A frank and very funny film about life, love and KILLING. Kurt Vonnegut's play is not very cinematic and director Mark Robson makes no attempt whatsoever to hide that fact. Stylistically, this is probably the flattest adaptation of a play to film. Nevertheless, there's a lot to enjoy, including several hilarious performances by the likes of George Grizzard, Don Murray (as a creepy idiot man-child/Eagle Scout), William Hickey and Susannah York. Rod Stieger is a great white hunter who returns after eight years "lost" in the Amazon jungle to find wife York engaged to peacenik doctor Grizzard, as well as actively pursued by loony vacuum cleaner salesman Murray. Steiger either shrieks or whispers most of his lines but he's very funny and Hickey (one of the pilots who dropped the bomb on Nagasaki) is his smarter-than-he-appears pal. The screenplay is by Vonnegut and there's plenty of choice dialog, poking fun at American mores, the anti-war movement (it's 1971), modern medicine, and just about anything else you can think of.
Review of Happy Birthday, Wanda June
Happy Birthday, Wanda June
(1971)
It's about life, love and KILLING...
24 December 2011
Warning: Spoilers