Skidoo

Skidoo (1968)

Runtime: 97 minutes

Directed by: Otto Preminger

Starring: Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Frankie Avalon, Mickey Rooney, Peter Lawford, Groucho Marx

From: Paramount

Back when I talked about now extremely obscure (and hard to find on video, as it was never released in any home video format) movie The Phynx, I brought up Skidoo, another similarly minded film from the time period where Hollywood tried to appeal to the counterculture, and as you might expect, a bunch of old fogies trying to make something that they think would be enjoyed by young carefree and (probably) drug-ingesting audience… it doesn’t work very well at all. Casting old stars and trying to make them “hip” to those people didn’t work very well either.

This movie is from a famous director and besides the stars I’ve listed, there’s also appearances from the like of Frank Gorshin (The Riddler on the old 60’s Batman TV show, something that will likely never be released in any official format aside from airings on TV, but that’s a topic for another day), Burgess Meredith, Cesar Romero, Richard “Jaws” Kiel, Slim Pickens, and even Groucho Marx in his final film appearance! You’d think that with that kind of talent, this would be great. Oh man would you be wrong if you saw the movie and expected it in any way to be great, unless it was something like “great trainwreck” or “great waste of talent and everyone’s time”.

This film tells two different stories at the same time: Tony Banks (Gleason) and his wife Flo (Channing) live in a normal suburban neighborhood and seem to live a normal life with a teenage daughter. Well, Tony happens to be a retired gangster and he gets asked by a mob boss head named God (Marx!) to off someone so that they won’t testify at a U.S. Senate hearing. Tony has to go to jail to do this. Meanwhile, while Tony is away, the hippie daughter convinces mom to let in her equally beatnick boyfriend and his skeevy pals to stay at the house as they have nowhere else to go. These two plots intersect throughout the film.

Now, if any of that sounds interesting to you, I’ll agree with you… at least on paper. In execution, though, it failed, oh does it fail. I have no idea why this has an average rating on IMDb or why some critics haven’t given it a low rating. To me it’s clear that this is an unfunny comedy, and there’s not much that is worse than a comedy with no laughs. Minutes go by here and you aren’t entertained or amused. It’s just THERE, wasting everyone’s time, including the viewer. It tries and it looks nice, but except for two moments, it fails. At least at times it fails in really bizarre ways. Carol Channing, a lady never known for being classically pretty, does a striptease and later dresses up like George Washington and sings a song! It’s not even as entertaining as it may sound. Even Groucho Marx doesn’t get any chortles or even a chuckle. I know this is sacrilegious to many, but to me The Marx Brothers movie aren’t really all that great. Sorry, but they didn’t do it for me. I’d much rather watch Three Stooges shorts myself. That said, I do realize that Groucho is a funny guy. Well, not here. They managed to find a way to waste him and make him not funny.

There are only two things to note in the movie that are interesting. First, there’s a scene where Gleason accidentally takes LSD and goes on a trip. It lasts for a few minutes, and it’s at least entertaining due to how strange it is. I’ve never tripped on acid before but I’m sure the trip that Gleason goes on isn’t too inaccurate.

Then, the end credits. I don’t know why, but all of them are sung by Harry Nilsson! You know, the “Put the Lime in the Coconut” dude. It’s done in an amusing style too. But besides those two things…

If you’re a brave soul, you can now watch the entire movie on Google Video. As it's never officially been released on video or DVD in any way, it's either that, trying to find a download of it online, or waiting until TCM Underground shows it again, as it has a few times before. It’s here. The first scene I describe is around the 51 minutes mark, and the end credits start at 93 minutes and 45 seconds. Trust me, though, the entire movie is a major chore to sit through, and I guess I can say that Hollywood movie execs back then are just about as dumb as the ones we have currently! Stuff like that, the fact that the movie got made in the first place, and that apparently both Preminger and even Marx himself took LSD to prepare for the movie is much more entertaining than the actual film itself.

I'll be back Saturday afternoon with another movie review.