By Doug Oswald

Alan Ladd and Geraldine Fitzgerald are American agents in the newly-formed WWII era spy agency “O.S.S.,” on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Ladd is Philip Masson, an agent in the recently formed Office of Strategic Services. The head of the spy group is Commander Brady, played by Patric Knowles, who sends Masson and several other agents on their first mission to German occupied France in 1942. Their mission is to blow up a railway tunnel using plastic explosives and connect with the French Resistance. Along the way they encounter Nazis, French collaborators and informants. Joining Mason is Ellen Rogers played by Fitzgerald and they meet up with fellow OSS agents Robert Bouchet, AKA Bernay the radio operator, played by Richard Benedict, and Rodney Parrish, AKA Gates, the leader of Team Applejack, played by Don Beddoe.

Philip and Ellen have assumed new identities as John Martin, a pipe smoking laborer (his pipe is a nifty gadget that turns into a gun), and Elaine Duprez, a visiting artist. Gates is captured and killed by the Gestapo soon after the team parachutes into France. Gates outs himself at a restaurant by using his fork and knife in the wrong hand moving Philip into the leadership position. Philip becomes romantically interested in Ellen which is complicated by the arrival of a local German commander, Colonel Paul Meister (played by John Hoyt making his screen debut) who is also interested in “Elaine,” after he asks her to create a bust of himself. Soon he asks “Elaine” to join him on a trip via rail which will take them through the tunnel they are sent to destroy.

Working alongside Commander Brady in England is Gloria Saunders as Radio Operator Sparky. She receives and sends coded messages with Bernay and they quickly form a friendship. A local Gestapo agent, Amadeus Brink (played by Harold Vermilyea), discovers the plot, and provides cover for the team of saboteurs as long as his extortion demands are met. The bust created by “Ellen” is made of the plastic explosives and this is used to destroy the railway tunnel. Philip rescues Elaine during the chaos of the explosion and after they escape she tells him, “Never come back for me again.”

Ladd, Fitzgerald, Hoyt and Knowles are all terrific, as is the supporting cast. The movie is dark, intense and a very good spy thriller making good use of light and shadows. The film was directed by Irving Pichel, who is known for such genre favorites as “The Most Dangerous Game,” “She,” “Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid” and “Destination Moon” spanning the 30s, 40s and 50s. The screenplay by Richard Maibaum was a forerunner to his work in the James Bond series produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman starting with the 1962 release, “Dr.r No” and continuing through “Licence to Kill” in 1989.

The cinematography by Lionel Lindon is a highlight, as much of the action takes place either at night or in dimly- lit rooms and the aforementioned tunnel. Lindon was cinematographer or director of photography on the movies “Around the World in 80 Days,” “Casanova’s Big Night,” “Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round,” “Going My Way,” “Grand Prix, “The Manchurian Candidate,” “My Favorite Brunette,” “Submarine Command,” and TV series episodes for “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “M Squad,” “McHales’s Navy” and “The Munsters,” to name just a few of his many credits which spanned decades.

Released by Paramount in May 1946, the movie was made with the approval and support of the O.S.S. and definitely can be viewed as government propaganda, but it’s much more than that. The disc features a fascinating audio commentary track by Samm Deighan which is chock full of interesting information of the origins of the O.S.S., spy movies and the post WWII communist and Hollywood blacklist. The movie looks and sounds terrific in glorious black and white clocking in at 108 minutes. The disc also features the trailer for this and other Kino Lorber titles. “O.S.S.” is highly recommended for fans of Alan Ladd, spy thrillers and WWII drama.

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Warner Home Entertainment : 

AMERICAN SNIPER COMES TO 4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY AND DIGITAL

THE 2014 BIOGRAPHICAL WAR DRAMA DIRECTED BY CLINT EASTWOOD AND STARRING BRADLEY COOPER WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 4K RESOLUTION WITH HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)

Purchase the film on 4K Ultra HD Disc with Collectible Steelbook Packaging, 4K Ultra HD Disc and Digital on May 14

Burbank, Calif., March 26, 2024 – American Sniper, the 2014 biographical war drama directed by Academy Award Winning Director Clint Eastwood and starring Academy Award nominee Bradley Coopers as will be available for purchase on 4K Ultra HD Disc and Digital for the first time on May 14.

American Sniper will be available to purchase on May 14 on Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc from online and in-store at major retailers and available for purchase Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more.

American Sniper stars Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle. A two-time Oscar® nominee for his work in “Silver Linings Playbook” and “American Hustle,” Cooper stars alongside Sienna Miller, Luke Grimes, Jake McDorman, Cory Hardrict, Kevin Lacz, Navid Negahban and Keir O’Donnell. 

Oscar®-winning filmmaker Clint Eastwood (“Million Dollar Baby,” “Unforgiven”) directed American Sniper from a screenplay written by Jason Hall, based on the book by Chris Kyle, with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice. The autobiography was a runaway bestseller, spending 18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, 13 of those at number one. The film is produced by Eastwood, Robert Lorenz, Andrew Lazar, Bradley Cooper and Peter Morgan. Tim Moore, Jason Hall, Sheroum Kim, Steven Mnuchin and Bruce Berman served as executive producers.

American Sniper was nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor and won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing.

American Sniper will be available on Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc with collectible steelbook packaging for $40.43 ERP and includes an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc with the theatrical version of the feature film in 4K with HDR and a Digital download of the film, and on Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc for $33.99 ERP and includes an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc with the theatrical version of the feature film in 4K with HDR and a Digital download of the film. Fans can also own American Sniper in 4K Ultra HD via purchase from select digital retailers beginning on May 14.  

About the Film

From director Clint Eastwood comes “American Sniper,” starring Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle, whose skills as a sniper made him a hero on the battlefield. But there was much more to him than his skill as a sharpshooter. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle is sent to Iraq with only one mission: to protect his brothers-in-arms. His pinpoint accuracy saves countless lives on the battlefield, and as stories of his courageous exploits spread, he earns the nickname “Legend.” However, his reputation is also growing behind enemy lines, putting a price on his head and making him a prime target of insurgents. He is also facing a different kind of battle on the home front: striving to be a good husband and father from halfway around the world. Despite the danger, as well as the toll on his family at home, Chris serves through four harrowing tours of duty in Iraq, personifying the spirit of the SEAL creed to “leave no one behind.” But upon returning to his wife, Taya (Sienna Miller), and kids, Chris finds that it is the war he can’t leave behind. 

Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, A Mad Chance Production, A 22nd & Indiana Production.

American Sniper Ultra HD Blu-ray disc contains the following previously released special features:

· One Soldier's Story: The Journey of American Sniper

· Chris Kyle: The Man Behind the Legend?

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Kino Lorber. If you're politically correct, then stop reading now!: 

By Fred Blosser

When I was in college, my friend Bill Davis and I spent nearly half a day one Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at a local movie theatre for a ten-hour marathon.  The lineup included Sergio Leone’s “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” and “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” capped with Clint Eastwood’s American Western, “Hang ‘Em High,” an attempt to replicate the Italian filmmaker’s violent, gritty style. It was the equivalent of binge-watching in those long-ago days, before home video and streaming services made it easy to access older films. To revisit favourite movies in that Neolithic age, you had to hope they would return for second- or third runs on the big screen, or wait until they resurfaced on TV in visually degraded, ad-infested prints. The fact that the Leone movies were still pulling in healthy ticket sales on rerun, four years after their initial U.S. release, attests to their popularity. Aside from special events like the periodic return of “Ben-Hur” or “The Ten Commandments,” the only other pictures with the same level of second-run durability at the time were the first five James Bond features with Sean Connery.

The initial success and ongoing appeal of the Leone trilogy prompted Hollywood to import other Spaghetti Westerns in hopes of matching (or at least approaching) the same level of commercial success. The era ran from 1968 to the mid-1970s, surviving even the U.S. box-office disaster of Leone’s fourth Western, “Once Upon a Time in the West.” The operatic epic starring Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, and Jason Robards was lamely marketed here as a conventional Western, baffling fans of John Wayne and “Gunsmoke.” Adding insult to injury, it suffered wholesale cuts that rendered entire sections of the story incoherent. On smaller investments, more modest imitations in the mode of “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” fared better. One such picture was Giuseppe Colizzi’s Western, I quattro dell'Ave Maria, a tremendous hit in Europe. The Italian title cryptically translates to “The Four of the Hail Mary,” which sounds more like a farce about comedic nuns than a Western. Paramount Pictures (the same studio that, ironically, mishandled “Once Upon a Time in the West”) wisely retitled the production “Ace High” for U.S. release.

In Colizzi’s film, bounty hunters Cat Stevens (Terence Hill) and Hutch Bessy (Bud Spencer) ride into El Paso with $300,000 in stolen money recovered from train robber Bill San Antonio. They intend to turn in the money and claim a hefty reward. The Bill San Antonio back story referred to Colizzi’s previous Western with Hill and Spencer, “God Forgives . . . I Don’t!” (1967; U.S. release, 1969), but you needn’t have seen the predecessor to get up to speed. Cat and Hutch discover that the bank president in El Paso was Bill San Antonio’s partner, not his victim, and instead of settling for the reward, they demand the entire $300,000, else they’ll expose the banker’s secret. In turn, the banker approaches an outlaw, Cacopoulos (Eli Wallach), who sits in jail waiting to be hanged the next morning. He offers to free Caco (as the scruffy felon is called) if he’ll kill Cat and Hutch.

This being a Spaghetti Western, a genre that reveres double-crosses like no other, thanks to the template set by Leone, Caco correctly guesses that the banker plans to do away with him too, as soon as the bounty hunters are out of the way. Grabbing the $300,000, he flees town on his own quest for vengeance. The money will finance his long-delayed pursuit of two former friends, Paco and Drake, who left him to take the fall for a heist years before. Cat and Hutch follow after him to reclaim the $300,000. Caco finds Paco south of the Border, presiding over the summary execution of rebellious peons, and Drake (Kevin McCarthy, in hardly more than a brief guest appearance) as the owner of a lavish gambling house on the Mississippi. Drake is still a crook who swindles his rich patrons with a rigged roulette wheel. Along the way, Caco and the bounty hunters befriend a Black high-wire artist, Thomas (Brock Peters), whose talent is pivotal for the bounty hunters’ scheme to break into the impregnable casino to take control of the wheel and clean Drake out. Italian viewers probably realized that Caco, Cat, Hutch, and Thomas were “the four of the Hail Mary” in Colizzi’s original title, planning their break-in as Caco fingers his rosary. Following Sergio Leone’s lead, the Italian Westerns loved to tweak Catholic piety.

Colizzi also dutifully copies other elements of the Leone playbook, especially those featured in “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” Alliances are made to be broken, greed and expediency always overrule loyalty, and the sins of thieves and hired killers are dwarfed by the inherent corruption and callousness of society as a whole. But Colizzi’s cynicism seems superficial compared with Leone’s, and his violence toned down. In the Leone movies, showdowns are “hideous fantasies of sudden death,” to quote the late film critic Bosley Crowther, in which the losers literally line up in groups to be gunned down. When my friend Bill and I watched the Leone marathon all those years ago, we counted a hundred casualties even before we were well into the third feature, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” In one gunfight in “Ace High,” Hutch, Cat, and Thomas simply shoot the hats off their opponents’ heads, the kind of slapstick more likely to appear in a comedy Western with Bob Hope or Don Knotts. The final shootout with Drake and his henchman is a parody of Leone’s showdowns, which invariably were choreographed to Ennio Morricone’s dramatic music. Caco has dreamed for years that his reckoning with his traitorous partner would be accompanied by “slow, sweet” music, and so Cat and Hutch order Drake’s house orchestra to play a waltz as the “Four of the Hail Mary” square off against Drake and his henchmen. On one hand it’s a clever idea for viewers who recognise the joke, but on the other, it trivialises the revenge motif in a way Leone never would have.

In another connective thread with “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” Eli Wallach’s scruffy character is virtually a clone of his bandit “Tuco” from the Leone epic, even to a nearly identical name. But Leone shrewdly counter-balanced Wallach’s manic performance with Eastwood’s laconic presence and Lee Van Cleef’s steely menace. In “Ace High,” Colizzi already has two mismatched characters who play off each other—Terence Hill’s terse, handsome Cat and Bud Spencer’s burly, grouchy Hutch. Wallach is mostly left to his own Actors Studio devices of grins, tics, and swagger, which is good for fans who couldn’t get enough Tuco but not so good for others who just want the story to move on. Tied up by villagers who intend to torture him to learn the location of his stolen $300,000, Caco relates a long, soporific account of his childhood. The scene serves a dramatic purpose, since Caco is trying to lull a drowsy guard to sleep, but it goes on and on. You’re likely to nod off before the sentry does.

“Ace High” is available in a fine Blu-ray edition from Kino Lorber Studio Classics, offering Colizzi’s film at the correct 2.35:1 ratio in a rich Technicolor transfer. Films like this always looked good on the big screen, but most casual fans probably remember them instead from lousy, pan-and-scan TV prints in the old days. The Blu-ray includes the original trailer, plus trailers for several other Spaghetti Westerns released by KL. The company’s go-to expert on the genre, Alex Cox, contributes a new audio commentary. Cox has always been forthright in his dour opinion of directors like Giuseppe Colizzi, Gianfranco (Frank Kramer) Parolini, and Giuliano (Anthony Ascott) Carnimeo, who turned the Italian Western in the direction of burlesque in the late 1960s, and away from the gritty style of Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci, and Sergio Sollima. But his comments on “Ace High” are even-handed, informative, and entertaining.

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(Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Perhaps even God can't save the Queen in Golden Harvest's A Queen's Ransom (also known as International Assassin), an explosive action-thriller starring George Lazenby (The Man from Hong Kong), Angela Mao (Lady Whirlwind) and the legendary Jimmy Wang Yu (The One-Armed Swordsman).

As Queen Elizabeth II arrives in Hong Kong for a state visit, a band of skilled mercenaries plan her assassination. Contracted by an Irish Republican (Lazenby), the international group of hired killers includes a Japanese explosives expert (Chang Pei-shan), a Thai boxer (Bolo Yeung), a Filipino sniper (Peter Chan Lung) and a veteran of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Wang Yu). As the conspirators move to carry out their plot, two police officials (Ko Chun-Hsiung and Charles Heung) work with a young socialite (Tanny Tien Ni) in a race against time to save the Monarch's head - while also trying to manage a crisis that has brought a huge number of refugees to Hong Kong, including a young Cambodian princess (Mao).

Written and directed by Ting Shan-hsi (Rebel Boxer), A Queen's Ransom was Golden Harvest's attempt to capitalize on the popular success of the political thriller in the wake of The Day of the Jackal. Eureka Classics is proud to present the film for the first time ever on Blu-ray from a brand new 2K restoration.

BONUS FEATURES:

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Director Sergio Leone’s monumental Western classic ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST celebrates its 55^th anniversary this year and to mark the occasion Paramount Home Entertainment will release the fully restored film for the first time on 4K Ultra HD^™ May 14, 2024, as the latest addition to the studio’s Paramount Presents line.

One of the most iconic and influential movies ever made, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST has been restored from the original 35mm Techniscope camera negative by Paramount’s archive team, L'Immagine Ritrovata and The Film Foundation. This restoration honors the 2007 Film Foundation photochemical restoration overseen by legendary director Martin Scorsese by matching its build and color palette.  The result is the definitive home release of the film, which features the 165-minute extended cut restored to its glory. 

A must-own for every cinephile’s collection, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST will be presented in a Limited-Edition two-disc 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray^™ set that includes both new and legacy bonus content, as well as access to a Digital copy of the film.  The film is presented in Dolby Vision^™* and HDR-10, along with English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and English Restored Mono Dolby Digital for an exceptional home viewing experience.

Bonus content presented on the Blu-ray Disc^™ is detailed below:

· Commentary by the Hosts of the Spaghetti Western Podcast –NEW!

· A Look Back with Leonard Maltin—NEW!

· Commentary with contributions from directors John Carpenter, John Milius & Alex Cox, film historians Sir Christopher Frayling & Dr. Sheldon Hall, and cast and crew 

· An Opera of Violence                                            

· The Wages of Sin        

· Something To Do With Death

· Railroad: Revolutionising the West

· Locations Then & Now (Gallery) 

· Production Gallery 

· Theatrical Trailer   

Widely considered to be one of the greatest Westerns—and one of the greatest films—ever made, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress in the U.S. National Film Registry in 2009.  The film stars Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, and Charles Bronson.

Synopsis

Set in the dying days of the Old West, a struggle to control water in a dusty desert town embroils three hard-bitten gunmen in an epic clash of greed, honor, and revenge.   

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST will also be available on 4K Ultra HD Digital on May 14.

This is a limited edition. Click here to pre-order now from Amazon.

By Lee Pfeiffer

The first African-American to direct a major film for a Hollywood studio was Gordon Parks, whose feature film debut "The Learning Tree" was released in 1969. Parks may have shattered the glass ceiling but there wasn't a tidal wave of opportunities that immediately opened for other minority filmmakers, in part because there were so few with any formal training in the art. One beneficiary of Parks' achievement was Ossie Davis, who was internationally respected as a well-rounded artist. He was a triple threat: actor, director and writer but his directing skills had been relegated to the stage. In 1970 Davis co-wrote the screenplay for and directed "Cotton Comes to Harlem", a major production for United Artists. The film was based on a novel by African-American writer Chester Himes and proved to be pivotal in ushering in what became known as the Blaxploitation genre. In reality, it's debatable whether "Cotton" really is a Blaxploitation film. While most of the major roles are played by Black actors, the term "Blaxploitation" has largely come to symbolize the kinds of goofy, low-budget films that are fondly remembered as guilty pleasures. However, "Cotton"- like Gordon Parks's "Shaft" films which would follow-  boasts first class production values and top talent both in front of and behind the cameras. Regardless, the movie had sufficient impact at the boxoffice to inspire a seemingly endless barrage of Black-oriented American films that were all the rage from the early to mid-1970s. The Blaxploitation fever burned briefly but shone brightly and opened many doors for minority actors. 

The film was shot when New York City was in the midst of a precipitous decline in terms of quality of life. Crime was soaring, the infrastructure was aging and the city itself would be on the verge of bankruptcy  a few years later. Harlem was among the hardest hit areas in terms of the economy. The once dazzling jewel of a neighborhood had boasted popular nightclubs, theaters and restaurants that attracted affluent white patrons. By the mid-to-late 1960s, however, that had changed radically. Street crimes, organized gangs and the drug culture spread rapidly, making Harlem a very dangerous place to be. It was foreboding enough if you were Black but it was considered a "Forbidden Zone" for most white people, who spent their money elsewhere, thus exacerbating the decline of the neighborhoods. "Cotton Comes to Harlem" serves as an interesting time capsule of what life was like in the area, having been shot during this period of decline. Director Davis was considered royalty in Harlem. Despite his success in show business, he and his equally acclaimed wife, actress Ruby Dee, never "went Hollywood". They stayed in the community and worked hard to improve the environment. Thus, Davis was perfectly suited to capture the action on the streets in a manner that played authentically on screen. Similarly, he had a real feel for the local population. As with any major urban area, Harlem undoubtedly had its share of amusing eccentrics and Davis populates the movie with plenty of such characters. 

The film opens with a major rally held by Rev. Deke O'Malley (Calvin Lockhart), a local guy who made good and who is idolized by the population of Harlem. O'Malley is a smooth-talking, charismatic con man in the mode of the notorious Reverend Ike who uses religion as a facade to rip off gullible followers. This time, O'Malley has launched a "Back to Africa" campaign for which he is soliciting funds. It's based on the absurd premise that he will be able to finance disgruntled Harlem residents back to the land of their ancestry. The hard-working, semi-impoverished locals end up donating $87,000 in cash but the rally is interrupted by a daring daytime robbery. An armored car filled with masked men armed with heavy weaponry descend upon the goings-on, loot the cashbox and take off. They are pursued by two street-wise local cops, "Grave Digger" Jones (Godfrey Cambridge)  and his partner "Coffin" Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques). Davis provides an exciting and colorful car chase through the streets of Harlem, as the cops fail to snag the robbers. They also discover that O'Malley has gone missing, leading them to believe that he orchestrated the heist himself so he could keep the proceeds raised at the rally. The plot becomes rather convoluted, as Jones and Johnson learn that a bale of cotton has arrived in Harlem and its somehow connected to the crime. They assume that the stolen money has been stashed in said cotton bale, which quickly changes hands among the most unsavory characters in the community. Getting in on the action is a white mob boss and his goons who are also trying to recover the cotton bale. The cotton itself is resented in Harlem because of its historical links to slavery and by the end of the film, the bale ends up in a stage show at the famed Apollo Theater where it is used as a prop in a bizarre production that involves historical observations about the black experience intermingled with a striptease act! Through it all, Jones and Johnson doggedly chase any number of people through the streets, engage in shoot-outs and car chases and come in and out of contact with Rev. O'Malley, who professes his innocence about being involved in the robbery. The Rev isn't so innocent when it comes to other unscrupulous activities such as chronically cheating on his long-suffering girlfriend Iris (Judy Pace) and manipulating other women in a variety of ways. 

The most delightful aspect of the film is the showcasing of some very diverse talents of the era. Godfrey Cambridge (who made it big as a stand-up comic) and Raymond St. Jacques enjoy considerable on-screen chemistry even if the script deprives them of the kind of witty dialogue that would have enhanced their scenes together. They make wisecracks all the time and harass some less-than-savory characters but the screenplay never truly capitalizes on Cambridge's comedic potential. The film's most impressive performance comes from Calvin Lockhart, who perfectly captures the traits of phony, larger-than-life "preachers". He's all flashy good looks, gaudy outfits and narcissistic behavior. Lockhart seems to be having a ball playing this character and the screen ignites every time he appears. There are some nice turns by other good character actors including pre-"Sanford and Son" Redd Foxx, who figures in the film's amusing "sting-in-the-tail" ending, John Anderson as the exasperated white captain of a Harlem police station that is constantly on the verge of being besieged by local activists, Lou Jacobi as a junk dealer, Cleavon Little as a local eccentric, J.D. Canon as a mob hit man and Dick Sabol as a goofy white cop who suffers humiliation from virtually everyone (which is sort of a payback for the decades in which Black characters were routinely used as comic foils).  The film has a surprisingly contemporary feel about it, save for a few garish fashions from the 1970s. It's also rather nostalgic to hear genuine soul music peppered through the soundtrack in this pre-rap era. Happily, life has not imitated art in the years since the film was released. Harlem has been undergoing the kind of Renaissance that would have seemed unimaginable in 1970. The old glory has come back strong and the center of the neighorhood, 125th Street, is vibrant and thriving once again. These societal perspectives make watching "Cotton Comes to Harlem" enjoyable on an entirely different level than simply an amusing crime comedy.

The film is currently streaming on Screenpix, available for subscription through Amazon Prime.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

"I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" might leaving contemporary viewers asking "Who is Alice B. Toklas?" The answer: she was a companion of writer Gertrude Stein. Toklas was a fellow writer who became idolized by pop culture addicts for daring to have written a cookbook that included a recipe for pot brownies. The 1968 big screen farce was anything but fun to make. Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker were to have made their directorial debuts with this film. However, once Peter Sellers was signed to star, the mercurial and unpredictable actor had them bounced from the directors chair(s), though their screenplay was retained. Shortly after production began, Sellers brought Mazursky back on board to offer advice about salvaging a production that Sellers was growing increasingly leery about. The truce was short-lived because Mazursky criticized the way Sellers played a love scene with Leigh Taylor-Young, who made her big screen debut in the film. Mazursky was fired again as the film hobbled through production under the direction of Hy Averback. Sellers was apparently also feuding with his wife, Britt Ekland, who was simultaneously filming "The Night They Raided Minsky's" against Sellers' wishes. 

The story presents Sellers as Harold Fine, an L.A. lawyer and self-described "square". He is courting his law firm's secretary, Joyce (Joyce Van Patten), an amiable bubble-head who constantly pressures Harold into proposing to her. He finally relents and a wedding date is set, much to the delight of Harold's parents (amusingly played by Jo Van Fleet and Salem Ludwig). In the meantime, Harold finds himself unexpectedly immersed in the local hippie culture when his car is damaged and he finds the only accessible vehicle is a flower-powered decorated loaner he gets from the repair shop. At the same time, his hippie brother Herbie (David Arkin) introduces him to the gorgeous Nancy (Leigh Taylor-Young), a free-spirited young woman who indulges in drugs and free love. Harold finds himself smitten by her and when she leaves him some pot-laced brownies, it results in the film's funniest scene in which Harold ends up serving them to his parents and Joyce, resulting in the kind of over-reaction one might attribute to a tab of LSD. Nevertheless, it is quite an amusing segment. Ultimately, Harold leaves Joyce at the synagogue seconds before taking the vow of marriage. He dashes home and vows to start a new life with Nancy. Before long, he is sporting long hair, mod eyeglasses and is living in his car. It seems perfect until the screenplay predictably delves into one of those scenarios in which the motto is "Be careful what you wish for- you just may get it!".

Sellers is the glue that holds the fragile premise together, even if his American accent slips every now and then. Taylor-Young makes for a lovely leading lady and Joyce Van Patten is stuck in the role of constantly jilted lover who craves Harold no matter how many times he humiliates her. Unfortunately, the premise wears thin pretty quickly and the movie is never as funny as it should be or you expect it to be. In fact, it bears a certain resemblance to Blake Edwards' "The Party", which was released the same year. Both films were based on an initially funny scenario that ultimately ran out of steam as the movie wore on. At the time, Roger Ebert reviewed the film favorably but pointed out that it was another example of a Hollywood studio punting when it came to presenting the hippie culture and depicting the rebellious young people as sanitized caricatures. Perhaps the biggest laugh to be had was by Paul Mazursky, who would direct the smash hit "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" the following year, thus establishing himself as a major name in the film industry.

The region-free Warner Archive boasts a fine transfer. The only bonus feature is the trailer.

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