It's been years since Blake Edwards made a funny film, and this 1981 effort may have been one of his last consistent laugh producers. Richard Mulligan plays a Hollywood producer who realizes that his career may be over when the public sees his latest film: a big-budget musical that lands on test audiences with a thud. In a moment of madness, he hits upon the idea of reediting it to include soft-porn reshoots--including a shot of his movie-star wife (Julie Andrews), who has a squeaky clean public image, baring her breasts (which the squeaky clean Andrews actually does). Scathing in its satire of Hollywood numbskullery, the film features terrific performances by Mulligan, Robert Preston, and William Holden (in his last film). --Marshall Fine
2.
Based on his near-career-ending experience with the box-office disaster DARLING LILI, Blake Edwards fashioned a corrosive behind-the-scenes satire of the business in which he had long plied his trade.The film stars Richard Mulligan as Felix Farmer, a once-successful director whose career is on the slide because of the colossal failure of his $30 million G-rated musical. In desperation he hatches a plan to revive his career: Buy back the film and remake it, adding new pornographic footage to render it a more marketable box-office commodity. He believes that the key to the film's success will be the willingness of his ex-wife, Sally Miles (Julie Andrews), to dispense with her sweetly wholesome image and bare her breasts onscreen. To reach his goal, Farmer has to wade through a river of egomanical producers, wildly pretentious directors, knife-wielding industry gossips, sneaky editors, and even a dissipated doctor--or quack, as he prefers to be called. A broad, hugely entertaining attack on the hand that fed him, Edwards's film is among his best, with hilarious scenery chewing by William Holden (in his final film appearance), Loretta Swit, Larry Hagman, Richard Mulligan, Robert Preston, Robert Vaughn, Robert Webber, Robert Loggia, and no other Roberts among its seeming cast of thousands.
3.
Edward's blistering satirical sock to Hollywood's kisser stars William Holden as a director who attempts to turn an artsy flop into a racy, R-rated box-office hit by convincing his wife (Julie Andrews) to do a nude scene. Called "an exemplar of a vanishing breed - the serious American comedy" by The Chicago Reader's Dave Kehr, S.O.B. also features Robert Preston, Larry Hagman and Shelley Winters.
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