Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: What's Up, Doc? (1972) - Screwball comedy revived for a wonderful show

7/04/2013

What's Up, Doc? (1972) - Screwball comedy revived for a wonderful show

♥♥♥♥♥

Even the credits and poster work is brimming with spirit and right on the money for Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up, Doc?

Four highly important plaid overnight bags get mixed up in San Francisco around a musicologist doctor, who is in town with his fiancee Eunice to compete for a grant.

Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl (1968)) is the sprawling stranger who begins to impersonate the doctor's wife, hilariously played by master comedienne Madeline Kahn (Blazing Saddles (1974)). Ryan O'Neal (Barry Lyndon (1975)) is the very cute and confused Doc in the middle. Both Streisand and O'Neal look sweet as pie, and they also have great screen chemistry. They are sexy and funny in What's Up, Doc?, often at the same time.
But this is not merely a mix-up romcom, but also an homage to all the old, classic screwball comedies as made by Howard Hawks (Bringing Up Baby (1938)), Frank Capra (Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)), Preston Sturges (The Lady Eve (1941)) etc. in the high days of Old Hollywood. Gender-related mix-ups with gags of all kinds involved, it is a genre I have sometimes thought too silly to be really funny, but in great New York filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich's (Targets (1968)) able and very enthusiastic vision, I am laughing and rejoicing in the calamities again and again.
Great Hungarian cinematographer László Kovacs (Easy Rider (1969)) supplies great crips pictures, and Bogdanovich has cast an incredible supporting cast to one outrageously funny character after the other. It all concludes in a memorable and quite elaborate chase through San Francisco and then a court room scene that simply puts the capital H in Hilarity.
The Streisand character is especially cartoonish, deliberately, SPOILER and the film's ending pays appropriate homage to Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes.
What's Up, Doc? will make you laugh and make you happy and perhaps also a bit nostalgic. It is written by Buck Henry (Catch-22 (1970)), David Newman (Superman (1978)) and Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)), based on Bogdanovich's story. It is one of my all-time favorite comedies and one that I can watch again and again and fall in love with all over every single time.
Bogdanovich is a somewhat under-appreciated American filmmaker and actor. He has made several good films, especially The Last Picture Show (1971), which, - on the other hand, - is an incredibly depressing film. He has also made many film documentaries, montages and books on filmmakers and actors. I just finished reading his Who the Hell's In It, which is an incredible joy to read for anyone who loves film and film stars. It features chapters on Bogdanovich's encounters/relationships with stars like John Wayne, Marlene Dietrich, James Stewart, James Cagney, Charlie Chaplin, Lillian Gish etc., including comments on their major achievements. - A great book from a great guy.

Related posts:

Peter Bogdanovich: Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011) - Stapleton's Corman doc. is among the year's best films (interview subject)
The Wild Angels (1966) - Young biker rebels deliver a counter-culture punch in Corman's hands (co-writer)

Watch the very unorthodox, unpretentious and funny trailer for the hilarious comedy, What's Up, Doc? here

Cost: 4 mil. $
Box office: 66 mil. $ + 3 mil. in 1973 re-run rentals (North America only)
= Mega-hit (returned at least 17.25 times the cost)
[What's Up, Doc? premiered 9 March (New York) and runs 94 minutes. It was shot in New Jersey and California, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, from August - December 1971. It became the 3rd highest grossing film of the year in North America, behind The Godfather and The Poseidon Adventure. The only international figure I have available is from Sweden, where the film was also a major hit with 1.1 mil. admissions there. The film's success closely tails the subsequent major hits Jaws (1975) and Star Wars: Episode VI - A New Hope (1977), said to have started the blockbuster term. The 1982 video release of the film garnered another 28.5 mil. $ in rentals. Bogdanovich returned with Paper Moon (1973). Streisand returned in Up the Sandbox (1972), O'Neal in The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973). What's Up, Doc? is fresh at 90% with a 7.4/10 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of What's Up, Doc??

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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7/04/2013

What's Up, Doc? (1972) - Screwball comedy revived for a wonderful show

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