While this is considered one of Liza Minnelli's film career flops, the evidence points out otherwise. It definitely was not the box office hit that 20th Century Fox anticipated it would be coming off as her first acting role since winning the Oscar for "Cabaret". However, box office receipts show that it didn't do as badly as rumor would have it. In fact, Liza received a Golden Globe nomination for the film, and was still one of the year's top box office stars (among very few women listed) in spite of poor reviews that the film received. What really tanked that year for Fox was "At Long Last Love", their big musical spoof which starred Liza's co-star here, Burt Reynolds.
This is a prohibition era story of rum running, and Liza plays a Clara Bow lookalike who sings Kander and Ebb songs in a border-town saloon. She convinces sometimes lover Reynolds to run rum for her, and has both the border patrol and coast guard on their trail. On the way, they pick up grizzled Gene Hackman who was ripped off by Reynolds, and pretty soon, the three are engaged in a menage-a-tois, although it is clear that manly men Hackman and Reynolds only share Minnelli, not each other.
"Gangsters?" a San Francisco hotel clerk asks his manager. "No", he responds. "Hollywood trash". There's tons of lines like this, but the all time classic is Minnelli's "It's so quiet here, you can hear a fish fart!" Network TV years ago cut out the line altogether while a cable channel simply silenced the offensive word, even though it was clear through Liza's mouthing what she had said. Young Robby Benson plays Reynolds' shy shipmate and quickly moved onto leads in such popular teen films as "Ode to Billy Joe", "One on One", and "Ice Castles".
The film is no better or worse than many fluffy comedies of the 1970's, probably a tad higher budgeted than most. Liza was the epitome of the wild '70's lifestyle of the rich and famous, and with the Studio 54 days just around the corner, some memorable Broadway appearances and much press, it isn't hard to see why some critics would want to put her down a peg or two, justified or not. She's actually the best thing about the movie, and if her Kander and Ebb songs aren't up there among their best (which includes the same year's Barbra Streisand hit "Funny Lady"), they do reflect the era. Standards of the late 20's such as "All I Do is Dream of You" and "If I Had a Talking Picture of You" are heard in a nightclub sequence. The opening theme, "Too Much Mustard", is best remembered as the Astaire/Rogers "Castle Walk" in "The Story of Vernon & Irene Castle" and snappily gets the film started with some nice artwork over the credits. The title song is one of the highlights of the film, a montage of various situations that is quite humorous. Overall, the humor of the film is very similar to the 1982 Blake Edwards/Julie Andrews classic "Victor/Victoria", which didn't suffer at all at the box office, and a show Liza later did on Broadway.
"Lucky Lady" was part of the '70's nostalgia craze and was obviously influenced by "The Sting" as were such others as "The Fortune" and "Harry and Walter Go to New York". There is apparently an alternative ending that Liza liked better but was re-filmed to be more commercial. I felt satisfied with this conclusion, however (involving rival bootlegger John Hillerman), although the alternate ending sounds more touching. Geoffrey Lewis is amusing as a Coast Guard commander, and Hillerman is droll as always. I think in time that "Lucky Lady" will be like other disappointments of the era and be acknowledged as an entertaining film without pretension that suffered mainly because of the overabundance of attention the three stars were receiving.
This is a prohibition era story of rum running, and Liza plays a Clara Bow lookalike who sings Kander and Ebb songs in a border-town saloon. She convinces sometimes lover Reynolds to run rum for her, and has both the border patrol and coast guard on their trail. On the way, they pick up grizzled Gene Hackman who was ripped off by Reynolds, and pretty soon, the three are engaged in a menage-a-tois, although it is clear that manly men Hackman and Reynolds only share Minnelli, not each other.
"Gangsters?" a San Francisco hotel clerk asks his manager. "No", he responds. "Hollywood trash". There's tons of lines like this, but the all time classic is Minnelli's "It's so quiet here, you can hear a fish fart!" Network TV years ago cut out the line altogether while a cable channel simply silenced the offensive word, even though it was clear through Liza's mouthing what she had said. Young Robby Benson plays Reynolds' shy shipmate and quickly moved onto leads in such popular teen films as "Ode to Billy Joe", "One on One", and "Ice Castles".
The film is no better or worse than many fluffy comedies of the 1970's, probably a tad higher budgeted than most. Liza was the epitome of the wild '70's lifestyle of the rich and famous, and with the Studio 54 days just around the corner, some memorable Broadway appearances and much press, it isn't hard to see why some critics would want to put her down a peg or two, justified or not. She's actually the best thing about the movie, and if her Kander and Ebb songs aren't up there among their best (which includes the same year's Barbra Streisand hit "Funny Lady"), they do reflect the era. Standards of the late 20's such as "All I Do is Dream of You" and "If I Had a Talking Picture of You" are heard in a nightclub sequence. The opening theme, "Too Much Mustard", is best remembered as the Astaire/Rogers "Castle Walk" in "The Story of Vernon & Irene Castle" and snappily gets the film started with some nice artwork over the credits. The title song is one of the highlights of the film, a montage of various situations that is quite humorous. Overall, the humor of the film is very similar to the 1982 Blake Edwards/Julie Andrews classic "Victor/Victoria", which didn't suffer at all at the box office, and a show Liza later did on Broadway.
"Lucky Lady" was part of the '70's nostalgia craze and was obviously influenced by "The Sting" as were such others as "The Fortune" and "Harry and Walter Go to New York". There is apparently an alternative ending that Liza liked better but was re-filmed to be more commercial. I felt satisfied with this conclusion, however (involving rival bootlegger John Hillerman), although the alternate ending sounds more touching. Geoffrey Lewis is amusing as a Coast Guard commander, and Hillerman is droll as always. I think in time that "Lucky Lady" will be like other disappointments of the era and be acknowledged as an entertaining film without pretension that suffered mainly because of the overabundance of attention the three stars were receiving.