Really weird film, though the cast list is full of familiar names - Tommy Kirk starred, the support cast included Anne Helm and Jacques Bergerac (who was Mr Ginger Rogers and Mr Dorothy Malone), the writer, producer and director was Jack Harris who produced The Blob among others.
To explain why this film exists it helps to have read Harris' memoirs - he wanted to make a way out groovy comedy. I guess it was the sixties and anything went - Dr Strangelove had been a big hit. It's hard to do comedy for exploitation though because it's so easy to miss, especially when you're not that experienced in the genre.
This has a high, or at least way out, concept - Anne Helm and Tommy Kirk are newlyweds, she is wary of having sex, so she reads from Mother Goose, causing Kirk to faint. He realises he has Mother Goose issues and visits a shrink who gets him to take LSD.
The action is frantic - there's women running around in bikinis, and a hotel detective who thinks Helm is cheating on Kirk with Bergerac. Helm is pretty and sweet as is Danica d'Hondt who plays the shrink. Kirk was sliding into drugs at this stage but was still an accomplished light comedian who gives the film's best performance - if he hadn't had trouble in his private life surely he would have easily segued into young leading man roles at Disney that were played by Dean Jones.
But it's unfunny and dreary. Bergerac has trouble pronouncing English. The pace is off and farce is harder to do than it looks when done well - here it just looks hard to do.
It has some historical interest - a film directed by Harris, the basic concept, the cast, cameos by Henny Youngman and Joe Pyne (the latter was a shock jock of the 60s).
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