Skidoo *** (1968, John Phillip Law, Jackie Gleason, Rooney, Groucho Marx, Carol Channing, Frankie Avalon) – Classic Movie Review 9389

Back in 1968 Otto Preminger’s wild and wacky black comedy Skidoo dropped on the world like a lead balloon as a notorious bomb. But it has fervent admirers and it is certainly worth trying for the highly unusual vintage all-star cast. It has been dubbed an infamous psychedelic ‘acid comedy’. It is intended as a satire of late-Sixties counterculture lifestyle, hippies, free love and the drug use of LSD.

In his last film at age 77, Groucho Marx plays a mob kingpin gangster called God, who kidnaps ex-gangster Tony Banks (Jackie Gleason)’s daughter Darlene (Alexandra Hay) on his luxury yacht to force him to carry out a hit on fellow mobster ‘Blue Chips’ Packard (Mickey Rooney),

John Phillip Law plays Stash, and his he and fellow California hippies get mixed up with old hoodlums Tony Banks (Jackie Gleason), ‘Blue Chips’ Packard (Mickey Rooney), ‘God’ (Groucho Marx) and Flo (Carol Channing), and young punk Angie (Frankie Avalon).

There’s a score by Harry Nilsson (who also appears as a Tower Guard). Nilsson appears in a few brief scenes with Fred Clark, both of them as prison tower guards swaying to Nilsson’s music while under the influence of LSD. Clark died on 5 December 1968, two weeks before the film’s release.

After the final freeze-frame, Preminger is heard: ‘Stop!, we are not through yet, and before you skidoo, we’d like to introduce our cast and crew’ and the entire credit sequence (with cast, crew and copyright information) is then sung by Nilsson, with various asides.

Well, on a good day Preminger could be a great director, but his forte wasn’t exactly comedy. You’ve got to admire his chutzpah, though. How cool is the cast though? And how crazy is the film?

Frankie Avalon stars in Skidoo.

It stars Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Groucho Marx, Frankie Avalon, Fred Clark, Michael Constantine, Frank Gorshin, John Phillip Law, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, George Raft, Cesar Romero and Mickey Rooney.

Also in the cast are Austin Pendleton as Fred (The Professor), Alexandra Hay, Donyale Luna as ‘God’s’ Mistress, Arnold Stang, Doro Merande, Phil Arnold, Slim Pickens (as The Switchboard Operator), Robert Donner (as Another Switchboard Operator), Richard Kiel, Thomas Law, Harry Nilsson, William D Cannon, George Cisar, Jeffrey Sayre, Joe Ploski, Dawn Frame, Charles Evans, Don Devendorf, Michael L Davis, the Orange County Ramblers and Stone County (as Themselves).

It is written by Doran William Cannon (1937–2005), who also wrote Brewster McCloud and the story for Hex (1973). An uncredited Rob Reiner was brought in by Preminger to ‘write scenes for hippies’.

Three of the cast, Frank Gorshin (The Riddler), Burgess Meredith (The Penguin) and Cesar Romero (The Joker), played recurring villains in the 1966–68 Batman TV series. Preminger played another of the show’s villains, Mr Freeze, in one 1966 two-part episode.

The scenes on God’s yacht were shot on John Wayne’s yacht Wild Goose, the former US Navy minesweeper USS YMS-328, while there was also filming at the South San Francisco City Hall.

John Phillip Law (September 7, 1937 – May 13, 2008).

Thomas Law is the younger brother of John Phillip Law and a former road manager for Peter Paul & Mary. It is his only film appearance.

John Phillip Law previously starred in Otto Preminger’s Hurry Sundown (1967) and he re-teams with Alexandra Hay in The Love Machine (1971), where he plays news anchor Robin Stone.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9389

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