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60 reviews in total

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28 out of 30 people found the following review useful:
Good grief, why haven't you watched this yet?, 28 November 2005

Author: deheor

There was a beautiful brief moment in cinema history when film makers freed themselves of the shackles of form and found fun, exciting ways to tell stories. Movies became groovy mind-blowing experiences that forced the viewer to follow the plot as it tripped all over the screen. Unfortunately Jaws came along and reminded the studios of how much money they could be making and the experiment was declared a failure. But during this brief period such wonderful and largely buried treasures as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Myra Breckenridge, Magic Christian and Vanishing Point (only Easy Rider seems to have survived the era with its reputation in tact) were created and have since been embraced by the odd as their own. But perhaps the most reviled of the lot has been the film Candy.

Candy tells the simple tale of a sweet young thing that goes out into the world to grow but finds herself confronted at every turn by typical male stereotypes (played by some of the biggest stars of the day) who really only have one goal in mind. Along the way she meets up with the artist (Richard Burton), the soldier (Walter Matthau), the healer (James Coburn) and the guru (Marlon Brando) among others. Candy wants to free her mind but each man tries (and some succeed) to free her of her panties. Despite the premise Candy is more like a teasing Roger Vadim film (think Barbarella) and the nudity is kept to an absolute minimum. The biggest surprise is even with the big name cast, the films best performance belongs to John Astin as Candy's Father and also as her lecherous Uncle who has his own designs on her. The supporting cast is definitely one of the films high points along with the terrific score that features some trippy space tunes along with classic rock. Sadly there are some faults though.

The script by Buck Henry is very hit and miss with some excellent lines immediately followed by many that just produce cringes in the audience. The lead actress Ewa Aulin is lovely to look at but delivers all of her lines like she has just learned them phonetically and has no idea what she is saying and the directer allows the pace to drag at many points.

Still if the films from this era interests you than this one should be required viewing. There is an excellent DVD available so there is no excuses for passing on this under-rated gem.

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25 out of 31 people found the following review useful:
everybody loves candy, 8 December 2004
Author: yougotthesilver from Denton, TX

How can you not like this movie?? those who criticize it seem to claim it is a superficial sex-romp through the 60's counter culture.Well duh! that's what makes it great.

Seriously, its like if in 40 years, film critics try to asses the cultural validity of 'Dude where's my Car'. Candy wasn't meant to be a masterpiece- just a funny movie with some T and A.

Though if you're gonna be a snob about it, the last 10 minutes of the movie is actually close to brilliant. See it and you'll know what i mean. Visually and content-wise, this movie pushed boundaries. Plus, i bet it would be a lot better while high.

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20 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
This film needs more consideration than it has been accorded., 8 August 2000
Author: magic013 from Nashville TN

I saw this film over the weekend on Showtime for the first time since I saw it in 1969. My memories of the film were sketchy and after it was over, I logged on here to find serious discussion of it so I could interpret some of the symbolism in the movie. What I found instead was inadequate discussion of what was good about the movie. Admittedly, it was over the top in a way that was typical of "alternative" movies in the late 60s, but there were some very interesting points that most people seem to overlook. Also open for dismissal seems to be the final sequence in the film where Candy walks through a field and passes each person she encountered during the movie. At the beginning of this sequence, she is wearing a pristine white sheet as a toga, but by the end of the stroll her sheet is covered in an ornate flower design. Almost throwaway bits during the stroll include Walter Matthau's army general as Don Quixote, the "Fountain of Youth" injections being given by James Coburn and John Astin's two characters being revealed as two aspects of the same. This movie seems quite capable of generating some serious discussion other than the obvious attack on its excesses and the vapid acting of the lead actress.

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19 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
Wildly enjoyable satire featuring an all-star cast, 16 February 1999

Author: toad-16

They don't make 'em like this anymore. Based on Terry Southern's classic novel, CANDY is remarkable film featuring a swinging soundtrack, actors like Richard Burton and Marlon Brando spoofing themselves, and a fast-moving picaresque story that satirizes late 60s America (military, academia, Eastern religion, etc). Criticized upon release for lack of any coherent story, is one of the best films from that era. Advocating sexual freedom and experimentation, Candy is one fun movie with a funny script by Buck Henry and wild visuals, like a glass-bottom limousine and Brando's gurumobile. A must-see!****

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18 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
A movie so terrible, it's great!, 13 July 2004

Author: shepardjessica from sparks, nevada

The film adaptation of Terry Southern's book is a fine mess! There's no real flow or purpose, but the stars have a ball and Ewa Aulin seems exactly right as Candy. Marlon Brando, as always, is interesting and unique and Richard Burton should have made more comedies. John Astin is excellent in a dual role, but James Coburn really steals the show as Dr. Krankeit. I'm not too sure what they could done with this material and some of the scenes are simply unplayable, but you can have fun with this.

I'm sure this was a total bomb in 1968, but I really can't remember how it did box-office wise. Best performance = James Coburn. Elsa Martinelli is also creepy and sexy and John Huston lends gruff support. Very similar to The Magic Christian, but slightly better. I know some critics at the time called it the worst film ever.

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19 out of 24 people found the following review useful:
Saved by the music and John Astin, 5 April 2004
Author: wdmickel from South Bend, IN

After seeing Candy again for the first time in 30-plus years, I know why it's best to leave some memories untouched. I don't remember it being as bad then as I feel it is now. Ewa Aulin suits the title role of Candy, young and innocent, yet sensual. However, I'd love to know what the wager was that left the losing stakes to be a role in this film. It is disjointed, dismembered and non-flowing, with no sense from one segment to the next. With a stellar cast of Richard Burton, Walter Matthau, Charles Coburn, Marlon Brando (and Ringo Starr), how could writer Buck Henry go so wrong??? There are two saving graces, though, one being the dual performance of John Astin as Candy's father/uncle and the other being the great soundtrack by various artists, namely the Byrds, Steppenwolf and Dave Grusin. If you have an opportunity to view it without investing a lot of cash, I'd say see it if only for the sake of seeing it. If you're a baby-boomer, beware...the years may be as unkind to your memory as they were to mine!

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14 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
Candy Lives Up To Her Reputation, 19 July 2003

Author: trvolk from Las Vegas

As putrid as reputed, a singularity of excess. I loved it!

I do not know the details of Candy's production, but I suspect that the bulk of the scenes were shot with only one take. That is the only explanation I can conjure.

I only knew of this film by way of seeing the trailer at a drive-in in the 60s. The images sparked my 10-year-old imagination, particularly James Coburn flipping off the operating room gallery and the loud rock music. I had to see it! I finally found a limited edition DVD copy on eBay and snapped it up.

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14 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
An incoherent, bewildering and hedonistic mess of a movie which must be seen to be disbelieved., 5 August 2005

Author: Jonathon Dabell (barnaby.rudge@hotmail.co.uk) from Todmorden, England

There has never been - nor will there ever again be - a film quite like Candy. This vulgar, scattershot, psychedelic sex satire is an utter failure, but boy what a fascinating failure!! It offers the chance to see a roster of talented stars working on such obfuscated material that their only get-out clause is to overact to epidemic levels. It also offers a chance to experience the sexual permissiveness and hallucinatory extravagance of 1960s society, in a film made just as the cinema was breaking away from the Production Code into a new and exciting era of relaxed censorship and franker morality.

The film has no plot to speak of, but is more a series of highly exaggerated vignettes. Naive high-school beauty Candy Christian (Ewa Aulin) begins her odyssey of sexual misadventures at a poetry seminar given by the reviled but popular poet McPhisto (Richard Burton). Upon taking the drunken poet back to her house to dry his trousers - soaked with booze - the family's Mexican gardener Emmanuel (Ringo Starr) mistakenly believes that Candy is coming on to him, so he makes love to her on a pool table in the basement. Candy's father (John Astin) walks in on them and is so distraught that he arranges for his daughter to take a break in New York with her uncle (Astin again). Candy ends up on an Air Force jet where she is once again seduced, this time by a mad air force officer (Walter Matthau); later she is taken advantage of by a brilliant surgeon (James Coburn) who performs a dangerous operation on her injured father. During a post-operation party, Candy's father wanders off and the girl attempts to find him on the streets of New York. Here she gets into yet more sexual situations, first being raped by a weird hunchback thief (Charles Aznavour) and later rather indecently frisked by a horny cop (Joey Forman). Candy finally seeks refuge in the back of a truck, but it turns out to be the travelling home of sex-addicted guru Grindl (Marlon Brando)... and, yes, you've guessed it, he too takes advantage of the over-sexed yet ever-innocent girl.

It is hard to be sure if there is any point to all this, though the lack of a meaningful narrative suggests that the film is trying to convey some kind of subtextual meaning. Perhaps the film is attempting to say that men are devious and conniving creatures who will try every dirty trick in the book to get into the pants of an attractive young girl? Or maybe it is saying that pretty young blondes who wear impossibly short skirts are capable of driving men of every age and occupation to experience their deepest desires? The original book was apparently a satire on pornographic clichés (I haven't read it, but I've read ABOUT it), but the film seems to be more concerned with titillation than out-and-out porn. Of the actors involved, Burton registers best as the self-indulgent poet. Matthau is quite funny too as the absurd air force officer. The biggest wastes are Coburn and Brando, the latter giving perhaps his laziest ever performance as the sex guru (though you can understand his agreeing to be in this.... a salary of $50,000 to rip off Aulin's clothes and romp around with her seems a pretty fair incentive!) Candy is a total mess of a movie, but you should still watch it if only to say you've had the dubious pleasure of experiencing its unique brand of vulgarity, chaos and extravagance.

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11 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
I have been waiting to see this movie again since I first saw it in 1968., 5 April 2001

Author: Larry Somers (lsomers@home.com) from California

An unbelievable cast! I have been wanting to see this movie again ever since I first saw it in college, 30 years ago. The video clip reminded me that the movie is just as good as I remember!

McPhisto, played by Richard Burton, reminds me of my old Psych Professor, Don Whaley, who taught a WMU and North Texas State. In many ways Whaley was McPhisto!

So if anyone out there reading this ever knew Whaley, email me.

I believe I read it's a limited release so it's sure to be a classic collectors item.

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14 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
Funny as hell, 4 December 2004
Author: rnkscorpio (rnkscorpio@aol.com) from Duluth, Mn

If you understand this movie,it is very funny.It is really an exaggeration of the way life is.It shows the plight of naive young girl,who encounters men,who want nothing more,than to get into her pants. It makes you have compassion for this girl,and women in general.The situations in this movie happen all the time to women.I call it a sexual Alice in wonderland. So if you have ever sexually violated a minor,you might find this movie offensive.Very cleverly done!This movie can only be understood by intelligent viewers and offers comedy in tradition of the cohen brothers Fargo. The psychedelic music score is way cool.To bad it was in mono.

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