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The enigma of Southern California, "you'll recognize it, it's filled with sand." The starlet turned wannabe artist (Claudia Cardinale) hurls a painting into the ocean, Alexander Mackendrick responds with a pop canvas of his own, a Paolozzi collision of red Volkswagen and yellow bus and white convertible against a blue sky. Relieved of all his worldly possessions, the East Coast sharpie (Tony Curtis) wastes no time worming his way into the payroll of the girl's sugar daddy (Robert Webber), a swimming pool impresario. Schmoozing with beach dwellers is a different matter, he's knocked out by a surfboard and revived with a view of Sharon Tate's bikini rump. "The morality of a sieve, the charm of a schizophrenic, the sensitivity of a rhino, and the scruples of a blackmailer," thus the salesman up in the air with no parachute. That obscure object of desire is the bronzed odalisque on the trampoline, standing between her and the protagonist is the sweet-tempered Goliath (David Draper) easily conquered by astrology. (In the land of fads, Edgar Bergen's gnomish oracle reigns amid ersatz constellations.) Muscleheads and corporate suits and vacant muses, Mackendrick keeps them all hopping in a wry and mellow farewell. The metaphor is derived from Chaplin's tottering cabin, the modernist bungalow seasawing on the edge of a muddy abyss, just the place to sort things out. Between Frank Tashlin and Joan Didion, "a rich life" reached only after standing upside-down above the Atlantic. "I guess if you start looking at things realistically, you'll never fall in love." Edwards in 10 provides a distinct thematic variation. With Joanna Barnes, Mort Sahl, Dub Taylor, Ann Elder, Reg Lewis, Sarah Selby, and Jim Backus.
--- Fernando F. Croce |