Featuring Ryan O'Neal, Barbara Streisand and a star-making debut from Madeline Kahn, What's Up, Doc? is the ultimate romantic, screwball comedy!
No discussion of the greatest comedies of all time is complete without mention of director Peter Bogdanovich’s masterpiece, What’s Up, Doc? And, if you want to whittle it down to the sub-genre of romantic, screwball comedy, there are few movies, if any, better.
Written by the brilliant Buck Henry, whose writing credits include The Graduate, Heaven Can Wait, To Die For, and the Get Smart TV series, What’s Up, Doc? has everything you could want in a comedy.
The story centres around Howard Bannister (Ryan O’Neal), who has come to San Francisco to attend a musicologist convention in hopes of gaining a prestigious grant based on his theory about igneous rocks. He is a boring and meek man whose life is about to be turned upside down by a plucky and kooky college drop-out named Judy Maxwell (Barbara Streisand), who runs into him in a corner store and is immediately infatuated with him.
Complicating matters are Howard’s overbearing wife, Eunice (Madeline Kahn), a rival musicologist named Hugh Simon (Kenneth Mars), and the fact that there are three other people in the hotel who have overnight bags that are identical to the one Howard is carrying his rocks in. One of the bags merely has underwear in it, while the other two contain diamonds and secret government documents respectively.
Naturally, the bags eventually get mixed up and the movie climaxes with one of the best and funniest chase scenes ever, with Howard and Judy fleeing on an ice cream vendor’s bike and being chased through the streets of San Francisco by everyone else, including a government agent and gangsters.
This tremendous chase is preceded by some hilarious misunderstandings at the hotel, including a terrific slapstick episode in Howard’s room and followed by a riotous court scene that is presided over by Liam Dunn as the judge, who almost steals the show!
Throughout the movie, there is some wonderfully clever dialogue, much of which is reminiscent of the Marx Brothers.
Howard: What are you doing? This is a one-way street!
Judy: We’re only going one way!
O’Neal and Streisand are pitch perfect as the unlikely pair and are backed by a tremendous supporting cast, particularly Madeline Kahn and Kenneth Mars.
For Kahn, who would become famous for her roles in Mel Brooks movies, this was her feature film debut, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for most promising female newcomer. Here, she sets a standard for annoying, overbearing wife that is unsurpassed.
Mars, meanwhile, plays the rival musicologist Hugh Simon with deliciously slimy enthusiasm.
What’s Up, Doc? won a Writers Guild of America award for Best Comedy Written Directly For The Screen and is no. 61 on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Comedies List. The ranking should be considerably higher!
