Saturday Special: One of my very favorite comedy things...

It has come to my attention that on this day in 1969, "Monty Python's Flying Circus" was first broadcast on the BBC.

I love British humor, and I love the Pythons. And so, because I have things to do today, and they are taking longer than they should because I still have this ridiculous allergy thing going on, I'm just going to leave this here for you to enjoy. It's my favorite Python sketch of all time, "The Argument Clinic":



Enjoy.

Movie extra: The "Artists and Models" Edition

I've never liked Jerry Lewis, nor much of anything he's been in. I don't think he's particularly funny, and his recent insistence that women shouldn't do comedy because it "diminishes" their "qualities to the lowest common denominator" both puzzle and offend me, and not just on behalf of the all the really funny women in the world. I'm not sure it says much about him that he thinks it's okay for men to diminish themselves in that way, or that they are already so debased that it doesn't matter what they do.

Yeah, I know, he's an old man now, and I probably shouldn't say bad things about him.

If that's true, then this is my mea culpa. This evening, I happened to watch "Artists and Models", a 1955 film he made with Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, and Dorothy Malone. Ordinarily I wouldn't have watched it, but my roommate turned it on so that her 5-year-old granddaughter could watch it. But, we were eating dinner and it was either watch the movie or go eat by myself. I've been eating alone all summer while my roommate has been on vacation, so that wasn't an option that I really liked. And so I watched the movie.

It was hilarious.

No, really. It's that laugh-out-loud kind of funny that is difficult to come by, in my experience.

It still had too much of Lewis's mugging. That isn't my taste in comedy, and it doesn't look any better these days on Jim Carrey than it did when Lewis was doing it on a regular basis. And I find his "Hey, Lady!" voice, which he uses in this film, to be particularly grating. But, even with all this, I laughed out loud repeatedly during the film and recommend it just on that basis alone.

Also, any movie that can find comedy in the Cold War and the popular culture of the 1950s is my friend, and this film manages to do that. They send up the furor over what comic books were supposedly doing to the sensitive minds of children with style and bite, and they poke fun equally at the Soviets and at US overzealousness in rooting out all the Reds under all the beds. And there's a quick, blink-and-you'll-miss-it, tip of the hat to "Rear Window", one of the top grossing films of the year before "Artists and Models" was made, that is just hilarious. There is also a scene that begs the question of whether whoever invented the game "Twister" was watching it when they first thought of the idea for the game. They also manage to send up the then-fledgling space race as they laugh at both the spying of the Soviets and at the sometimes comic overzealousness of the US in guarding against that spying.

Here's the trailer for the film, courtesy of YouTube:



It really is a funny film, and you should see it. It doesn't make me like Jerry Lewis any better, to be honest, but it proves that him just being in a movie is not necessarily a reason for me to avoid it completely.

Movie Monday: Sometimes they aren't so good...

Last night I watched a movie that wasn't very good, that didn't do well at the box office in its initial release, and that the critics hated when it came out.

But, it is a curiosity, for at least a couple of reasons, and I was curious about it. So, when I discovered that it was available on OnDemand, I had to watch it. I'm not sure I'm glad I did.

The film was "The Iron Petticoat", from 1956, directed by Ralph Thomas, written by Ben Hecht (who had his name taken off the film, or at least attempted to; he's back in the credits for showings on Turner Classic Movies), and starring Katharine Hepburn and Bob Hope. Which was why I was so curious about it. I don't think I can imagine a more unlikely film pairing.

I only found out that the Hepburn and Hope had ever done a film together about a week ago, during a discussion about films with an SCA friend of mine. So, when I discovered it listed for viewing, I decided I had best watch it before it disappeared again.

As it turns out, it disappearing was not such a far-fetched idea. It got lousy reviews, did dismal box-office, and then was unavailable, at least in the United States, for over 50 years until a showing in 2012 on Turner Classic Movies (it was on their OnDemand list when I found it last night).

The film is meant to be a Cold War comedy, with Hepburn playing a Russian military pilot who flies her MiG to West Germany not because she is looking to defect but simply because she's had a bad day. An American Officer (Hope) is assigned to persuade her to defect. He takes her to London with him to accomplish this, but he is also going to the UK to see his very rich fiancee (played by Noelle Middleton; yeah, I've never heard of her before either). Predictably, complications ensue, including Soviet agents who are determined to capture Hepburn and take her back to Moscow to put her on trial for treason.

One of the problems with the film is that Hepburn's Russian accent is nearly unintelligible for the first half hour or so of the film, and merely bad after that. Forgive me. The woman was a great actress, but accents, or at least a Russian accent, was not one of her talents. The other huge problem of the film was the presence of Bob Hope. I'm not a huge fan, especially after what he did to the land on which a major movie ranch stood for years and years (namely, bought it as an investment, subdivided part of it for tract homes and left the rest to rot...but that's another post for another time). The thing is, what apparently started out as a good script got turned into a "typical Hope comedy", to quote a trivia item on IMDB's page for the movie.

Which is why Ben Hecht, the screenwriter, wanted his name off the movie. Hecht was also a journalist and playwright, and had a hand in not only writing for the screen but in fixing, without credit, the screenplays for some pretty famous films, including "Gone With the Wind". One of the films he worked on without credit, by the way, was "The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), which starred Tony Randall and Barbara Eden, and which you really should see because it is a great George Pal-produced and directed fantasy. Anyway, Hecht was not happy with what had been done to his screenplay and because Hepburn's role was reduced by half in the editing room. She reportedly wasn't happy about that either, and has been quoted as calling Hope "the biggest egomaniac" she had ever worked with.

So, I can't really recommend the film. On the other hand, it is a curiosity, and there were a few good lines. Still, by best recommendation would be to go see a good Katharine Hepburn movie. There are plenty to choose from.

Here, by the way, is the trailer for the film. I'm not sure why it is in black and white. The film was in color.