User reviews

As a poet with writer's block who is institutionalized, Sean Connery distances himself quite grandly from screen alter-ego James Bond. Connery is unexpectedly gregarious as the avant-garde writer, Joanne Woodward is suitably shrill as his wife, and the supporting cast (including Jean Seberg and the wonderful Zohra Lampert) is uniformly terrific; however, this quirky piece on challenging the System is rather frantic and bumpy. Director Irvin Kershner has always been a little erratic, and his shifts in tone take a while getting used to. Elliot Baker's screenplay, adapted from his novel, is uneven, yet the film certainly looks good with handsome cinematography and fine use of New York locations. Often gets confused with "They Might Be Giants", another comedy which also co-starred Joanne Woodward and dealt with a certain madness. ** from ****

If ever there was an award given out for "Most Outrageously, Sexist-Minded Film Ever (of the 1960s, that is)", I think that A Fine Madness would, most definitely, be a sure-fire winner.

And, with that said - If you are, indeed, a total feminist (or a feminist-hugger), I guarantee you that frequent key moments throughout this utterly absurd comedy will surely get your dander up like no other film from that era ever has. (I'm not kidding about this, folks!)

Of course, in order to get any sort of real entertainment value out of A Fine Madness's story one must keep it firmly in mind that here is a film that is a complete product of its time. This is a picture that proudly beats its chest and clearly states that "Hey! This is a man's world!" (so if you're a woman you better like it, or lump it).

In my opinion - A Fine Madness was solely made to cash-in on Sean Connery's rugged animal magnetism and his equally virile screen-charisma (following his huge success playing James Bond in 1965's "Thunderball").

So, just be warned - If you're prone to detest a lead character who just happens to be nothing but a boozing, womanizing, wife-beating, loudmouth with a hair-trigger temper, then, believe me, you're probably not likely to find this comedy to be much of a laughing matter, in the long run.

The idea that free-spirited creativity is a social disorder that must be cured by a well-meaning but thoroughly incompetent psychiatric establishment is the theme here, and one quite familiar to anybody who has seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Sean Connery was a great choice to play a blocked, womanizing writer at the core of the drama and he centers the film with his amiable exuberance. Comparisons to Cuckoo's Nest are inevitable, and this film lacks the other's stifling power and resonance, but it shares a common vision of the psychiatric profession acting as a microcosm of authoritarian abuses in society at large. Still, this is a funny and charming, much lighter satire on the same subject, energetically directed by Irvin Kirschner, and enjoyable for Connery fans in any case.

This nicely done adaptation of Eliot Baker's comedic novel (screenplay by the author himself) displays Sean Connery at his versatile finest. In the midst of his "Bond" persona (two years after "Goldfinger") Connery gives a brilliant, anti-typical performance as Samson, a poet to whom art is everything, and the polite fictions and civilities of society nothing. As a man, he is rude, crude, sexist and insensitive to the feelings of everyone, including himself. He is a monster in the mode of Gully Jimson [ "A Horse's Mouth" (1958)] or the real-life Dylan Thomas. A genius whose talent is little recognized, the poet reacts violently to the humdrum restraints of a culture that considers genius anti-social. That underlying tension, and his penchant for enjoying every attractive woman who happens to be in the vicinity, get him classified as a psychotic and put on the fast-track schedule for a pre-frontal lobotomy. Connery's talent and charm save this very funny movie from the somewhat offensive obnoxiousness of its hero, and clinch its optimistic argument about the ultimate triumph of artistic greatness. Also, don't miss the lovely performance by Coleen Dewhurst as a psychiatrist-seductress.

A Fine Madness marks Sean Connery's venture into screen comedy and while the man has had many funny moments in his film, comedy was not his strong suit. Ironically he's cast opposite Joanne Woodward who as we know was married to someone who many critics also said was not at his best in comedy.

Whatever else is wrong with A Fine Madness I have always loved Connery's character name, Samson Shillitoe. One of the best screen names ever invented and so right for a would be poet.

Samson for Connery is a peculiar combination of James Bond and Ralph Kramden with Joanne Woodward as his long suffering Alice. This lout is also a chick magnet in the James Bond tradition, though God knows why. He's suffering writer's block and can't seem to finish this epic poem he's trying to write. He also has a process server in John Fiedler chasing him down for back alimony to a former wife.

Woodward puts him in the hands of psychiatrist Patrick O'Neal who claims he can cure creative people of their hangups so they can do their thing. Connery proves an interesting case however to O'Neal's colleagues, Colleen Dewhurst, Jon Lormer, Werner Peters, and especially Clive Revill who's developed a modified lobotomy that can really cure anti-social behavior. You'll find few screen characters as anti-social as Samson Shillitoe. He's also of interest to O'Neal's wife Jean Seberg who just plain ain't getting any lately.

There are some funny moments in A Fine Madness, but ultimately I found it unsatisfying. When all's said and done, though Ralph Kramden threatened many times to bang/zoom Alice to the moon, he never really did. Connery has battered Woodward and quite frankly she's a battered spouse. Why she puts up with him is beyond me completely.

And I'm surprised that this script didn't offend Joanne Woodward's feminist soul. She did the thing though to an unsatisfactory conclusion.

An abusive creative type in Manhattan (Sean Connery) has writer's block and is compelled by his waitress wife (Joanne Woodward) to visit a psychiatrist (Patrick O'Neal), but the bore's dallyings with the quack's wife (Jean Seberg) worsen the situation. Meanwhile Clive Revill is on hand as a mad lobotomist.

Believe it or not, "A Fine Madness" (1966) has nothing to do with secret agent shenanigans, but is rather a zany Manhattan farce with a theme that would be done more effectively in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975). Nevertheless, it's amusing seeing Connery play a cranky, boozing, womanizing poet who cleans carpets for a living.

Woodward is also entertaining as his not-gonna-take-it wife. Speaking of which, the flick scores pretty well on the feminine front with the likes of Seberg and Sue Ane Langdon (Miss Walnicki). Colleen Dewhurst even shows up.

The film's also worth checking out just to travel back in time to Manhattan of the mid-60s.

The movie runs 1 hour, 44 minutes and was shot on the East Side of Manhattan, plus Long Island.

GRADE: B-

I saw this movie when it came out. I was 17. I fancied myself a budding writer and was prepared to forgive everything poet Samson Shillitoe did because, well, he was a poet. And a genius. And, well, artists were entitled to be bastards who cheated on their wife and then beat them up when they complained. Shillitoe flouts all things middle class and bourgeois. He does not make art. He IS art. My hero.

What an idiot I was.

This is a dreadful movie. There were a lot of preposterously themed flicks in mid-Sixties American movies. This is one. I can see the pitch. "Let's make a movie about a hot-tempered madman genius poet living a Bohemian lifestyle in NYC, and who beats his wife, who falls into the clutches of effete careerist psychiatrists who believe he is a perfect candidate for a lobotomy."

Sean Connery probably agreed to do this because at the time he would take any route necessary to prove he should not condemned to play only James Bond for the rest of his career.

Why Joanne Woodward, who plays his punching bag of a wife, got on board is a mystery. Probably it was a chance to play opposite hot property Connery.

If anyone truly needed a lobotomy, it is Samson Shillitoe.

"A Fine Madness" despite being something of a bumpy ride won me over with its well meaning driving energy. It has a certain wild charm about it, but ultimately what really makes it worth a look is the performance of Sean Connery.

Connery clearly desperate to escape the James Bond mould takes on the role of a non conformist borderline nutcase poet with the unlikely name of Samson Shilitoe. Although this might sound like an impossible transition, Connery with his powerful presence and loads of charisma plunges into the role and turns in a riveting performance.

There's also fine support from Joanne Woodward, Colleen Dewhurst and Clive Revill. The only disappointment is Jean Seberg who seems wasted in an underwritten thankless part.

For Connery fans this is essential viewing but others too may be surprised by this somewhat beguiling movie.

"A Fine Madness" is a film that I'd never heard of before I found it on Netflix and it's certainly NOT among the more familiar films of Sean Connery or Joanne Woodward. And, after watching it, I could easily see why.

Samson Shillitoe (Connery) is a poet...or at least he was once. But he's written nothing in years and cannot hold down even menial jobs. He runs from responsibility and is, in many ways, a very self-absorbed and childish man...as well as being physically abusive. His paramour (at least when he's not out on the make for other women) is a very loud, brash and obnoxious lady (Joanne Woodward). Together they seem like an ad for a divorce attorney! There is more to the film, including the lady getting Samson into psychoanalysis, but by this point I just didn't care.

The film is bad to say the least. Both Connery's and Woodward's characters are a chore to watch...both being loud, unsubtle and really annoying. Normally, to keep a person watching a film you will need to make at least some of the characters likable (there are a few exceptions, such as "The Downfall" which is about Hitler's final days)...and the script doesn't even try. As a result, I had a hard time caring about them or the film. Overall, a HUGE misfire....and a really difficult movie to even finish.

A largely underrated film. Released in 1966 (a year after Thunderball), Connery obviously wanted a departure from the static James Bond debonair and so took on the volatile character - Samson Shillitoe (erratic poet). The transition is not a complete alienation of the Bond character. He still gets the girls, though there is some poising and strutting.

If you think of this movie as a precursor to Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" it is brilliant in sort of a "The Odd Couple" sitcom vein. Those looking to see "action hero" Sean Connery will probably be disappointed. "A Fine Madness" looks to be inspired by the antics of Charles Bukowski and the revival of the dialog between pyschotherpy, psychopharmacology and brain augmentation in the early-mid 60's.

Samson Shillitoe (Sean Connery) is a frustrated poet and a ladies' man in NYC. He's hounded for alimony payments and threatened with jail. His live-in supportive waitress girlfriend Rhoda (Joanne Woodward) gets him a poetry reading gig at a high-class ladies group and it goes badly. She sends him to psychiatrist Dr. West to fix his writer's block. Samson wants his money back but West directs him to a sanitarium for some peace and quiet. Dr. Menken wants to perform a lobotomy on him.

Samson is bitter and angry. It's very unBondlike. In other ways, he's very Bond. He's not likable either way. The movie has a couple of slapstick scenes that border on comedy. It's a strange little film showing Connery in a different light.

Okay, to borrow a few things from the previous commenter's observations, sure, this is an adaptation from a novel, and apparently the main character is an obnoxious lout who happens to be a genius.

Here's where this film fails in just about every department.

Not for a second do we buy that Sean Connery's Samson is a "genius" in any sense of the word. He's a thick-headed brute who hollers anti-establishment rants that really aren't enlightened nor are they particularly radical. The fact is, though, that he hollers a lot. There is no modulation to Connery's performance. No sense of a human being in there. His character is drawn to just be the hunky societal interloper whose mere physicality and scowls suggest a counterpoint to everyday norm. Genius, he is not.

Topping poor Connery in the shouting department is the screeching yowl of Joanne Woodward, whose hapless wife character of Samson, Rhoda, is given all the depth of a punching bag (literally). Connery takes swipes at her head, connecting with her skull in the end, along with throwing every dish in the apartment in her direction. He even shoves her down the staircase resulting in a broken leg, and perhaps, 1960's sentiments saw this as an uproarious moment of hilarity. You know, madcap abuse of the wife is always so mercilessly humorous. Anyway, you get the picture (reference the above reference to "thick-headed brute").

Jean Seberg is absolutely wasted in this performance. She plays the stifled wife of a renowned psychiatrist, Patrick O'Neal, who for some reason, and quite illogically I can only add, winds up having sex with Connery in a whirlpool bath and then dumping him the next time she sees him. There is no logic in having her character even in this film other than to flesh out the above-the-line star wattage on the marquee.

Only Clive Revill, playing a hare-brained psycho-therapist in every sense of the word, cuts loose with the material and lends a Peter-Sellers-like diversion for a total of 3 minutes screen time.

I cannot conceive of any audience, whether in the '60s or today, eliciting anything more than ho-hum chuckle and a wan smile over this pale comedy with absolutely no focus and one of cinema's most ill-conceived one-note main characters.

My rating: 1 out of 5 stars.

Sean Connery did make about half a dozen excellent non-James Bond Films. This is not one of them. They include "The Man Who Would Be King," "Robin and Mariam," "The Name of the Rose," "The Untouchables," "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." He is 80 years old now, and it would be nice if the Motion Picture Academy honored him with a lifetime achievement award (as the American Film Institute did in 2006).

Here's the positive side. There are some pretty shots of New York City circa 1966, giving the film a bit of a Neil Simon-Woody Allen look. The first half hour is fine. We get a good introduction of the characters. Connery messing up a Lady's Club invitation to read his poetry is not as funny as it should have been, but is the funniest scene in the film.

Unfortunately the film goes nowhere after that. There's no character development and almost every comedy bit and scene falls flat. Many scenes are punctuated and underscored by loud, energetic music. This seems to be done on purpose to distract the audience from thinking, "What? Why is that supposed to be funny?"

The name of Connery's character is Samson Shillitoe. I assume that the name has something to do with the famous writer Stirling Silliphant. I'm not sure if the character had anything to do with the man.

I do think Sean Connery and Joanne Woodward deserve some credit for developing their characters as much as they do. They are working hard, one might say frantically, to make something out of the script. Everybody else, including Jean Seberg, Patrick O'Neil, Coleen Dewhurst and Zohra Lampert are wasted in non-roles that should have been played by less talented actors.

Altogether, not an enjoyable film, but possibly worth a look as an example of a bad New York City mid-60's comedy. It'll make you appreciate "Barefoot in the Park" that much more.

Alright, this film is generally awful, admitedly...However, I always try to look at any motion picture in the context of it's day and in it's retrospective historical perspective.

I like to look at movies as sociological studies, and the best ones transcend their time, becoming truly timeless.

"A Fine Madness" fairly stinks of clueless farce. The filmmakers completely lacked any shred of inspiration; a must for ALL art, IMHO.

Just looked at it; it's big,loud and randy without any awareness of the cultural changes about to happen in the late 1960s. These artifacts are unintentionally funny, as with any generation gap showing the older generation trying to be hip, but just embarrassing themselves, as when the Rat Pack tried fruitlessly to stay cool in the late 60s. Hollywood was out of touch with the youth of the counter culture, and with some exceptions, like "Hard Days Night", "Alfie", "Medium Cool" and "Easy Rider", most 1960s movies that tried to look authentic and relevant to the times, failed.

So, despite its badly written characters, it's hopelessly dated Psychiatric themes, its corrosively dated sexism and the apaulingly visionless, artless presentation, there ARE a few interesting elements.

Clearly a big budget film, I was impressed by the progressive bravado that the director showed in manhandling New York City. These bold tracking shots and cunningly calculated hand held camera work was quite new for 1966. These classy looking outdoor location scenes merging actors staying in character with the hubbub of the steaming cauldren of street life in Manhattan could not have been pulled off with a small budget. Look at that amazing tracking shot of Connery running on the Brooklyn Bridge. Many neighborhoods were captured in a stunning naturalism that was unprecidented. So if nothing else, it is as amazing a record of the city as when Harold Lloyd caught it back in the 1920s.

It's too bad the story couldn't have been embued with a great script. Perhaps something about the Village, with all it's alternative zeal, and incorporating the changing times which the city was such a part of.

The Music score tried to be wacky and inventive too...One could even see elements of Danny Elfman 30 years earlier, with all the big, burlesque horns and drums. Evidently the score was trying to compensate for the dull script and shrill, yet pedestrian performances by spicing up the soundtrack. But after a while the relentless music became as grating as Joanne Woodward's shrill hollering voice.

We have to wonder what Billy Wilder or Elia Kazan would have done for this material? Sigh...But Hollywood has always been bottom line, and wants to make its profit fast. Art? Who cares. Vision? Timelessness? Feh, sez the Movie Machine that has forever pandered to the lowest common denominator.

One leaves this dreadful film with the notion that it was teetering right on the precepis of the Martini vs. Mariquana epochs and fell back into its pre-sexual revolution, postwar establishment ethos with the thud of someone who just missed his train.

Interestingly and awkwardly, one is easily reminded of one of Connery's famous statements in a latter interview where he cavalierly remarked that 'Women should be hit now and then to keep them in line', or something to that effect. One can imagine his brutish Samson saying the same thing in this antique archive of a darker time in American HIStory.

This is the sort of movie that makes me ponder the whole time I'm watching it, "Who SHOULD have been in these roles?" Connery and Woodward really give it a good try, chewing big hunks out of the scenery, but they never convince, not for a moment. The role of earnest but ignorant and garrulous wife could have been played to perfection by Geraldine Page or, in an earlier and lighter version of the story, Judy Holliday. The role of Samson Shillitoe, deranged poet, could have been handled well by Jason Robards or Walter Matthau, and his mysterious attraction for women would have been more believable with the former, and more humorous with the latter.

For me, the only real laughs came from the one short scene featuring pudgy businessman Sorrell Booke learning the facts about his wife's hysteria. "You'll ascertain MY virility????"

I think they were trying for the kind of thing here where, like Alec Guiness's deranged artist character in "The Horse's Mouth," the obnoxious jerk has a mysteriously endearing charm or ability that shines through despite his appalling behaviour, but this poet isn't the horse's mouth. Quite the opposite.

If you enjoy the type of film that leaves you shaking your head and wondering why, this is definitely for you.

A Fine Madness (1966)

Plot In A Paragraph: Samson Shillitoe (Connery) a genius poet, who is irresistible to women but is plagued by writer's block.

I hate this movie. I bought a copy from France when I hadn't seen it, but wanted to complete my Connery collection. The collector in me is glad I did, but personally I wish I hadn't wasted my money.

If you find Connery using his wife (Joanne Woodward) as a punching bag funny, you may enjoy it, but I don't find anything to laugh about here!!

I will applaud Connery for trying something totally different in an attempt to move away from Bond, but I wish this wasn't the movie he chose to do so!! This is only the second time I watched it, and I have turned it off.

A Fine Madness tanked at the box office.

There is too much bad in this movie - starting with title. What is fine in what was presented thorough ? Violence is fine ? Drinking like crazy before appearance ? Maybe authors thought that it is funny ? Well, only for those sick in head.

In first like 20 minutes it looked that maybe will be fine, some social satire or like. But no, it just went bad, and last 5 minutes were total letdown. Those were years of so called 'sexual revolution', and some side action did not disturb main 'hero's' wife. But even those actions were presented shallow, after little talk and some looks we see them making it. Like some hairy, muscular self confident body is so irresestable for all them. While they say that women are attracted in big part for intelligent ones. Main hero was not only crazy, he was stupid.

What had potential is part about psychiatrists - they were presented as mostly selfish, caring for own fame, financial interest persons (does it sound familiar for millennials now ?) . But whole operation and what was right after it was presented poorly - talking about presentation. The result ? Shortly: lame.

Another one where famous cast gives not good movie. What was wrong ? Some substances taken during filming ? Confusion about what freedom in society means ? I can tell for sure that it is not freedom of doing whatever want. Freedom is worthless if there is no care about others, care about future ... Our 'hero' wanted to get back inspiration, and it was around him all time, he was just blind to see it. That's the real problem since Adam (and Eva and apple) :-)