Item #: 8952 Category: PSYCHOTRONIC Format: VHS MPAA Rating: PG

Woolly Rating: 5/10 (269 votes)

MEMBER COMMENTS ON THIS VIDEO

Kevin Rayburn

Nov 16, 2000 @ 18:27:53

"HEY, HEY, HEY!"
If you liked "Rushmore" you might consider watching this better and funnier flick from 1966. It's just your average story about a high school nerd named after an extinct bird, Alan "Mollymauk" Musgrave (a spastic Roddy McDowall), who likes to go around quacking like a duck when he isn't tinkering with other people's lives in order to live vicariously through them. One of these is Barbara Ann Greene (the great Tuesday Weld), the most vacuous blond airhead ditz this side of a 60's Matt Helm movie. Barbara doesn't do so well at hard subjects like botany--which, at spanking modern Consolidated High School have user friendly names like "plant skills." But Barbara isn't completely dumb. She has a dream to be a movie star. She knows what she wants, and essentially knows how to get there. But looks can only get her so far, and in comes the selfless Alan to help, even though he knows her dreams are shallow. But they are just the kind of empty dreams conformist Consolidated High School likes. After all it's a place that educates the future "physicists, rocket scientists...and movie stars" of America (or something like that; the original line is funnier if I could remember it). The first thing to do is to fit in, to become a member of a clique. But popularity will elude Barbara unless she can buy the 10 cashmere sweaters required to fit in with the preppy in-crowd. Acting as mediary, Alan convinces Barbara's estranged Dad (the bizarre, bug-eyed Max Showalter) to help her financially. Thereafter ensues a sight that is worth the rental alone: a kinky, depraved scene in which leering, laughing, almost-saliva-dripping daddy gets his mental rocks off while daughter lasciviously models a parade of tight sweaters. There are further hijinks involving the smarmy principal (Harvey Korman) and others, including a crazy old broad (Ruth Gordon of course) whom Alan introduces to the joys of alcoholism. After Alan unceremoniously destroys the graduation ceremony with a motorized endloader the movie takes an oddly bleak turn already foreshadowed in the tragic characters of both Barbara and her cocktail waitress mom (Lola Albright). I first saw "Lord Love a Duck" 25 years ago on TV and hadn't seen it until Wild and Woolly got a copy this past year. I was pleased to find that this insane George Alexrod creation is funnier than ever. Certainly a refreshingly subversive film to come out of Hollywood at the time. And it has this damned beach party-sounding "Hey, hey, hey!" song that you'll curse forever 'cause you'll never be able to shake the fricken thing outta your head. (***Lord Love a Duck - 1966/US/D: George Axelrod) Review c. 2000 Kevin Rayburn earthgroove1@yahoo.com

THIS DUCK LAYS AN EGG
About 45 minutes into this so-called "satiric gem" of a black comedy directed by noted screenwriter George Axelrod, lovely Tuesday Weld exclaims "I'm bored!" That's an emotion most viewers will find easy to understand. 37 (!!) year old London native Roddy Mcdowell and 23 year old Miss Weld are cast as Southern California high school kids at lily-white (no nasty blacks, hispanics or Asians here) Consolidated High. McDowell, the nerdy odd-duck (he literally quacks) asumes the role of Weld's genie-attempting to fulfil her every desire and whim-even if he has to eliminate those who stand between her and her goals. The film concludes with an apparent massacre with a bulldozer of the faculty at the graduation ceremony. While purporting to be a parody of beach party movies (there are several shots of white bikinied butts gryating on a beach), the film is hampered by a soundtrack that consists almost solely of the goofy title song. Most of the film's limited humor consists of virtually all of the male characters ogling or groping sweet Tuesday. Ruth Gordon as a daft old geezerette is a shameless scene stealer. Supposedly the inspiration for the film "Heathers," this cult "classic" ultimately disappoints. Speaking of Black Humor, isn't it about time for a musical based on the Columbine massacre--perhaps with Adam Sandler in the lead role? How could such outrageousness possibly fail?

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