Bad Movie! Down, no treats for you movie! And no walkies! Bad Movie!
A lot of this has been said. Mike from Stockton had a pretty good handle on "Lord...."; even saw the TV series Batman camera angle/cutting usage, but didn't see it's true awfulness.
I vaguely knew this movie existed. Then i got the digital cable version of my movie package and now i had a zillion movie channels; and they all needed to be filled by product. So some movies will be shown again and again, etc. Guess what one of those was.
Some comments on "Lord...." and related topics:
A personal conviction or maybe even an axiom - movies that don't even have an aspiration to be "good" can be comfortably "bad"; no problem. Movies that aspire to be "good"? -- well, when they are bad, they are very, very bad. Why? farther to fall? I guess. Everyone's expectations are higher? Maybe.
Reviewers seem to slough off Roddy McDowall's age as just some quirk in a quirky movie. It's not! It's persistently distracting, along with his referring to himself in the third person by the inexplicable (but damn quirky) name of Mollymauk (hey, Eminem, right?). So, Roddy has a lot to overcome; Roddy's a hell of an actor, but he can't make Alan/Eminem fit with the rest of the movie. And who put that damn quacking in? Who let the ducks out?
That kind of thing is what i think of as "ouch factor". You're going along, trying to get along with the movie (maybe even BE THE MOVIE), and the damn movie reaches out and tugs your ear hard, like an angry immigrant grandmother. OUCH!
When it's not doing that it's like Gene Wilder in Stir Crazy trying to be bad by saying "i'm bad" and trying to do like Richard Pryor but with some goofy pale hipster bop; it says "i'm bad" alright, but doesn't seem to know that it's the wrong kind of bad.
Yes, it does attempt to go from black humor to melodrama and back with no discernible integration of the two modes. Newsflash! The jarring nature of this is not intended. It's just really distracting and puzzling.
Then there are some of the characterizations. The alcoholic/suicidal Marie, is of course, a cocktail waitress forced to wear a demeaning costume. I know it's an attempt at showing the tribulations of a working divorced mom and is of interest for that, but why couldn't the character be anything else, even given the limitations of the times.? A secretary, a retail sales clerk,a kamikaze pilot? Of course, the cocktail waitress is thought of by many to be no more than a prostitute. Gimme a break. Lola Albright tries valiantly but is subverted by someone's bad choices. I suspect studio execs who didn't know what the hell they paid for and "fixed" it.
The sweater scene is, as it's supposed to be, disturbing. the problem is that it's only perv erotic briefly; then the (Batman TV show angled and cut) reaction shots of Max Showalter (Howie baby/Howard Greene) are filled with strained eye-bugging and stagy, braying insane laughter. This appears to be bad acting choices, but i get the feeling that not only did (director George) Axelrod not reign in Showalter, he seems to have encouraged him! Or maybe some studio execs asked for extra footage with a more "comic" reaction to minimize the incestuous overtones of the scene, which probably made some of them very uncomfortable. If you look at the footage, it would have been very easy to reshoot those reactions anytime, anywhere.
Ruth Gordon; for a time in the 70's and 80's a really hot character actress. I don't know why, for i am more convinced then ever that all she ever played was ---- Ruth Gordon. How did she get away with this for so long. Maybe being married to writer/director Garson Kanin? Naaah! I think people just liked the wacky Ruth Gordon character she always played, so why mess with success.
You just can't admire, and probably not even enjoy, a movie where the "spoof" of scenes from 60's beach-party-surf-groovy-rockin'out movies are EXACTLY like the scenes that are being "parodied", only in black and white! I know; it's supposed to be "Felliniesque". Yeah, sure.
Other observations: Lola Albright is a lot sexier, even in faux tragedy, than squealy, kittenish Tuesday Weld. Weld came into her own as a woman on screen in the seventies, when she worked very little. In the ill-titled, but outstanding, "Who'll Stop the Rain", she was earthy-sexy with the squeal minimized (and down an octave or so) into a kind of fitfully emitted weary growl. This was an award-worthy performance in an award-worthy movie that almost nobody saw.
The black and white photography was mostly quite good, but i think it was done just to save money.
So, a lot of wasted talent and a kind of assaultive nature are the signal characteristics of Lord Love a Duck. It's fairly safe to watch; sure it will hurt you, but not permanently or badly, and isn't that what bad art is supposed to do?
A lot of this has been said. Mike from Stockton had a pretty good handle on "Lord...."; even saw the TV series Batman camera angle/cutting usage, but didn't see it's true awfulness.
I vaguely knew this movie existed. Then i got the digital cable version of my movie package and now i had a zillion movie channels; and they all needed to be filled by product. So some movies will be shown again and again, etc. Guess what one of those was.
Some comments on "Lord...." and related topics:
A personal conviction or maybe even an axiom - movies that don't even have an aspiration to be "good" can be comfortably "bad"; no problem. Movies that aspire to be "good"? -- well, when they are bad, they are very, very bad. Why? farther to fall? I guess. Everyone's expectations are higher? Maybe.
Reviewers seem to slough off Roddy McDowall's age as just some quirk in a quirky movie. It's not! It's persistently distracting, along with his referring to himself in the third person by the inexplicable (but damn quirky) name of Mollymauk (hey, Eminem, right?). So, Roddy has a lot to overcome; Roddy's a hell of an actor, but he can't make Alan/Eminem fit with the rest of the movie. And who put that damn quacking in? Who let the ducks out?
That kind of thing is what i think of as "ouch factor". You're going along, trying to get along with the movie (maybe even BE THE MOVIE), and the damn movie reaches out and tugs your ear hard, like an angry immigrant grandmother. OUCH!
When it's not doing that it's like Gene Wilder in Stir Crazy trying to be bad by saying "i'm bad" and trying to do like Richard Pryor but with some goofy pale hipster bop; it says "i'm bad" alright, but doesn't seem to know that it's the wrong kind of bad.
Yes, it does attempt to go from black humor to melodrama and back with no discernible integration of the two modes. Newsflash! The jarring nature of this is not intended. It's just really distracting and puzzling.
Then there are some of the characterizations. The alcoholic/suicidal Marie, is of course, a cocktail waitress forced to wear a demeaning costume. I know it's an attempt at showing the tribulations of a working divorced mom and is of interest for that, but why couldn't the character be anything else, even given the limitations of the times.? A secretary, a retail sales clerk,a kamikaze pilot? Of course, the cocktail waitress is thought of by many to be no more than a prostitute. Gimme a break. Lola Albright tries valiantly but is subverted by someone's bad choices. I suspect studio execs who didn't know what the hell they paid for and "fixed" it.
The sweater scene is, as it's supposed to be, disturbing. the problem is that it's only perv erotic briefly; then the (Batman TV show angled and cut) reaction shots of Max Showalter (Howie baby/Howard Greene) are filled with strained eye-bugging and stagy, braying insane laughter. This appears to be bad acting choices, but i get the feeling that not only did (director George) Axelrod not reign in Showalter, he seems to have encouraged him! Or maybe some studio execs asked for extra footage with a more "comic" reaction to minimize the incestuous overtones of the scene, which probably made some of them very uncomfortable. If you look at the footage, it would have been very easy to reshoot those reactions anytime, anywhere.
Ruth Gordon; for a time in the 70's and 80's a really hot character actress. I don't know why, for i am more convinced then ever that all she ever played was ---- Ruth Gordon. How did she get away with this for so long. Maybe being married to writer/director Garson Kanin? Naaah! I think people just liked the wacky Ruth Gordon character she always played, so why mess with success.
You just can't admire, and probably not even enjoy, a movie where the "spoof" of scenes from 60's beach-party-surf-groovy-rockin'out movies are EXACTLY like the scenes that are being "parodied", only in black and white! I know; it's supposed to be "Felliniesque". Yeah, sure.
Other observations: Lola Albright is a lot sexier, even in faux tragedy, than squealy, kittenish Tuesday Weld. Weld came into her own as a woman on screen in the seventies, when she worked very little. In the ill-titled, but outstanding, "Who'll Stop the Rain", she was earthy-sexy with the squeal minimized (and down an octave or so) into a kind of fitfully emitted weary growl. This was an award-worthy performance in an award-worthy movie that almost nobody saw.
The black and white photography was mostly quite good, but i think it was done just to save money.
So, a lot of wasted talent and a kind of assaultive nature are the signal characteristics of Lord Love a Duck. It's fairly safe to watch; sure it will hurt you, but not permanently or badly, and isn't that what bad art is supposed to do?