Candy * (1968, Ewa Aulin, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Charles Aznavour, John Huston, James Coburn) – Classic Movie Review 10,436

Director Christian Marquand’s 1968 fantasy comedy Candy is certainly a curiosity and has the most incredible cast as its star attraction: Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, John Huston, James Coburn, Ewa Aulin, Walter Matthau, Charles Aznavour, Elsa Martinelli, Ringo Starr, John Astin, Sugar Ray Robinson, Anita Pallenberg and Florinda Bolkan.

But Terry Southern’s sex-satire novel becomes a disastrous film, with the stars all at sea.

Sixties Swedish sexpot Aulin is at a loss too as Candy Christian, the innocent American high-school teenager whose innocence provokes men across the world to fever pitch. However, she was nominated for a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer – Female.

There is hardly a laugh in Buck Henry’s screenplay, and Ringo Starr’s Mexican gardener Emmanuel is a real low spot, though Burton’s funny Dylan Thomas send-up as the alcoholic Welsh poet MacPhisto lifts the gloom a little.

There are iconic contributions from key 60s bands The Byrds (performing Child of the Universe) and Steppenwolf (performing Magic Carpet Ride and Rock Me).

Curiosity it is, but it is one of the era’s many follies.

It runs 124 minutes but the TV version runs only 100 minutes, edited to shorten or remove many of the sexually explicit scenes and nudity, sexually suggestive conversation, and strong language.

Marquand appears as Film Director.

Aulin recalled: ‘Candy is a moral lesson about a pure, childlike girl who is taken advantage of by selfish, amoral people. She just wants to make people happy. If everyone were like Candy, the world would be a better place.’

Aulin remembers working with Richard Burton: ‘ It was a lot of fun. He was a very good storyteller. I liked him very much. He’s a very sweet man and a very good actor.’

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,436

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