Bedazzled *** (1967, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Eleanor Bron, Raquel Welch, Barry Humphries, Michael Bates) – Classic Movie Review 3321

Producer-director Stanley Donen’s 1967 British comedy is a slick and amusing vehicle for the beloved comedy team of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, who also provide the original story, with the screenplay credited to Cook. And Moore also provides the score.

Moore plays a cook in love with Margaret (Eleanor Bron), the statuesque waitress who works at Wimpy Bar with him. If Moore plays a cook, it’s lucky that Cook doesn’t play a moor! In fact, Cook plays the Devil, aka George Spiggott, who appears in order to tempt Moore’s hapless loser character Stanley Moon and grants him seven wishes in return for his soul.

Naturally, one of them is to win the girl of his dreams. But trying to make Margaret his own, even in various impressive guises, proves hard. He also meets the Seven Deadly Sins – Lust, Envy, Anger, Avarice, Sloth, Vanity and Gluttony – who try to advise him.

The duo’s comedy take on the Faust legend may not be entirely a success but there are enough fast-flowing jokes and sight gags to provide constant amusement. And there are always Raquel Welch (Lust), Barry Humphries (Envy) and Michael Bates as the police inspector Clarke to savour, though American director Donen seems uneasy with this very British revue-style material. But it’s lovely now to see Moore, Cook and Bron in their prime.

Also in the cast are Bernard Spear as Irving Moses, Robert Russell as Anger, Michael Trubshawe as Lord Dowdy, Charles Lloyd Pack inevitably as the vicar, Robin Hawdon as Randolph the Harp Teacher, Lockwood West, Daniele Noel as Avarice, Howard Goorney as Sloth, Evelyn Moore as Mrs Wisby, Betty Cooper as Sister Phoebe, Martin Boddey as the cardinal, Erik Chitty as the butler, Alba as Vanity and Parnell McGarry as Gluttony. Valentine Dyall provides the voice of God.

It was remade as Bedazzled in 2000 with Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley (in Cook’s role).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3321

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