Right its time for another review and now I will go back in time to 1988 (without the aid of a time machine just my notebook which I am typing this on (for now!) where the film of choice if A Fish Called Wanda, a comedy starring John Cleese. So let's gie it a look, ol chap....
The film set in London, begins with a group of thieves, lead by a gangster, George Thomason (Tom Georgeson) who plan a jewel heist. George plans it out with the help of his right hand man, Ken (Michael Palin) who is an animal lover with a bad stutter, and along with two Americans, the seductive con-artist Wanda Gerschwitz (Jamie-Lee Curtis) and a weapons man, Otto (Kevin Kline). The robbery goes well as planned, however it is soon revealed that Wanda and Otto, who were posing as brother and sister, are in fact lovers, and they decide to betray George by tipping off the police, who arrest him. Wanda and Otto go to George's garage lockup to open the safe which they find is empty, as he had moved the loot shortly before his arrest. In order to find out where the jewels are kept Wanda decides to seduce George's lawyer, Archie Leech (Cleese) who falls for her immediately. Archie however is in a rather unhappy marriage with his stuck up wife, Wendy (Maria Aitken) and his spoiled daughter (Cynthia Cleese, John's real life daughter) and he has to resort to sneaking around them. But their liaison doesn't go well as Otto grows increasingly jealous, and at one point he even breaks in on them and dangles Archie out a window to force him to apologise for nearly calling him "stupid".
Wanda is furious with Otto and demands that he go and apologise to Archie, who at that time makes an attempt to burgle his own house to find Wanda's necklace (which Wanda dropped earlier at Archie's house and he unwittingly ended up giving to Wendy). Otto catches Archie and beats him up without realising it was him and does a runner just before Wendy arrives, with Archie finding the necklace just in time before Wendy finds him. Later on Archie meets up with Wanda again and he gives her the necklace and as they prepare to make love, and as Archie undresses, a family walk in, leaving Archie in an embarrassing position (to say the least!). After that Archie decides to call off his affair with Wanda after so many mishaps, and that point Otto follows Archie to his home and tries to apologise to him, although Archie is too scared and Otto ends up pointing a gun in his face while making his forced apology (during which Wendy looks out of her bedroom window and overhears Otto mention Wanda).
Meanwhile Ken is given the task by George to kill off the one witness to the getaway, an elderly lady who has three dogs. Ken makes unsuccessful attempts to kill the lady, and each time he unwittingly ends up killing the dogs instead, but ultimately this ends in success as the old lady suffers a fatal heart attack as a result. With no witness in the way, this gives George a chance to get off, but Wanda decides to testify and give evidence to make him guilty, in order she can get away with the loot, which causes bedlam in the courtroom as George tries to attack Wanda, but is subdued by the court sheriffs. Archie confronts George afterwards, who tells him that Wanda and Otto were involved in the heist as well, and will he tell him where the diamonds are, but George instead tells him that Ken knows where they are. Archie heads over to Ken, who has been tied up by Otto who has forced him to tell him where the diamonds are, and in the process eats all of Ken's fish, including his beloved "Wanda" and leaves with Wanda just after Archie arrives at the flat. Archie unties Ken who tells him where the diamonds are and they head off to try and catch up with Wanda and Otto, which leads into the film's amusing and silly climax.
A big commercial and critical success at the time of its release, A Fish Called Wanda is a very entertaining film, which is wonderfully written by John Cleese and Charles Crichton. Cleese pokes fun throughout at the English, and how uptight and reserved they are in comparison to the sexually liberated and carefree Americans in Wanda and Otto. Although its great how in Archie how he realises what a rather miserable existence he has and that he a chance to change it when he meets and falls for Wanda, and form there he turns from the pompous uptight Englishman, into an assertive and almost heroic figure. Otto rather amusingly despite his claims to being an intellectual, who reads philosophy is in fact somewhat dim-witted, in fact there are times in the film where I thought he came across as being a bit dyslexic as he fails to pick up on things when people tell him things, hence his somewhat sarcastic response of "what was the first one?" or "the middle one?" when he has to clarify something, as I myself am dyslexic so that's why I picked up on it. Either that or Otto is just being sarcastic and just doesn't pay much attention, but I would dare say his character is a bit dyslexic and has a poor working memory (like me, but that's just my theory on Otto!).
Anyway getting onto the performances, which are all excellent, starting with John Cleese, who delivers a fine performance as Archie, an emotionally uptight lawyer, who ends up being seduced by Wanda, whom he falls for. One of the Cleese's funny moments in the film comes when Wanda meets with Archie at his office and as he answers a phone call, Wanda whispers quietly "I want to make love to you" to which Archie's assistant on the other end says "Pardon?!". Also the scene where Otto dangles out a window and he apologises is funny and he says to Otto "I take it back, and I regret any malice or harm it may have caused your family, and therefore will not make any attempt to repeat any such slander in the future!". Also there is the scene where he undresses at the flat and he speaks Russian (while Wanda thrives in ecstacy listening to the language), and a married couple and their children walk in, but the wife recognises him and they introduce themselves and Archie is left to awkward acknowledge them "Oh what a strange coincidence! How nice it is to see you!".
Michael Palin is also great as Ken, the stuttering jewel thief and animal lover, and he has his share of funny moments in the film, such as when Otto pretends to come onto him and asks if he can kiss him and Ken bolts it shouting "no you fucking can't!". Also the scene where Otto finds out that George has asked him to kill off the old lady and Otto says "wasting old ladies isn't nice!" and Ken replies "well its better than bbbb-buggering people!". And in the moment where he finally succeeds in bumping off the old lady (by way of accidentally killing her dogs instead!) and some pedestrians witness her being covered up by a policeman, he laughs delighted and walks off. And of course the scene where Archie unties Ken at the flat and asks where Wanda and Otto are heading at the end of the film, and he struggles to tell him the name of the Cathcart Towers hotel, and he resorts to writing it down and ends up saying it perfectly afterwards!
Jamie-Lee Curtis is also great as the sexy and alluring Wanda, who ends up playing everyone in the film, but she ultimately has a soft spot for Archie as they two of them get together toward the end. Jamie-Lee has plenty of fine moments, and it has to be said has never looked better than she has here, but her best scene is where she berates Otto for botching up her meeting with Archie after he dangles him out the window. And in the scene Wanda corrects Otto on some of his intellectual mistakes, and she says some hilarious lines such as "the central message of Buddhism is not every man for himself!" and "the London underground is not a political movement!" (well you'd have to be pretty stupid to believe that one!). Maria Aitken is also really good as Archie's stuck up wife, Wendy who pays him little attention and is self obssessed with her own problems, especially early on in the film when he tries to tell her he won his case. Later on Maria get's a great line as he storms up to Archie and smacks hard in the face and says "I have never been so humiliated in all my life! You can stick this marriage right in your bottom!".
And finally Kevin Kline is terrific as the weapons man Otto, who is also insanely jealous of Wanda's attempts to seduce Archie, and also has nothing but contempt for the English people, whom he calls "intellectually inferior stuck up faggots!" and "they get rigor mortus in the prime of life here!". Otto also has deep seated insecurities about his intelligence and he hates whenever anyone refers to him as being stupid, hence he keeps saying "don't ever, ever call me stupid!". And one of my favourite scenes is when he confronts Archie at the flat and demands he apologise to him and Archie says "are you totally deranged???" and Otto looks at him in disgust and says " you pompous, stuck up, snot nosed, English giant twerp, scumbag, fuckface, dickhead asshole!". Also later in the scene where he ties up Ken and forces him to try and tell him where the diamonds are and he ends up eating Ken's fish (with chips no less!) and he takes Wanda out the tank with a small net saying "Come on, Wanda, gullet time!". There is also the moment where he follows Ken out of court and finds out that Ken has been given the task to kill off the old lady, and he pretends to be gay again as Ken walks off he yells "I love watching your ass when you walk, isn't that beautiful or what???!" and yells to onlookers "Don't go near him, he's mine!" and just before he angrily looks at some young English louts and says "fuck off, or I'll kill you! Limey fruits!". Also Kline often says "Asshole!!" in the film when he nearly drives into someone, and also at the end.
Direction wise, the film's director, the late Charles Crichton (who directed the classic film The Lavender Hill Mob) did a great job here and he keeps the pace of the film moving along nicely. Cleese also at the time insisted that rather than using a new fresh faced director that he wanted an old veteran such as Crichton who was no stranger of course to making films about heists. As for the film's music score, written by John Du Prez, well this is probably one of the weaker aspects of the film, as while its not too bad, it does suffer from cheesy sounding passages, particularly the romantic ones, that just sound so dated and of the time, with some slapping bass behind them (you can almost imagine Mark King of Level 42 playing on it!).
So that's it for my look at A Fish Called Wanda, which remains as one of the funniest British comedy films of the 1980s, and if you are yet to see it, well if you like British farcical comedies then you are sure to like this one.
And I will leave you there.
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