Mar 22 2009
“What’s Up, Doc?” (1972) *****
Preview Unavailable
Starring: Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neal, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, and Austin Pendleton.
Directed By: Peter Bogdanovich.
Story:
Somebody with an attention span disorder (aka 90% of today’s young audience) will not be able to tolerate a clever plot like this one. There’s four identical bags - One cotains a bunch of igneous tambula rocks which belongs to Dr. Howard Banister (Ryan O’Neal), a musicologist from the Iowa Conservatory of Music, along with his very annoying and overbearing fiance, Eunice Burns (Madeline Kahn). They have arrived at San Francisco in hopes of winning a grant funded by Frederick Larrabee (Austin Pendleton). Howard’s theory revolves around how ancient man may have used rocks to create music. Challenging him for the grant is the uptight, dubiously-accented Hugh Simon (Kenneth Mars).
The second bag belongs to Judy Maxwell (Streisand), filled with her clothes (a dictionary included). Everywhere this girl goes, trouble goes along right with her. Car accidents and confusing scenarios galore. Being a college drop out, she happens to be very intelligent and can talk herself out of just about anything she gets herself into.
Bag number three belongs to Mrs. Van Hoskins (Mabel Albertson), a rich old lady who stores her extremely valuable jewels in the bag. The fourth and last bag contains some top-secret government documents that belongs to the mysterious Mr. Smith (Michael Murphy), who has obtained them illegally with the intention of going public. Rivaling him is the mysterious Mr. Jones (Philip Roth) who happens to be a government agent who’s mission is to get those documents back to where they belong.
Following me so far? Good. All of those people happen to check into the same San Francisco Hotel. The main catalyst for the chaos and confusion that follows is Judy Maxwell, for the most part. She lodges herself into the hotel without paying and pursues Howard whom she finds very attractive and tries to deter him from marrying that wicked witch of a fiance he has, she goes to great hilarious lengths to win the heart of her desire (i.e. posing as his fiance while securing the Grant for Howard). Meanwhile, two hotel employees (Sorrell Booke and Stefan Gierasch) are plotting to steal Mrs. Van Hoskins’s bag (the one with the jewels in it), but at the same time, Agent Jones is trying to get the government bag back from Mr. Smith. Over the course of one evening, the four different parties unwittingly take one another’s bags (i.e. Howard ends up with the jewels, Judy with the documents, Mr. Smith with Judy’s clothes, and the hotel thieves with Howard’s rocks). Things get way, way out of control in some of the most funniest situations ever imagined on film, from burning hotel rooms, a shootout, and to one of the most laugh-out loud and longest multi-car chases that scales down the hills of San Francisco, Chinatown, and into the San Francisco Bay. The film has an anti-climax which continues in a hilarious courtroom/arrest sequence and then an airport where everything gets tied up very neatly.
Characters:
*Judy Maxwell (Barbra Streisand): A big troublemaker where, no matter where she goes, trouble just happens to find her.
*Dr. Howard Bannister (Ryan O’Neal): A musicologist from the Iowa Conservatory of Music.
*Eunice Burns (Madeline Kahn): Howard’s overbearing fiancee who doesn’t know how to relax.
*Hugh Simon (Kenneth Mars): Another musicologist who wants nothing but to compete with Howard for Mr. Larrabee’s attention.
*Frederick Larrabee (Austin Pendleton): The funder behind the grant which Howard and Hugh are competing for.
Overall:
It’s movies like “What’s Up, Doc?” that reminds us that good comedy actually exists out there amidst all of the saturated garbage. The film pays homage to the genre of screwball comedy that ran rampant mostly in the 1930s like “Laurel and Hardy”, “Bringing Up Baby”, the Bugs Bunny cartoons, among others. In fact, it is a remake (in a way) of “Bringing Up Baby”.
As the third highest grossing film of 1972, “What’s Up, Doc?” was a huge cinematic hit that won Best Written Comedy and even made the lists of American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest Comedies (#61) and AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Passions (#68). Although the film is dated in some ways, you won’t find comedies like this in today’s mostly screwed up cinematic era. Don’t let the decade it was made in fool you, “What’s Up, Doc?” is a true comedic gem that will forever bring you to your knees laughing.
Rating: *****
