her signature when she returned.

Directed by Dino Risi (Treasure of San Gennaro, 1966) from a script by himself, Enni De Concini (A Place for Lovers, 1968), Adriano Baracco (Treasure of San Gennaro) and Nino Manfredi (Treasure of San Gennaro).

A decent enough comedy. Gassman runs off with the picture but Ann-Margret completists will find little to enjoy.

Cactus Flower (1969) ****

Television hadn’t produced the goods in terms of furnishing Hollywood with an abundance of new talent. We were still only talking about Steve McQueen (Bullitt, 1968) and James Garner (Buddwing/Mister Buddwing, 1966) in the 1960s as having made a successful transition from small-screen to big-screen stardom with occasional brief flurries from the likes of Clint Walker (The Dirty Dozen, 1967). Though Hollywood kept trying – Universal had tossed thirty-two of its contracted players into Airport (1970) in the hope one would catch audience attention.

But it turned out Hollywood had been looking in the wrong direction. Expecting to unearth actors who could carry dramas or thrillers or westerns, Hollywood had, in general, not considered comedy as a source of new talent. Dick Van Dyke (Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, 1968) was considered an anomaly because he could morph into a song-and-dance man and his comedy was based on the physical.

So the industry was astonished when Goldie Hawn emerged from what was essentially a comedy skit show, The Rowan and Martin Laugh-In, to become a genuine screen box office comedienne and over the next decades there would be an excellent harvest from television comedy including Robin Williams, Chevy Chase and a whole troupe of others.

But it’s a shame that Goldie Hawn got all the glory – she won an Oscar – because this was the picture that established Walter Matthau as a genuine star as opposed to part of a double act with Jack Lemmon (The Fortune Cookie, 1966, and The Odd Couple, 1968). John Wayne once made the point that most acting is actually reacting to what someone else has said and in that regard there’s a masterclass from Ingrid Bergman (The Visit, 1964), playing determinedly against type.

Deceit drives the narrative. Just like Dean Martin in Airport (1970), upscale dentist Dr Julian Winston (Walter Matthau) has cottoned onto the fact that he can keep marital interest from mistress Toni (Goldie Hawn) at bay by the fact that he’s married. Except he isn’t and has to rustle up a fake wife to keep Toni on the hook. So he turns to spinster nurse Stephanie (Ingrid Bergman), a Swede cut from the repressed Bergmanesque cloth rather than the free loving spirit of popular (male) imagination, who has been carrying a torch for him for years, so, despite the notion that it’s not real, she goes full-tilt-boogie into the pretense. She’s even got a couple of nephews in tow who can masquerade, unknowingly, as Winston’s own kids.

Meanwhile, Winston rethinks his position, realizes he doesn’t want to lose Toni and reckons the only way he can get himself out of the sticky situation of his own creation is to pretend that his imaginary wife is also having an affair, so he has to set Stephanie up on dates with some of his customers so Toni can get a peek at them.

Assuming from its stage origins – France before being adapted for Broadway – this had more farce in the original production, that aspect has been trimmed back to concentrate on the various degrees of deceit. Instead of trying to force laffs from opening and closing doors and men being caught with their trousers down, this follows the simpler plotline of maintaining the deceits while inserting a potential twist when Toni develops an interest in her neighbor, author Igor (Rick Lenz).

The three principals are excellent, all bringing something fresh to the table, Walter Matthau as a lothario rather than a crafty conniver a distinct change of pace, Goldie Hawn a refreshing new face who was soon able to carry pictures on her own, and, especially, to my mind Ingrid Bergman. She has two absolutely marvelous reactions to information received – in the first her elbow literally falls from a table, in the second she is overwhelmed at the thought of receiving a gift, and she has the best scene of all, cutting loose on the dance floor.

As you might expect, the romantic entanglements are resolved.

Director Gene Saks (A Thousand Clowns, 1965) sticks to the knitting, extracting weighted performances from the cast without resorting to insipid extras. I.A.L. Diamond (The Fortune Cookie) adapted the Broadway play by Abe Burrows (Can-Can, 1960) who in turn had borrowed the French play by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy.

Most 1960s comedies have lost their verve but this still plays exquisitely.

What’s Good for The Goose / Girl Trouble (1969) ***

One of those comedies that works best in a time capsule and far more interesting for the coincidences and anomalies of those involved. What are the chances, you might ask, of sisters playing roughly the same role in two entirely different movies, one a comedy the other a drama, in the same year. We’ve got Sally Geeson here, in her debut, playing a free loving hitchhiker picking up an older married man and we’ve got her slightly more experienced sister Judy Geeson (Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush) as a free loving hitchhiker picking up older married man Rod Steiger in Peter Hall’s Three into Two Won’t Go (1969).

This proved the final starring role for Norman Wisdom (A Stitch in Time, 1963), at one time a huge British box office star, who had been infected by that disease that seems to always hit comedians, of wanting to play it straight. While there is some comedy, it’s sorely lacking in the kind of physical comedy, the pratfalls and such, with which Wisdom made his name.

And there’s another name to conjure with – Menahem Golan. More famous, eventually, for foisting on the general public a string of stinkers under the Cannon umbrella and taking over the British cinema chain ABC before going spectacularly bust. What’s his role in all this? He’s the creative force, would you believe, wearing his writer-director shingle, in his first movie outside Israel. And if that’s not enough, the producer is Tony Tenser, also trying to change direction, switching from the horror portfolio which with his outfit Tigon had made its name and into a different genre.

And if you want another name slipped in, what about Karl Lanchbury, playing a nice guy in contrast to the creepy characters he tended to essay in the likes of Whirlpool / She Died with Her Boots On (1969).

Time capsule firmly in place we’re in a Swinging Britain world where young girls listen to loud rock music (though don’t take drugs) and go where the mood takes them, free travel easily available through the simple device of hitchhiking.

Timothy Bartlett (Norman Wisdom) is a bored under-manager drowning in a sea of bureaucracy and turned off by wife Margaret (Sally Bazely) who goes to bed wearing a face mask and with her hair in curlers. On the way to a business conference he picks up two hitchhikers, Nikki (Sally Geeson) and Meg (Sarah Atkinson), becoming smitten with the former, making hay at a night club where his “dad dancing” is the hit of the evening. He slips into the counterculture, wearing hippie clothes, generally unwinding, doing his thing, and sharing his bed with Nikki.

You can tell he’s going to get a nasty shock and just to put that section off we dip into a completely different, almost “Carry On” scenario, where his efforts to sneak Nikki in his bedroom are almost foiled by an officious receptionist. Eventually, she invites all her hippie pals to make hay in his hotel room while she makes out with Pete (Karl Lanchbury),a man her own age, and Timothy is told in no uncertain terms the essence of free love is that she doesn’t hang around with a man for long, in this case their affair only lasted two days.

It’s the twist in the tail that generally makes this work. Rather than moan his head off or believe he is now catnip to young ladies, Timothy, unshackled from convention, uses his newfound freedom to woo his wife.

So, mostly a gentle comedy, and good to see Norman Wisdom not constantly having to over-act and twist his face every which way but loose, even though this effectively ended his career. The teenagers enjoy their freedom without consequence (nobody’s pregnant or addicted to drugs) and there’s a fairly good stab at digging into the effortless joys of the period. Sally Geeson (Cry of the Banshee, 1970) didn’t prove as big a find as her sister and her career fizzled out within a few years.

As an antidote to the Carry On epidemic, this works very well.

A gentle comedy.

You can catch this on YouTube courtesy of Flick Attack.

What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966) **

How on earth did James Coburn get mixed up in this mess? I’m assuming that having suddenly been elevated from supporting actor to top billing as a result of Our Man Flint (1966) he took the first job that came along that reflected his ideas about salary. Director Blake Edwards was, to some extent, at something of a loose end. United Artists had passed on The Great Race (1965) and another project with the director had fallen by the wayside. Apparently, this movie was the result of a question asked by his son. During World War Two, Edwards had served in the U.S. Coastguard which meant he did not see active service though did suffer a back injury. Writer William Peter Blatty (A Shot in the Dark, 1964) was too young for World War Two and though he joined the US Air Force he didn’t see active service either, being employed in the psychological warfare division.

So this exercise wasn’t going to be based on personal experience. The mid-1960s wouldn’t exactly lend itself to poking fun at war, although Vietnam was fair game.

You might have thought Coburn, on reading the script, would have realized he’s not much in the movie for the first 20 minutes or so and then is at the mercy of a bundle of subplots.

During the invasion of Sicily in 1943, stickler for discipline Captain Cash (Dick Shawn) is handed command of a disorganized unit headed by Lt Christian (James Coburn) and instructed to take a strategic village from the Germans. Turns out the enemy is long gone and the resident Italian soldiers, commanded by Capt Oppo (Sergio Fantoni), are only too happy to surrender as long as they can continue to enjoy la dolce vita which in this case involves an annual wine festival. Most of the early part of the picture revolves around getting Cash to loosen up, and after imbibing copious amounts of liquor and being seduced by the mayor’s daughter Gina (Giovanni Ralli) he relents.

There are only two obstacles to the merry party. Oppo objects to his girlfriend Gina being used as a makeweight to make Cash see things the Italian way and Cash’s boss General Bolt (Carroll O’Connor) asks to see proof of their success. So, since not a shot has been fired and they can’t boast of a camp full of Italian POWs, they decide to invent the proof and start filming phoney footage. Bolt reckons they need support and sends up reinforcements. Which is just as well because the Germans, either realizing what they’ve been missing or being nudged back into action, decide to reappear. And given the slovenly chaotic opposition it’s not hard for them to re-take control of the town which results in Cash hiding out in drag.

Theoretically, it’s a reasonable idea. There’s been no shortage of swindlers or con-men or black marketeers in war movies – think James Garner in The Great Escape (1963) and The Americanization of Emily (1964) – and various armies have been filled with shysters ranging from Sgt Bilko to the shifty recruits in British films up to all sorts of wheezes or doing their best to stay out of the line of fire.

But once the point has been made that it’s better to make love not war and drink as much wine as possible and become friends with the enemy, the point is made over and over again. There isn’t a single joke that isn’t belaboured and not many laffs to begin with. Going over-the-top is fine for slapstick like The Great Race but it doesn’t work here.

James Coburn has too little to do and Dick Shawn (A Very Special Favor, 1965) too much. Giovanni Ralli (Deadfall, 1968) and Sergio Fantoni (Hornet’s Nest, 1970 ) are wasted. Carroll O’Connor (Warning Shot, 1966) is the pick of a supporting cast that includes Aldo Ray (The Power, 1968) and Harry Morgan (The Mountain Road, 1960) but that’s only because he has a clever reversal of a role as a general who wants to be treated as an individual.

I should point out this has something of a cult following but I won’t be joining the fan club.

Must have seemed a good idea at the time.

Murderers’ Row (1966) ***

Chucklesome brew. It’s easy to get wrong idea about the Matt Helm series, what with the onslaught of girls in bikinis, a hero majoring in seduction and madmen wanting to take over the world. You could be hoodwinked into thinking this had something to do with espionage rather than a platform for the non-stop delivery of deadpan one-liners and wry visual gags. The star prevents anyone taking anything seriously with a rat-tat-tat quip a minute. The plot’s hooey and the female stars scarcely register. But who cares. The audience has buckled up for a fun ride.

Apart from the dialog the narrative is distinctly lazy. Assuming it’s what audiences want, the action takes time out to note parades of passing girls in bikinis and occasionally stops dead should there be the opportunity to watch youngsters dancing wildly. With humor to the fore, you could probably have gone for a dozen other storylines as good – or bad – as this one and nobody would have noticed.

Matt Helm (Dean Martin) is forced to interrupt photographing a bevy of beautiful girls in order to save the world from madman Julian Wall (Karl Malden) who plans to use the power of the sun to destroy Washington D.C. “Operation Scorch” relies on the brain of scientist Dr Solaris (Richard Eastham), who has been kidnapped to persuade him to hand over his formula.

This takes Helm, masquerading as a Chicago mobster, to Monte Carlo where he almost immediately faces a charge of murder. Tracking down Wall and his squeeze Coco (Camilla Sprav) proves easy. In rather desultory fashion Helm hooks up with local beauty Suzie (Ann-Margret) and until we discover that her father is Solaris her presence is mostly redundant as, for once, neither love nor lust is in the air.

Like any self-respecting madman Wall hangs out on an island where he is putting the final details to his plan and torturing Solaris. With Suzie in his wake, Helm easily infiltrates the rather desultory hideout, is captured, Solaris surrenders the secret formula once his daughter is threatened, and Suzie comes into her own by disabling the infernal machine by the simple device of a hairpin. This leads to a rather desultory happy ending.

I’m not entirely sure why Ann-Margret chose this vehicle, since she is called upon to do very little except shake her trademark booty. If she had gone up in critical estimation after her turns in Once a Thief (1965) and Stagecoach (1966) she plummeted back to earth here. You could say the same for Camilla Sparv – all the hard work in gaining reasonable notices for The Trouble with Angels (1966) and especially heist thriller Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966) undone. She has even less to do than Ann-Margret. Eye candy is too good a word for them and they are unfairly underused.

Karl Malden (Nevada Smith, 1966), who usually attempts to humanize his characters, avoids that idea and goes straight for cartoon villain.

So it’s left to Dean Martin to keep the enterprise afloat which he does with tremendous chutzpah. As well as the verbal drollery there are some excellent visual gags, including the use of a giant magnet to render defenseless menacing thug Ironhead (Tom Reese), so called because has a large metal plate on his skull. Virtually every line produces a rejoinder from Dean Martin, and that lightness of delivery matches the souffle nature of the picture, a sequel to The Silencers (1966), both big box office hits.

Director Henry Levin (Genghis Khan, 1965) gives himself no airs or graces, sensible enough to stick the camera on Dean Martin and let him do the rest. Written by Herbert Baker (Hammerhead, 1968) from the bestseller by Donald Hamilton.

Highly entertaining for a piece of pure fluff.

Kisses for My President (1964) ***

The concept of a female President was so alien to Hollywood that the only conceivable approach was to make it the story of the husband taking up the chores of the First Lady.

Having perfected his double takes and pratfalls on a string of Disney comedies Fred MacMurray plays Thad McCloud, straight man to incoming President Leslie McCloud (Polly Bergen) and after the screenwriters have exploited virtually every joke in the gender switch catalog it settles down to a more serious exploration of power.

Thad nurses a wounded ego after playing second fiddle to his more powerful wife, joining the anteroom queue to see her, any romantic notions interrupted by the telephone, and not enjoying his new role as chief menu selector and supporter of charities. So he’s a prime target for another powerful woman, Doris (Arlene Dahl), the head of a perfume company, an old flame who seduces him into taking charge of their male toiletries division. Meanwhile, Leslie challenges the foreign aid expectations of South American dictator supreme Valdez (Eli Wallach) while Thad gets into trouble escorting him to a night club.

Power is exploited not just by Valdez for whom financial aid means corruption but by the President’s children, the teenage Gloria (Anna Capri) who races round Washington in fast cars driven by louche boyfriends in the knowledge that she can’t be arrested, and younger Peter (Ronnie Dapo) who attacks schoolmates knowing Secret Service agents will protect him from retaliation. The sexually frustrated Thad, excited at the prospect of developing a new masculine-oriented range of perfumes, does not realise that Doris, far from leading him into the sack, is merely leading him by the nose, having no intention of using his ideas, her sole interest being getting the presidential endorsement.

There are certainly some amusing sequences – Thad getting lost in the White House, discovering his bedroom is more luxuriously appointed, getting stoned on pills to make him relax for a television show, and his reactions to watching the dictator spend his country’s foreign aid on fast cars, speedboats and loose women (a stripper named Nana Peel). The children are not just entitled but vicious with it. And Leslie, the most powerful person in the country nonetheless impotent in the face of a rebellious brood.

There’s a welcome element of Yes, Minister (the British television comedy ridiculing political bureaucracy) as both wife and husband face up to the over-complications of White House life. And there are some good lines. Spouts Thad: “A man needs an office especially when he has nothing to do.” Without a hint of irony, Leslie tells him, “Nobody expects you to vegetate just because you’re married to the President.”

And at least the character of Leslie is treated with respect. There’s no falling back on stereotypes. She’s not out of her depth, or given to tantrums or bouts of tears, she’s not outmanoeuvred by more clever men and she doesn’t come running to Thad for help.

That said, you can’t help thinking of the picture they could have made if Leslie had been the complete focus, her battles with the political male hierarchy, the laws she would have attempted to enact, introducing a feminine perspective to the corridors of power. Even so, as written, she is strong-willed enough to strip the self-indulgent Vasquez of foreign aid and deal with the consequent political fall-out.

Generally under-estimated as an actor, and now in his third decade as a star, the high points being Double Indemnity (1945) and The Apartment (1960), he had reinvented himself as a slapstick comedian with The Shaggy Dog (1959). His work had largely remained in that vein ever since so he was adept at underplaying this kind of character. Polly Bergen (Move Over, Darling, 1963) is spared the comedy and could have been in a different movie entirely, her scenes primarily taken seriously. Eli Wallach (The Moon-Spinners, 1964) gives the game away, over-acting to his heart’s content. Arlene Dahl (Sangaree, 1953) conjures up her Hollywood glamor heyday.

Hungarian blonde bombshell Anna Capri (Target: Harry, 1969) makes her movie debut. Variety’s Army Archerd had a cameo as did columnist Erskine Johnson. Beverly Powers (Jaws, 1975) plays the stripper.

This was the final picture in a 40-year career for German director Curtis Bernhardt (Possessed, 1947). Claude Binyon (North to Alaska, 1960) and Robert G. Kane (The Villain, 1979), in his movie debut, shared the screenplay credit.

Check out a Behind the Scenes for the Pressbook

What A Way To Go! (1964) ****

Daftest picture I’ve ever seen. Not the funniest, not by a long chalk, but highly enjoyable if you go with the flow and let wash over you the deluge of costume changes, the satire-a-go-go, a smattering of slo-mo and fast-mo, the worst fake beards and moustaches, and sanctimonious Hollywood rubbish that money isn’t everything and we should all be hankering after the Henry Thoreau approach to life. So wacky and far-out that if it had been made today J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone, 1961) would be in with a shout of being hailed as a “visionary” director.

The all-star cast snookers you in. Everyone acts – or should that be over-acts – against type, even Shirley MacLaine (Gambit, 1966), casting aside her ditzy screen persona in favor of sense and sensibility. The generally hapless Dick Van Dyke (Divorce American Style, 1967) demonstrates what happens when his manic energy is put to purpose. Add more or less top hat and tails to the commanding stride and imposing figure of Robert Mitchum (The Way West, 1965) and he could grace boardrooms with a venom the participants in Succession would envy. Dean Martin (Rough Night in Jericho, 1967) explores his villainous side. and you do wonder what would have happened to these stars’ careers had studios taken note of these side hustles, only Dean Martin would have the opportunity to tackle a similar character, though less cartoonish, again.

And it’s loaded with visual gems. J. Lee Thompson’s version of The Incredible Shrinking Man/Honey, I Shrunk the Boss is a treat. Watch out for the rows of secretaries slumped over their typewriters, Dick Van Dyke swamped by money, a drunken farmer trying to milk a bull, and contemporary sci-fi fans would dig the machines going crazy. That’s not to forget the monkey not just painting masterpieces but expecting applause on completion. There are spoofs galore – the contemporary (1960s) art scene, the musical, the wealth that opens doors and cannot ever be shut down no matter how hard you try.

Essentially a portmanteau as perennial widow Louisa (Shirley MacLaine) explains to a psychiatrist Dr Stephanson (Bob Cummings) how her four husbands met their demise. Louisa, daughter of a grasping greedy mother and ineffectual father, yearns for the simple life, far removed from the trappings and temptations of money. Ruthless businessman Leonard (Dean Martin) wants to marry her for the simple reason that she’s the only lass in town who doesn’t want to marry him.

Instead she marries financially-challenged Edgar (Dick Van Dyke) who discovers, much to his surprise and her annoyance, that he has a good business brain, enough to drive Leonard into the ground and ignore his new wife, until he drops dead due to the pressures of wealth. Next up is Parisian artist Larry (Paul Newman) whose biggest attraction is his poverty and simple lifestyle. Unfortunately, he could be Dick Van Dyke in disguise having invented a wacky machine that will do all the painting for him. Unfortunately, that makes him rich and leaves Louisa home alone once again until the machines take revenge on their creator.

Billionaire Rod (Robert Mitchum) is so taken with Louisa that he determines to get rid of his fortune only to discover that even when left unattended money just grows. Eventually, he sells up and becomes a happy, if inebriated farmer, but, unfortunately, can’t tell a cow from a bull and ends up dead.

Last up is another impoverished character clown Pinky (Gene Kelly) whose nightclub act is a stinker until he discovers his dancing feet. Once he passes, it’s full circle as Louisa again encounters Leonard, now impoverished and repentant, and marries him and they settle down. There’s a fine twist at the end when wealth once again beckons.

Shirley Maclaine doesn’t have to do a great deal except hold it together and wear a hundred costumes. Robert Mitchum is the pick but Paul Newman (The Hustler, 1961) is to be applauded for sending up so riotously his screen persona. And it could easily have degenerated into a lazy spoof, the actors giving nothing at all. Instead, once it gets going it’s just huge fun.

J. Lee Thompson displays an inventiveness not seen before. This works because it is so indulgent. Written by the team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green (Bells Are Ringing, 1960) from the bestseller by Gwen Davis.

Critics slammed it but audiences lapped it out. I was in both camps. Started out hating it, ended up adoring it.

Fackham Hall (2025) *** – Seen at the Cinema

I’m not sure Downton Abbey is a big enough franchise to be allocated a parody, so I came at this with low expectations. However, instead of a leaden spoof, I found it constantly amusing and was chuckling from the get-go. There’s only one cracker of a scene and not the correct number of killer lines for a killer comedy, but, oddly enough, it gets by with a more subtle shade of humor, often of the blind-and-you’ll-miss-it variety, a sign on a wall, a newspaper headline and so forth, almost the ultimate in visual gags.

I’m beginning with the crackerjack scene in part because when I heard that British stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr not only had a hand in the screenplay but was down for a key cameo, I dreaded his appearance. But it was a gem, the best maladroit vicar since Rowan Atkinson in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). If comedy is all about timing, Carr puts on a masterclass, putting the wrong pronunciation on the first few syllables of every line in order to tip it over into full-blown double entendre snigger material.

As you might expect there’s not much plot and yet what narrative there is keys into the most significant aspect of the aristocracy, namely inheritance. Nobody wants a stately pile to end up in the hands of the undeserved, which is why there was such a preponderance of people marrying cousins or second cousins.

As a result, this is distinctly anti-woke, incest, buggery and masturbation all taking center stage. And perhaps because of playing about with bloodlines, there has never been a better tagline “born to aristocracy, bred for idiocy.” Even the leading lady Rose Davenport (Thomasin McKenzie) – scheduled to marry repulsive cousin Archibald (Tom Felton) as substitute for older sister Poppy (Emma Laird) who ducked out of the chore – is as dumb as a spanner.

Given the genre’s natural spin towards complication Rose has fallen for new employee Eric (Ben Radcliffe) while Poppy makes a beeline for a cast-off from Lady Chatterley’s Lover. When Lord Davenport (Damian Lewis) is murdered and Eric imprisoned as the main suspect, Rose, in order to maintain the family line, is forced to reconsider Archibald.

There’s also a quite clever parody of the standard Agatha Christie murder mystery with Inspector Watt (Tom Goodman-Hill) making all sorts of wrong assumptions – though admittedly it’s a complicated corpse given Lord Davenport has been stabbed, poisoned, shot and strangled – before a quite brilliant denouement. There are secret love affairs and long-lost family.

It only takes a few complications to keep a comedy rolling so there’s no shortage of narrative drive here. There are twists, too, not least the unexpectedly dumb Rose, but the unexpectedly uncouth commoner who takes up with Poppy.

With ineptitude to the fore, none of the actors has much problem with making their characters believable and, as I mentioned, there are plenty visual gags and a couple of other excellent set pieces. Anna Maxwell Martin’s (Ludwig TV series, 2024) atrocious Scottish accent stands out for the wrong reasons, as if she was the only actor who decided to play it as a spoof rather than for real.

Otherwise Damian Lewis (Wolf Hall, 2015-2024), Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series), Thomasin McKenzie (Joy, 2024) and Ben Radcliffe (The Witcher series 2023-2025) are pretty much spot-on. Katherine Waterston (Babylon, 2022) has a small role, and spearheads another superb scene, and Hayley Mills (The Family Way, 1966) acts as narrator.

Directed by Jim O’Hanlon (Your Christmas or Mine, 2022). Written by Steve and Andrew Dawson and Tim Inman (The Bubble, 2022) and Jimmy and Patrick Carr.

Surprisingly, for a very low-budget endeavor, this did very well at the British box office and I suspect word-of-mouth might well gather it a sizeable following when it enters streaming.

Not going to be mistaken as Oscar-bait, but does what it sets out to do.