While I'm not a fan of Pierre Elliot Trudeau's ex-girlfriend, there's no question Barbra Streisand is a superlative talent as an actress, singer and composer. She has more talent in her pinkie finger than Jennifer Lawrence has in her whole body. She owns What's Up Doc? fully and delivers a tour-de-force performance. Streisand sings, acts, showcases her comedic chops and even sizzles with her understated sensuousness throughout the zany proceedings.
Peter Bogdanovich's delicious take-off of the classic screwball comedies of yesteryear is spiced up with references to iconic Bugs Bunny cartoons. Bab's Judy Maxwell is a wisecracking, confident go- getter who is attracted to mousy scientist-musician Howard Bannister (Ryan O'Neal), who has come to San Francisco with his frigid fiancée Eunice (the late great Madeline Kahn in her film debut) to compete for a grant.
You also have a hilarious game of cat-and-mouse involving four exactly alike duffel bags being stolen and re-stolen by various shady characters (one of whom is future Boss Hogg Sorrell Booke) without them looking inside of them. These individuals and Maxwell reek havoc on the posh hotel in uproarious fashion.
Eventually, these two story lines mesh in a crazy chase through the streets of San Francisco where the screwball also meshes with Bugs Bunny.
I really enjoyed WUD. It actually is a funny film and the references to the classic film shorts are spliced in at the right time. Like so many other Warner Brothers films of the last Golden Age of Cinema, you will never see anything like this today. It's family-friendly but adults will find plenty to tickle their funny bone. In a day of fart jokes, blue humor and sexual tastelessness, there is always the classics to turn to and WUD is a fine film.
If only there were more Judy Maxwells in Ottawa...
Peter Bogdanovich's delicious take-off of the classic screwball comedies of yesteryear is spiced up with references to iconic Bugs Bunny cartoons. Bab's Judy Maxwell is a wisecracking, confident go- getter who is attracted to mousy scientist-musician Howard Bannister (Ryan O'Neal), who has come to San Francisco with his frigid fiancée Eunice (the late great Madeline Kahn in her film debut) to compete for a grant.
You also have a hilarious game of cat-and-mouse involving four exactly alike duffel bags being stolen and re-stolen by various shady characters (one of whom is future Boss Hogg Sorrell Booke) without them looking inside of them. These individuals and Maxwell reek havoc on the posh hotel in uproarious fashion.
Eventually, these two story lines mesh in a crazy chase through the streets of San Francisco where the screwball also meshes with Bugs Bunny.
I really enjoyed WUD. It actually is a funny film and the references to the classic film shorts are spliced in at the right time. Like so many other Warner Brothers films of the last Golden Age of Cinema, you will never see anything like this today. It's family-friendly but adults will find plenty to tickle their funny bone. In a day of fart jokes, blue humor and sexual tastelessness, there is always the classics to turn to and WUD is a fine film.
If only there were more Judy Maxwells in Ottawa...