What really could have been a classic farce of well deserved justice turns out to be formulatic and sitcom like. There are plenty of great ideas all around, but the problem is that this becomes like a bucket list where the same goal keeps being met over and over and over. Made during a period of some classic Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Blake Edwards and Neil Simon classics, this has easily been forgotten, and only being familiar with the short lived TV sitcom version, I can certainly see why.
Receiving a judgemental letter threatening to expel her daughter because of judgments against her, Barbara Eden takes it upon herself to get even, and boy, does this snooty group deserve all they get. Eden shows up at a meeting and exposes all of their secrets, all with the purpose of proving what hypocrites they are and how judgment of others is wrong, especially when they are all drunks, sex maniacs and crooks. One by one, they each get their comeuppance, but that doesn't stop leader Audrey Christie from vowing to stop her, even after she's gone through a hair falling experience of her own.
Often hysterical, and filled with some meaning behind the vengeance, this fails to come fully together thanks to its weakening structure and repetitiveness. Eden is fantastic, with a Bohemian like Nanette Fabray magnificent as her partner in crime. Christie is playing a modern version of her "Unsinkable Molly Brown" character of Mrs. McGraw, while John Fiedler gets a great baring moment with nothing but a fire hose on. This suffers from seeming instantly dated in a very 70's mode, and that makes it a time capsule, not a representation of what was funny in the late 1970's.
Receiving a judgemental letter threatening to expel her daughter because of judgments against her, Barbara Eden takes it upon herself to get even, and boy, does this snooty group deserve all they get. Eden shows up at a meeting and exposes all of their secrets, all with the purpose of proving what hypocrites they are and how judgment of others is wrong, especially when they are all drunks, sex maniacs and crooks. One by one, they each get their comeuppance, but that doesn't stop leader Audrey Christie from vowing to stop her, even after she's gone through a hair falling experience of her own.
Often hysterical, and filled with some meaning behind the vengeance, this fails to come fully together thanks to its weakening structure and repetitiveness. Eden is fantastic, with a Bohemian like Nanette Fabray magnificent as her partner in crime. Christie is playing a modern version of her "Unsinkable Molly Brown" character of Mrs. McGraw, while John Fiedler gets a great baring moment with nothing but a fire hose on. This suffers from seeming instantly dated in a very 70's mode, and that makes it a time capsule, not a representation of what was funny in the late 1970's.