Late 1960’s party comedy movies, like Beach movies and films about everybodys’ on drugs and dancing around like they’re on the side of the stage at Woodstock were on Television when I was a child all the fucking time and most of them were really bad and dreadfully unfunny, just a tremendous amount of mayhem on screen. “Casino Royale”, “Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine”, “The Statue ” were just a few examples of these wild-in-the-streets films that were big on cacophony and short on laughs. I was too young then to marvel at the spectacle that is cinematic tits and ass, so the point of late 1960s party comedies was light years beyond me. I thought England’s “Bedazzled” was that rare entry from that era, it was actually funny and cohesive. The typical fare from this period, however, would best be referred to as inane. I must assume that this genre of movie was profitable, due to there being so many of these movies made by the late 1960s, even the prestigious European-born filmmaker Otto Preminger got in on the fad, with an extremely non-congruent hot mess of a cinematic release titled “Skidoo”, released close to Christmas time in December of 1968.
While I wouldn’t even qualify it as a movie, more like sketch comedy with a wax-paper-thin plot, I did chuckle, guffaw, even belly laugh while watching this misguided safari of surreality. You see, while the material and concepts of this film are chronically brain dead, some of the greatest screen comedians in movie history are in this, and in certain scenes they actually bring a new spin to the drug comedy, kind of like when you found out your favorite Aunt or Uncle got high and you never knew they were so with it.
Part of “Skidoo”‘s charm is it’s recognition of the Hippies of the 1960’s flower power era as a kind of rebirth of the Bohemians and the forward thinkers of Europe between the World Wars. That rather than characterize the Hippies as deadbeats and layabouts, the Hippies of “Skidoo”are spreading a new enlightenment to the public, like fairies spreading around magic dust. Preminger and screenwriter Doran William Cannon’s portrayal of America’s street Hippies made them infinitely wiser and pragmatic than their Conservative detractors, such as the Police and stuffed-shirt officials, like a Senator character in this played by comedic Rat pack stalwart Peter Lawford. The Hippies are everywhere in this, like invading Brigands of flower power. They’re asleep on the sidewalks, they’re in vans parked in the middle of Downtown, they’re always smoking dope and they’re always singing, for chrissakes.
The plot of “Skidoo”, if there is such an entity, is more akin to 1960’s TV sketch comedy, like the Sid Caesar or Dean Martin shows. Or Jackie Gleason, Gleason being a perfect person to highlight, since this film stars the one and only Jackie Gleason. Gleason essentially does his “Honeymooners” shtick in this, except his wife in this is played by Carol Channing, who surprisingly makes a hysterical foil to Gleason’s Ralph Cramden routine with her own flamboyant Feminine alchemy. Gleason’s character is named Tough Tony Banks, Tough Tony used to be an enforcer for the mob, which is run by a character referred to as God, God is played by none other than Groucho Marx, who by the time this movie was made was pushing 80 years old.
Even with clunky lines, Groucho is still Groucho, nobody delivers lines like him. Channing is Tough Tony’s wife Flo and winsome Alexandra Hay is Tony’s beautiful waifish daughter Darlene. God wants stool pigeon Mickey Rooney (as George “Blue Chips” Packard) dead, and he wants Tough Tony to carry out the job by getting incarcerated and finishing off Packard. Trust me, this movie never gets that serious, Rooney as Packard sits in an isolated cell watching Stock Market reports. The plot is merely a pretense, although it is stated in cyber land that Rob Reiner himself ghost-wrote some of the material for this. At this juncture, there is no point discussing the nuances of the plot, which exists only as background for legendary TV and movie actors to purportedly do hard drugs that America’s Conservative status quo deemed to be sinful.
Giggle as Groucho smokes a joint with Austin Pendleton as they sail in a boat with tie-dyed sails. Groucho attempts to call the Prison for info on the whereabouts of Packard, but can only raise a prison guard on the phone (played by Slim Pickens), who happens to be doped up on Acid and attempting to sing “Home on the Range” while experimenting with the telephone call cables. To expediate his escape from prison, Tough Tony discovers the eye-opening joys of dropping acid and through his first trip realizes he doesn’t want to live a life of crime anymore, the acid trip has enlightened him and he decides to turn the whole prison on and in the midst of their hallucinations, he plans to make his escape.
Guffaw and chuckle as Burgess Meredith as the Prison Warden on acid discusses the idea of prisoners making their own costume jewelry in their spare time. Senator Lawford on acid rehearses his presumptuous Presidential acceptance speech for the inmates in the cafeteria. Tough guy Frank Gorshin (The Riddler from the old “Batman” TV show with Adam West) plays “The Man” in the prison. Prison Guards imagine naked Green Bay Packers practicing in the courtyard and believe they see a ballet performance by dancing trash cans. The Pop singer Nilsson wrote the music and lyrics to songs in this picture, some of which are witty and snarky. He writes lyrics to the imagined trash can dancing sequence, his lyrics surmise that their is an existential and hallucinogenic party going on between living organisms in every one’s trash cans. “What if some Succotash and a piece of Hash, got together and had a bash?” Playfully queries Nilsson’s lyrics to the trash can ballet.
While I wouldn’t go so far as to qualify “Skidoo” as a “film” in the classic sense, it is as much a “movie” for it’s time as Super Hero films and Cartoon movies are for today’s sedated general audiences. While today’s audiences may be medicated and stunted on a litany of substances, the 1960’s audiences had their well-promoted drugs as well, and Hollywood was only too happy to create entertainment for their specific dilation. Preminger’s film serves no purpose but to let the public know that Hollywood’s elite funny men were tuned in and turned on.
From drugs the film continuously pivots to sexual innuendo, with everyone seemingly wanting to get it on with Darlene Banks, much to Tough Tony’s consternation. John Phillip Law as the tall dreamy Hippie is also getting a lot of attention as he attempts to woo Darlene in a semi-traditional courtship type of manner, escorting her around in a refurbished Rolls Royce. “Being nothing is everything, you dig?” recites Phillip Law as Stash, Darlene’s Male interest and Hippie guide. While the tone of this type of Comedy writing became stock and trade Sit-Com writing in the 1970’s, it’s still comes off as amusing and fresh.
The film attempts to ride the wave of the vacuous Beach party movies of the 1960’s, but the artistic sensibilities of Preminger made typically over-the top sequences nuanced and carry surprising depth in an instance or two. A scene or two that would appear to be just slapstick is sophisticated in Preminger’s hands. Early on in the film, Preminger stages a scene on a Hippie Bus, looks like its’ a converted School Bus on the inside. Stash brings Darlene to the bus, the Bus is full of Hippie activity inside on a beautiful California morning. There are scores of Women inside the Bus, most scantily clothed, several are smoking joints, some are painting each other with body paint, some are making jewelry, one Woman with a Guitar is semi-seriously singing a wistful, bitter anti-Military version of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”. Preminger stages all of this as simultaneously chaotic and cohesive, only to be heightened with hilarity as the local police burst in to arrest everyone for drug use, and hardly anyone on the Bus misses a beat. The singer keeps singing, the Girls keep painting each other, Girls keep smoking. Preminger at times shows a real ability to transplant the heady nature of classic screwball comedy and infusing it’s tempo and tone with the modern drug culture of the time.
Frankie Avalon appears in this as a young Lothario, the playboy son of mogul Caesar Romero. A scene where Flo and Darlene both arrive at Avalon’s swinging bachelor pad at different times is solid silliness, Channing is especially funny in her ability to schmooze and preen, she was truly a gifted physical comedienne and this film gives her moments to shine. When she sings the title track near the end of the movie (A song that sounds quite a bit like “Spinning Wheel” by Blood, Sweat and Tears), her movements and costumes almost appear like a giant musical bird come to life, like a life-like character from the animated animal musical “Sing”. Channing’s scratchy original-sounding voice is welcomed here in this nonsensical film. George Raft appears as God’s genteel Gangster Boat captain, complete with Captain’s hat and Navy Blue turtleneck.
What I go out of the film were thought-out moments, like a 90-minute movie that employed the attention grabbing strategy such as a TV show like “Laugh-In”. Moments of characters like Flo Banks singing the title song on a boat with the visual of a hundred hippies behind her, swaying and vibing. God’s girlfriend, played by the visually arresting African-American model Luna, attempts to sleep with anyone on the boat other than God. Gleason uses his Ralph Cramden mannerisms while pretending to be tripping on acid, adapting his overt crabby Vaudeville routine to the annoyingly optimistic sub-culture of Hippie phenomena and values, rather than assimilate, Gleason’s Tough Tony is an accepting and tolerant ally.
The strangest item about this handsome-looking yet aimless venture to me is that it’s directed by Preminger. Besides the depth that Preminger gives to some of the nuanced ensemble scenes, there’s no story here, Disney Family comedies of the same era were infinitely more cogent than this. I am assuming the groupthink in Hollywood at the time was concerned with screen chaos, films that would accentuate the experience of being on LSD while at the movies. Hence, the pace and tone of films such as “Magical Mystery Tour” with the Beatles, “The Trip” with Peter Fonda or Antonioni’s “Zabriskie Point” are most likely the more serious films with the tripped-out customer in mind. Although, it is both intriguing and potentially scary to think what the experience of watching top-notch intense films of this period would have been like on acid, especially serious and probing films like “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”, “The Damned” or “Rosemary’s Baby”.
It must have been an amazing experience, regardless of the tepidness of the film and script, for everyone to have worked with and experienced Groucho Marx. It is hard to believe that in watching this, Groucho is almost 80 years old at the time that he made this and he is still spry, the rapid fire verbal delivery is still the same. What better Comedy patriarch to over see this hot mess than the sturdy presence of Groucho. I am not sure if he had been in a movie in years before this, maybe over a decade, although I believe he made appearances on TV over the years, and he and the other Marx members Chico and Harpo may have made a few film cameos over the years. Having loved all of the early classic Marx Brothers movies, seeing Groucho on the screen in a more modern film was like seeing an old friend , who still looked great and still made me laugh and smile.
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