Other Titles • What's Up, Doc? • Is' was, Doc? (1972)
Synopses for What's Up, Doc? (1972)
1.
Director Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show) tipped his hat to the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s, and especially the most glorious of them all, Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby. Barbra Streisand plays a charming flake who distracts a self-absorbed musicologist (Ryan O'Neal). He's engaged to be married, but soon Streisand's character has him chasing after stolen jewelry and getting into one madcap fix after another. Bogdanovich, who is also a film critic, understands the engine of the screwball genre, and his loving revival of the form brings a smile, though it is not quite consistently inspired or funny. There are plenty of great moments, however, including a slap at O'Neal's own star-making vehicle, Love Story. --Tom Keogh
2.
Trouble seems to follow know-it-all Judy Maxwell (Barbra Streisand) wherever she goes. This time it takes the form of Howard Bannister (Ryan O’Neal), a musicologist attending a convention where he's competing for a grant that will allow him to study the musical properties of certain igneous rocks. Judy pursues Howard despite his protests, and his overbearing fiancée, Eunice Burns (Madeline Kahn), begins to question his motives. To make matters more confusing, there are four identical plaid overnight cases circulating through the Bristol Hotel: one contains diamonds and jewelry, another holds top-secret government files, a third is filled with Judy’s clothes, and the fourth, Howard’s rocks. As the hotel detective tries to steal the case of jewelry, an agent hunts the man who holds the secret papers, while the last two suitcases naturally find their way into the wrong hands in this caper-of-errors. After a sidesplitting chase through the streets of San Francisco, the entire mess gets sorted out in the courtroom of a tense judge who just happens to know Judy all too well. Madeline Kahn’s film debut, this madcap adventure is directed by Peter Bogdanovich (PAPER MOON, MASK).
3.
Attempting to get a grant to study the musical quality of igneous rocks, a researcher has his life turned upside-down by a complete stranger.
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