Made in 1966. The film depicts several aspects of that eras norms. If one considers cheating husband, spousal abuse, unethical psychiatric practices, and labotomy not entertainment then then movie is not for you.
April 6, 2007At the very least you can say that the makers of "A Fine Madness" attempt something different. That's not to say they hit a bulls-eye,though. Their ambitions are higher than their success rate. They attempt to skewer the artistic mindset and the psychiatric profession but the humor in part is too manic to truly succeed. That said there are enough laughs here to give the film a qualified recommendation. Sean Connery is inspired as the poet disguised as a brawling, boozing, womanizing, blue-collar guy. Or is it vice versa? Joanne Woodward is Connery's match as his supportive long-suffering wife. There are any number of amusing setpieces here: Connery dressing down the ladies' auxiliary, Connery's confrontation's with the process server(John Fiedler, "Mr. Peterson" from the old "Bob Newhart" show), Connery playing the psychiatrist recordings of an unfaithful wife to her unsuspecting husband. A mixed bag, but give this film credit for aiming high and just missing the mark.
July 27, 2006I loved Joanne Woodward and Sean Connery (and everybody else) and I loved this movie. It was the purest of fiction. But it was a delight. Joanne Woodward I had to say was the best of them all with Connery following close behind and everybody else excellent. I didn't like seeing Bibi Osterwald playing a shrew and I thought it was a low blow giving her penultimate billing in the final credits. Did you recognize Clive Revill (sp?), he was the brain surgeon in this and the original Fagan in the Bway production of Oliver. Also the narrator (I guess, I only heard the album) in the Bway production of Irma La Douce. Much more sympathetic characters both. I had a ball watching this flick. And it was full of familiar faces.
July 6, 2006An unemployed (and unemployable) poet supported by his waitress girlfriend. Need I say more?
June 22, 2006 |  | Another Interesting Connery Choice |  |
Connery was sort of the Johnny Depp of the Sixties/Seventies in that he was a handsome leading-man type who always was trying to break loose from the "Bond" straightjacket by choosing offbeat, interesting, "challenging" roles when he wasn't saving the world as 007. (The only place Connery wouldn't DARE go back then are the fey, semi-gay characters Depp will occasionally take on. Sean had/has WAY too much "Scottish Macho" flowing through his veins to "go gay"! It would be like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood playing gay!) Anyway, he tackled this against-type role of rollicking, blue-collar poet Sampson Shillitoe. (Albeit, Gawd knows, Shillitoe is a strutting, bristlingly macho, overloaded-with-testosterone, thoroughly HETEROSEXUAL poet---sort of what Norman Mailer would be if he was a poet & not a prose writer.) When the role was somewhat customized in this way to suit Connery's screen persona, he succeeded in pulling off a bravura comic performance. As previous posters have mentioned, highlights are his hilariously disastrous, drunken recital at some high-society Ladies' Social Club & his explosive display of feeling-the-touch-of-God creative joy on the (Brooklyn?) Bridge. The macho/near abusive attitudes toward women are now very dated (as they now are in the early "Bond" films), but the movie is definitely a keeper, a nearly-forgotten, flawed gem.
June 25, 2005More reviews at Amazon.com ...
Daily Birthdays
(10 reviews)
