Swooning For Streisand: What's Up Doc?

 This past weekend while binge watching TCM I caught a movie that I had somehow managed to miss over the years, Peter Bogdanovich's 1972 screwball comedy What's Up Doc?. The tagline for the film states: "A Crazy Comedy The Way They Used To Make Them!" and this movie delivers on that promise.

Check out this car chase sequence which harkens back to the classic Keystone Cops films from the silent era. 

This type of comedic car chase action would be used again in other subsequent films like The Blues Brothers (1980) and Smokey and the Bandit (1977).

The film achieved something that I had believed impossible, It mad me almost fall completely in love with Barbra Streisand. Well the character Judy in the film anyway. 

As my wife and I noted, Streisand is the prettiest woman in the world but she has that special something that you just can't put your finger on. In What's Up Doc? Streisand uses this magic of hers to make Judy the kind of woman you couldn't help but fall for. 

Ryan O'Neil's character Dr. Howard Bannister was doomed from the get go.

What's Up Doc? was the movie debut for comedic genius that is Madeline Kahn who played Eunice Burns, Howards overbearing fiancé. As you can imagine Kahn steals just about every scene she is in. Her comedic talents are undeniable and this performance foreshadows her signature roles in such films as Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974) and History of the World: Part 1 (1981). Those, of course where directed by the legendary director Mel Brooks, which seems like a natural progression from this film that despite being filmed by Bogdanovich felt like a Brooks comedy.

The plot of the film revolves around four pieces of identical luggage that when they start being stolen, misplaced and confused leads to chaos:

(1) The mysterious "Mr. Smith" is carrying top-secret government papers. There is at least some indication that he has them illegally and wishes to make them public, as a whistleblower. The equally mysterious "Mr. Jones" identifies himself as from the government, and is on a mission to recover the documents.

(2) Dr. Howard Bannister is carrying a bag of igneous "tambula" rocks that have certain musical properties. Bannister, a musicologist from the Iowa Conservatory of Music, and his tightly wound, overbearing fiancée, Eunice Burns, have come to San Francisco to compete for a grant offered by Frederick Larrabee. Howard, who struggles to be patient with Eunice, has a theory that ancient man may have used rocks to create music. Howard's rival for the grant is the ethically challenged, dubiously-accented Hugh Simon, who is apparently from Yugoslavia but seems to be doing work in Western Europe.

(3) Judy Maxwell's overnighter is filled with her clothing and a large dictionary. No matter where Judy goes, trouble happens, from car crashes to spontaneous combustion of hotel rooms. She never finished college, but nevertheless has amassed a considerable amount of knowledge from all of the courses she took at the many institutions of higher learning from which she was expelled.

(3) Wealthy socialite Mrs. Van Hoskins has a bag containing her sizable collection of valuable jewels.

Howard, Eunice, Mrs. Van Hoskins, and Mr. Smith all check into the Hotel Bristol at the same time. Judy, trying to score a free meal, lodges herself there without paying, notices Howard and begins pursuing him (to his bewilderment). Two hotel employees, Harry and Fritz, attempt to steal the jewels, while Mr. Jones attempts to retrieve Smith's bag. Over the course of the evening, the bags get switched haphazardly from room to room as the four parties unwittingly take one another's suitcases. Howard ends up with the jewels, Judy with the documents, Mr. Smith with Judy's clothes, and the thieves with the rocks.

From Wikipedia

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