Folks, it's the late 60s encapsulated. If it was being thought about by anyone in 1969, it's in here -- Vietnam, yoga, homosexuality, narcissism, complacency, and mostly greed.
Peter Sellers in Guy Grand, a Londoner with so much money that he can buy anything and anyone. He fills an outdoor vat with a vile mixture of pig's blood, urine, and fecal matter, then throws handfuls of "free money" into it, inviting a horde of dapper observers to take as much as they want. They do, wading slowly into the slime with their three-piece suits, bowlers, and brollies. He corrupts the rowing teams of Oxford and Cambridge.
The most outrageous episodes take place aboard the luxury liner "The Magic Christian," the passage for which costs a fortune. The genial Wilfred Hyde White is the reassuring and confident captain, who enjoys handling the helm by himself. And the funniest episode aboard "The Magic Christian" has Christopher Lee as a vampire barging onto the bridge, sucking Hyde White's blood and injecting some substance from a large syringe directly into his SKULL.
There are multiple cameo parts for easily recognizable stars of the period, but none involves much effort or screen time. It's captivating to watch Yul Brynner as a transvestite -- he makes a passably good-looking woman -- sing a seductive Cole Porter song to an indifferent Roman Polanski.
At times it gets a bit frantic and the episode aboard "The Magic Christian" ends in a kaleidoscope of frenzy, as if the writers felt they needed more flash and less filigree to what had come before. The same mistake was made in "Sex and the Single Girl", the 1967 "Casino Royale," and "What's New, Pussycat?" Not even writers like Terry Southern and John Cleese can solve the problem of bringing a successful farce to an even more impressive conclusion. The shot of Christopher Lee plunging the hypodermic into Hyde White's head lasts about two seconds -- not nearly long enough to be appreciated.
I hate to say this, but the novel was funnier. The comic incidents were presented in the context of everyday events. That is, the mind-blowing scenes came as a surprise. Here, they're more or less piled on top of one another and the set-ups are done too casually.
Terry Southern's brand of satire rarely fits comfortably on the screen, partly because the stories themselves may or may not be comic but Southern's prose style transforms them into humor. "Candy" was a funny book but failed as a movie. "The Loved One" had its moments but was knee-capped by Robert Morse's too-cute protagonist. The exception, of course, was the nearly flawless "Dr. Strangelove," adapted from an entirely serious apocalyptic novel.
Let's put it this way. It's a funny movie with incidents that made me laugh out loud. If you liked Monty Python, you'll enjoy this episodic flick. And if you enjoy this movie, try reading Southern's short novel of the same name. Then try "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," the book.
Peter Sellers in Guy Grand, a Londoner with so much money that he can buy anything and anyone. He fills an outdoor vat with a vile mixture of pig's blood, urine, and fecal matter, then throws handfuls of "free money" into it, inviting a horde of dapper observers to take as much as they want. They do, wading slowly into the slime with their three-piece suits, bowlers, and brollies. He corrupts the rowing teams of Oxford and Cambridge.
The most outrageous episodes take place aboard the luxury liner "The Magic Christian," the passage for which costs a fortune. The genial Wilfred Hyde White is the reassuring and confident captain, who enjoys handling the helm by himself. And the funniest episode aboard "The Magic Christian" has Christopher Lee as a vampire barging onto the bridge, sucking Hyde White's blood and injecting some substance from a large syringe directly into his SKULL.
There are multiple cameo parts for easily recognizable stars of the period, but none involves much effort or screen time. It's captivating to watch Yul Brynner as a transvestite -- he makes a passably good-looking woman -- sing a seductive Cole Porter song to an indifferent Roman Polanski.
At times it gets a bit frantic and the episode aboard "The Magic Christian" ends in a kaleidoscope of frenzy, as if the writers felt they needed more flash and less filigree to what had come before. The same mistake was made in "Sex and the Single Girl", the 1967 "Casino Royale," and "What's New, Pussycat?" Not even writers like Terry Southern and John Cleese can solve the problem of bringing a successful farce to an even more impressive conclusion. The shot of Christopher Lee plunging the hypodermic into Hyde White's head lasts about two seconds -- not nearly long enough to be appreciated.
I hate to say this, but the novel was funnier. The comic incidents were presented in the context of everyday events. That is, the mind-blowing scenes came as a surprise. Here, they're more or less piled on top of one another and the set-ups are done too casually.
Terry Southern's brand of satire rarely fits comfortably on the screen, partly because the stories themselves may or may not be comic but Southern's prose style transforms them into humor. "Candy" was a funny book but failed as a movie. "The Loved One" had its moments but was knee-capped by Robert Morse's too-cute protagonist. The exception, of course, was the nearly flawless "Dr. Strangelove," adapted from an entirely serious apocalyptic novel.
Let's put it this way. It's a funny movie with incidents that made me laugh out loud. If you liked Monty Python, you'll enjoy this episodic flick. And if you enjoy this movie, try reading Southern's short novel of the same name. Then try "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," the book.