She was a comedy film queen throughout the seventies, but in the eighties she misfired with this sci-fi adaptation.
by Rich Watson
This post is part of the So Bad It’s Good Blogathon, a blog event for bad movies with cult followings. At the end I’ll tell you where you can find more posts like this.
Madeline Kahn was a hilarious comic and a talented singer, who died too early, at age fifty-seven. Before that, though, she appeared in some of the funniest films of the seventies: Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety and History of the World Part I by Mel Brooks, and Paper Moon and What’s Up Doc? by Peter Bogdanovich.
Unfortunately, she also made a few stinkers. One of them was a sci-fi movie with Jerry Lewis called Slapstick of Another Kind, based on a Kurt Vonnegut novel.
Wow, this sounds like a misfire on every level! Vonnegut is hard enough to adapt to the screen, and picking Slapstick doomed the project from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteMadeline's Marlene Dietrich routine in Blazing Saddles is one of the greatest gut laughs of all time. It's so tragic that we lost her at such a young age.
It sure is.
ReplyDeleteNot having read Vonnegut’s book, I don’t know how funny it actually is, but it’s gotta be funnier than what made the screenplay. And to misfire with a cast like this makes it even worse.
Haven't seen it, but my personal opinion without having seen it it is it can't be all bad if Kahn is in it. She even made Clue better....
ReplyDeleteIt’s not like she stands out that much. She’s Jerry Lewis’ twin sister in one role and his wife in the other, so everything she does reflects off of what he does. Her big solo scene, where she sings her song, got cut.
ReplyDeleteWow! I saw this film as a kid but totally forgot about it until now! After reading your entertaining and informative review, there's probably a reason why it escaped my memory!
ReplyDeleteMaybe it looked better from a kid’s perspective.
ReplyDeleteYou had me at Vonnegut and Kahn! I have to see this :)
ReplyDeleteConsider yourself warned.
ReplyDeleteLOVE Madeline Kahn, but not sure I'll drop everything to see this. However, the makeup looks great!
ReplyDeleteI never thought much about the makeup beyond the crime of making a beautiful woman like Madeline Kahn look ugly—but I guess she was supposed to look that way.
ReplyDeleteWell, this sounds absolutely nuts! (Having just seen Poor Things over the weekend, though, the part about Lewis and Kahn throwing food at each other made me laugh.)
ReplyDeleteThat scene sounds funnier than it actually is.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing images of Kahn and Lewis similar to the one you included in the publicity for this movie. It immediately turned me off ever seeing it, and I've seen Lewis' Hardly Working. :D
ReplyDeleteSmart move.
ReplyDeleteYikes. I can't believe Kurt Vonnegut had a hand in this. It's kinda got Conehead vibes. Thanks again for joining the blogathon, Rich--this was a doozy. :-)
ReplyDeleteGlad you like. In my old film blog I once said life was too short to watch bad movies. Every now and then, though…
ReplyDelete