I agreed to see this because it was the first film by William Friedkin (French Connection, Excorsist). And the big surprise is that it is not a bad film. (And kudos to Mr Friedkin to show such savvy in his parody of "High Noon" and other films.) Of course it's not a great film, either. Stylistically, it is rather of a kind with television movies of the same era, or a decade later. For better or worse, Friedkin decided not to go the route of "psychedlic trippy hippy film," but delivers a fairly staid, episodic musical comedy. That actually saves the film, in my opinion; I never felt, watching this, that it might have seemed better in its time and place with a hit of acid under the belt. It's a simple, middle-brow romantic comedy about a pair of singers wrestling with the very idea of making a movie for their fans.
For me, the saving grace of the film is Cher; here she is all exuberance, innocent sexuality (a quality difficult to project), love-of-life - oh, she's just great.
And through her, the film captures the romanticism of the 1960s that is largely forgotten today.
Finally, a word on the music: Sonny Bono's songs are wretched just as songs, but he had a real ear for melody and the arrangements here make that very clear - he missed his calling, he should have been composing soundtracks all along.
A bit of an oddity, but kind of fun.
For me, the saving grace of the film is Cher; here she is all exuberance, innocent sexuality (a quality difficult to project), love-of-life - oh, she's just great.
And through her, the film captures the romanticism of the 1960s that is largely forgotten today.
Finally, a word on the music: Sonny Bono's songs are wretched just as songs, but he had a real ear for melody and the arrangements here make that very clear - he missed his calling, he should have been composing soundtracks all along.
A bit of an oddity, but kind of fun.