A FISH CALLED WANDA: Blu-ray re-issue (MGM/UA 1988) Arrow Academy
English farce
has never surpassed its sheer ribald misdirection in the art of creating dark
comedies since the halcyon days of the Ealing Studios (1940-1959). So perhaps
it comes as no surprise 1988’s A Fish
Called Wanda hails from this vintage primrose, given that its mantle of
quality derives from director, Charles Crichton, responsible for a good many
Ealing masterpieces (1951’s The Lavender
Hill Mob, 1953’s The Titfield
Thunderbolt and 1954’s The Love
Lottery, among them) and John Cleese – an artful disciple of Ealing who,
along with his Monty Python cohorts, extended the reign of Brit-born farce to a
whole new generation, if, in a complete departure into the absurd. By 1988, Crichton’s
name was hardly a household word. He had not made a movie since 1965. Nor was Cleese’s reputation as either a
multi-talented star or quintessence of that certain type of stiff-britches
Brit, perpetually chagrined by his own smug superiority, entirely successful at
crossing the Atlantic post-Python; despite the ever-growing cult status of his
decidedly short-lived follow-up franchise: Fawlty
Towers, in which he cast himself as the short-fused hotelier, Basil (1975
– 1979). Aside: only 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers were ever made: 6 in 1975;
the remainder, four years later.
The bromantic
chemistry between Cleese and Crichton had been brewing since 1969; Wanda’s incubation taking hold at
approximately the same time. Cleese had desperately wanted to do ‘an Ealing-styled’ comedy and
immediately began to fashion a part in it for himself with another going to fellow
Python alumni, Michael Palin. For one reason, then another, the project could
find no takers and was repeatedly postponed to the point where it looked as
though it would all come to not. And yet, this is exactly what Cleese needed: time
to hone and refine his acute sense of humor and smooth over the rougher edges
on his concentrated action. The result: A
Fish Called Wanda, a ludicrous yet purposeful crime caper/rom-com that moves
like gangbusters, its 109 minutes feeling about half that, yet as densely
packed with a select curio of Brit-born grotesques never to be sidelined by the
exploitative pair of slick as pomade social outcasts from the colonies who vet
and manipulate their cultured kissing cousins to suit their own means to a vicious
and enterprising end. And what an end it becomes; an out and out outrageous
festival of boobs, bitchery, bribes and bawdy on-liners; many of them simply
cast off, only to find their way into our collective consciousness via osmosis.
The red-hot poker of Cleese’s comedy genius strikes with ever-confidence: the
lines, not so much as important as their potency laden with double entendre and
venom, distinctly wrapped in the enigma of the well-timed and even naughtier
ankle-biting barb.
Wanda’s real gestation would stretch from June 1983 to 1988
as Crichton and Cleese ironed out every last wrinkle in this shar pei puppy of a
shaggy dog crime caper. In retrospect, A
Fish Called Wanda is such well-oiled machinery, infused with Crichton’s
clear-eyed sense of creating a good show and Cleese’s constructionist
brilliance it appears to effortlessly spring to life as a tailored studio-bound
production. The pieces to Cleese’s screenplay fits so succinctly together that
to imagine them independently, even now or in any other order, is to dismantle
the delicate balancing act to the point where nothing works with any degree of
competency. Take the ancillary character of Ken (Michael Palin); on the one
hand, ruthlessly besought by a devious Otto, played by Kevin Kline, utterly
superb as the misguided and dumb (notice, I didn’t call him stupid) philosophizing
psychopath, faking a male-on-male attraction to deflect Ken’s suspicions about
him and Wanda. Brother and sister indeed! Poor Ken: the naturalist, ordered by
the brains of their operation, George Thomason (Tom Georgeson)
to whack the prosecution’s star witness; Eileen Coady (Patricia Hayes), a
puckered dowager with three Yorkies who, thanks to Ken’s ineptitude, instead
wind up dead one at a time, only inadvertently to give the old girl her fatal
heart attack. Ken - later, forced to endure Otto transforming his aquarium of
rare and exotic fish into his own seafood smorgasbord. On the surface, Ken is a relatively minor
character, perpetually delayed in taking a more proactive stance by a stifling stutter
(Cleese, inspired by Palin’s father’s speech impediment). And yet, Cleese affords
Ken prominence in two pivotal vignettes, capped off by a very sweet revenge:
Otto’s steamroller demise at London’s Heathrow.
A gap of two
weeks rehearsals likely afforded Cleese the opportunity to polish the comedy
bits one recalls best from the movie today: Cleese’s own nude scene, as
barrister, Archie Leach (Cary Grant’s real name) suggested by co-star, Jamie
Lee Curtis, cast as the titular ‘fish’: Wanda Gershwitcz (asked to shed her
wardrobe during their pivotal seduction and ‘discovery’ by the vacationing
family renting the flat. Cleese would also follow Crichton’s lead to cap this
hilarious vignette by covering up too late his unmentionables, not with a random
book, but a silver-framed headshot of Mrs. Johnson (Pamela Miles), the lady of
the maison. Personally, I have always been partial to the oblivious Otto’s
chronic disregard for the traffic rules (being an American, he drives on the
wrong side of the road) shouting indiscriminately “asshooooole” to those he misperceives as the offenders hurtling
towards him. Throughout, Cleese and Crichton have populated their rather
straight forward cat and mouse game with such a potpourri of great quality
writing and so much over-sized finesse, A
Fish Called Wanda cannot help but still seem bright and breezy nearly
thirty years later. And it is saying a great deal the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences (AMPASS), rarely in tune with, or prone to honor a comedy,
bestowed on Wanda a Best Supporting
statuette for Kevin Kline’s pseudo-intellectual; in addition to nods to Crichton
and Cleese – for direction and screenplay. Shakespearean trained, Kline’s
wild-eyed hit man, spouting fractured Italian to drive our heroine periodically
wild, crooning Volare as he drills her into the box spring during their one and
only passionate session of…um…lovemaking, culminating in a cross-eyed orgasm,
is undeniably the most flamboyant part in the picture; perfectly timed and
designed for transatlantic appeal, if marginally overcompensating for the
decidedly English reserve on display elsewhere.
Kline is actually
the lone wolf of this piece, overshadowed and outclassed by the teaming of Cleese,
Palin and Curtis; the trio forging their far more integrated and engaging
on-screen chemistry. It is this kinetic energy that mostly satisfies in A Fish Called Wanda, if periodically
pooped on by Otto’s chronic desperation to fit into their little clique. He
never does. As example: even with fish-swallowing torture tactics applied,
Palin’s animal-loving K-K-Ken would rather die devoted to Wanda and George,
and, with a couple of ketchup-dipped French Fries stuffed up his nostrils/a
whole pear jammed down his throat, than afford Otto the satisfaction of knowing
he has beaten him. Palin’s is, in fact, the more potent and hilarious
performance in the picture. He is dynamically funny, seemingly without even
trying. On the flipside is Jamie Lee Curtis – the almost demonically driven
spitfire, using sex like a flyswatter to get Archie to stick to her like the
proverbial glue, destined to gum up his loveless marriage. Curtis is
interesting casting to say the least; known then as the ‘scream queen’ of
horror movies like Halloween (1978),
Prom Queen and Terror Train (both in 1980). Her attempts prior to A Fish Called Wanda to break out of
this mold – as a ‘serious’ actress – had not yet yielded any sort of career
changer. And yet in Wanda Curtis is
a hoot; loveably sadistic and enterprising to a fault as she feigns doe-eyed
loyalty to all three men lusting after a piece of her action.
Between these
diametrically opposed offerings we get John Cleese, as stoutly British as Kevin
Kline’s ugliest of Americans. Initially overshadowed by the instant and
out-of-the-gate bravura of his costars, it is Cleese’s stodgy barrister who
brings up the rear during Wanda’s
climactic race against time to learn the whereabouts of the hidden loot – the
Cathcart Towers Hotel near London’s Heathrow airport. From the moment Cleese
artfully sheds his clothes for the aforementioned failed seduction of Wanda, to
his flubbed and thoroughly farcical defense of George at trial, where he inadvertently
blows the cover off his many splendored ‘Wanda-lust’, to his penultimate escape
from certain death at the point of Otto’s gun, Cleese’s befuddled booby acquires
an admirable strength of his own convictions to carry on in that great
tradition of the stiff upper-lipped gentleman forced to play by a different set
of rules, yet proving he can slog it in the mud with the best of them and still
come out on top to win the heart of this seemingly most heartless of all the
‘players’. And through it all, Cleese’s Archie remains the one man dripping
with moral integrity he neither abandons nor trades up for a chance at the
proverbial brass ring. He merely comes to his senses; recognizing his loveless
marriage as such and making the executive decision to pursue something more
satisfying with this tart who, by the end, only superficially holds ‘all the
cards’. Cleese’s Archie Leach is Wanda’s ‘nice guy’. Despite all the
frenetic energy of his bungling cohorts, bumping into one another and the
furniture like a bunch of juiced-up rabbits at the track, it’s Cleese’s slow
and steady tortoise that wins this race.
Perhaps the
most miraculous aspect of A Fish Called
Wanda is the crudeness in its humor is almost always overshadowed by a
lithe spirit of jest in the writing; the comedy, while razor-backed and
nail-biting, never insufferable or sardonic. Take Otto’s chronic flirtations,
taunting Ken with his supposed homo-erotic sexual interests in him. In any
other comedy of the eighties, and a few made well beyond its lax tolerance
towards homosexuals – treated mostly as limp-wristed figures of fun – lines
like “I love to watch your ass walk away
from me. Is that beautiful or what?” would play with sadistic disdain for
gay culture. Yet, in Wanda they come
off as devilishly clean, rather than ‘mean’-spirited. Possibly it’s Kline’s
overt disregard for being offensive that tempers such lines with a more
horrendous – and yet pleasing – if counter-intuitive aggressiveness. After all,
any man who believes Aristotle was Belgium and the London Underground is a
subversive political movement is quite obviously not playing with a full deck.
Hence, such lines of dialogue come back on Kline’s misanthrope, instead of
inflicting their tart-mouthed perversity to linger and besmirch the reputation
of their target. Whatever the case, the comedy herein is deftly handled without
malice.
A Fish Called Wanda opens in the London flat of Ken
Pile, tending his aquarium full of exotic fish, including his favorite – an
angel fish called Wanda. Ken is a recluse more in tune with animals than
people, as is evident by the poster of a baby seal hanging on his wall. Enter
Wanda Gershwitz and her ‘brother’
Otto – a disciple of Friedrich Nietzsche without actually understanding one
word of Nietzsche’s philosophic debate. Kline’s pseudo-intellectual is brought
in on a plotted diamond heist, orchestrated by Wanda’s gangster/boyfriend,
George Thomason. This foursome knock off a jewelry store, making off with $20
million in diamonds. But almost immediately, the perfect plan goes awry. The
fleeing foursome nearly run down Eileen Coady, a doddering dowager crossing the
street with her three Yorkies. After Wanda and Otto betray George to the
police, Coady also manages to pick him out of a lineup. Wanda fakes concern to learn where George has
hidden their loot, turning her sexual wiles on Archie Leach, the barrister
assigned to defend George at trial. Recognizing this as a conflict of interest,
Archie is nevertheless attracted to Wanda from the outset. And why not? His own
wife, Wendy is a real cold fish; their daughter, Portia (Cynthia Caylor – nee, ‘Cleese’),
a dull-as-paint princess, bored with her equestrian pursuits.
As Archie and
Wendy separately prepare to retire for the evening, we cut to Otto and Wanda indulging
in some kinky extracurricular exercises. Clearly, Otto is not Wanda’s brother!
The next day an incarcerated George whispers to Ken an order to have Eileen Coady
rubbed out before trial. Ken agrees and sets off to kill the dowager. Alas, his
first attempt, releasing a foaming-at-the-mouth Rottweiler on the ole girl,
instead results with the first of Coady’s beloved Yorkies being mauled to death.
Ken, a devoted animal activist is tortured by his involvement in this innocent
animal’s death. Relentlessly, he pursues another course of action. Disguised as
a Rastafarian, Ken endeavors to run over Coady as she prepares to cross a quiet
street in her neighborhood. Once again, he overshoots his target, flattening
another of her dogs before escaping the impact from a crash into nearby trash
cans. Ken’s final attempt at murder is as badly bungled; dropping a heavy block
of cement from a nearby renovation project on the last of Coady’s pups,
inadvertently causing the dowager to suffer a fatal heart attack. Meanwhile, Wanda plots to seduce Archie and
gain insight into George’s secret hiding place for the diamonds. Her first
attempt is thwarted when Wendy’s car suffers a flat, forcing her and Portia to
prematurely return home from a night at the opera. Otto, who has been shadowing
her every movement, is forced to present himself as a fake CIA agent,
supposedly keeping tabs on a high-ranking KGB official squirreled away in a safe
house not far from the Leach’s country estate. Discovering Wanda’s locket on the floor, Wendy
mistakenly assumes it is a gift from her husband. Actually, Wanda has concealed
the key to George’s safe deposit box inside it.
Wanda now demands
Archie retrieve the locket on her behalf without Wendy’s knowledge. Alas, his
feeble lies about the jewelry store mixing up ‘his’ order with another patron’s
does little to persuade Wendy to return the locket to him, forcing Archie to
stage a burglary while Wendy and Portia are out. Beforehand, Archie and Wanda
had skulked off to a fashionable loft to satisfy their carnal lust. Unbeknownst
to either, Otto followed them, instigating a confrontation that ends with Otto
dangling Archie from a third story window until he apologized for calling him
stupid. Now, Archie’s burglary backfires as Otto, ordered by Wanda to apologize
for his earlier misbehavior, and driven to Archie’s home to make his
recompense, instead perceives Archie – sheathed in a dark coat – to be a real burglar.
Otto beats Archie unconscious before discovering his identity. Mercifully,
Wendy arrives to discover her husband lying unconscious on the ground. Rushing
to revive him with water, Archie awakens and swallows Wanda’s locket to conceal
the real purpose behind his faked thievery. Next, he hurries to the loft where
he and Wanda plan to finally consummate their affair. But again, fate
intervenes; the Johnsons – the family renting the space, returning from their
vacation just as Archie has stripped completely naked in their living room.
Even worse, Mrs. Johnson recognizes him as the man who bought their house. Chagrined, presumably for the very last time,
Archie telephones Wanda to break off their failed flagrante delictos. Even so,
he is revisited this same evening by Otto, desperate to apologize. Unaware Wendy
is listening from their upstairs window Otto spills the particulars of Archie’s
affair, the burglary, and furthermore, gives him carte blanche to ‘pork away’
with his ‘sister’.
Having
reported the ‘good’ news of Eileen Coady’s accidental death to George, Ken is
instructed to get four plane tickets to Rio. Meanwhile, Wanda hurries off to
George’s trial to act as a material witness, presumably in his defense. Left to
finalize the details of their escape, Ken is confronted by Otto. Believing they
are working for the same side, Ken cryptically reveals he knows the precise
location of the diamonds while refusing to divulge it. Otto ties Ken up,
demanding to know the whereabouts of the hidden jewels. As Ken staunchly
refuses to tell him, he is forced to watch as Otto devours his tank-full of
beloved exotic fish one by one. Taunting Ken further, Otto stuffs a
ketchup-dipped French Fry into each of his nostrils; then, a pear into his
mouth, momentarily causing Ken to hyperventilate. A tearful Ken gives up the
location: the Cathcart Towers Hotel near the airport. Meanwhile, on the witness
stand, Wanda incriminates George by implying he left their apartment on the
morning of the heist with a sawed-off shotgun. Realizing the Judas in his midst
has always been Wanda, George tries to attack her, resulting in utter chaos. As
Wanda’s confession also reveals she and Archie have been unfaithful – if only
in their hearts – Wendy confronts her husband, demanding a divorce.
From his
holding cell, Archie implores George to get his sentence reduced with a
confession. While George refuses to answer him, he does direct Archie to question
Ken whom Archie discovers still bound and gagged inside his apartment. Archie
coaxes Ken into divulging the location to him. Otto carjacks Wanda and drives
them to Heathrow, determined to make the plane to Rio. Archie and Ken make
chase to the Cathcart Towers. And although the diamonds are retrieved Wanda
knocks Otto unconscious, making off with the loot. Archie arrives and is
confronted by Otto, staggering to regain his composure. Otto forces Archie on
the tarmac at gunpoint, quite unaware a portion of its landing strip is newly
laid with still very much half-wet and sticky cement. As Otto’s feet become trapped,
Ken appears atop a giant steamroller to avenge the death of his beloved fish by
running over Otto. Archie boards the plane using Otto’s ticket. He greets the
much surprised Wanda in Italian. As the couple discusses the future they fail
to notice Otto, covered in cement, peering at them from the porthole. The plane
takes off and Otto is thrown to the ground, shouting “asshooooooole”. In the
series of epilogues to follow we learn Ken went on to work at SeaWorld while
Wanda and Archie founded a leper colony with their many offspring.
A Fish Called Wanda is ripe, silly, and unequivocally brilliant. For a ‘little movie’, co-funded by the financially beleaguered, if
then newly amalgamated MGM/UA, it packs quite a wallop. The comedy is cynical
without ever devolving into mean-spiritedness. Even Otto’s sadistic swallowing
of Ken’s tropical pets leaves one with a bizarre jab of pleasure, and this,
despite its dangerously real potential to lean towards garden variety gross out.
I suspect the joy herein comes not from the fish-eating, but rather Kevin Kline’s
expert ability to catapult the farce into outer stratospheres of the
deliciously absurd. Charles Crichton
directs with evenly-paced hysteria; the vignettes magnificently lyrical in
their cause and effect. The movie clicks
because its cast is telescopically focused on being ‘serious’, rather than
scrambling to be funny. The humor is
dark but not particularly black and derives from Cleese’s acute powers of
observation; seeing the transparent ridiculousness in life itself and tweaking
it just enough to move us from daily follies into sublime examples of the
audaciously perverse. The jewel heist may be modern cinema’s greatest MacGuffin
– a point of interest only in so far as Cleese and Crichton can use it to hang
their more ambitious skits, constantly raising the ante while maintaining the
narrative equilibrium. In the final
analysis, A Fish Called Wanda is
both a work of genius and a very sad epitaph to Cleese’s career as the
un-intentionally funny every man. Neither he nor Michael Palin would do as much
as the artful dodgers of situation comedy again…a real pity.
A Fish Called Wanda’s Blu-ray’s debut in 2006 left
much to be desired; particularly from MGM/UA, later to be absorbed and
re-branded as MGM/Fox – the custodians of a lot of third-party acquired archives
from Orion, United Artists, Avco/Embassy and other indies culled under one
creative umbrella. MGM/Fox’s Blu-ray output, even their licensing of back
catalog to third party distributors has been lackluster. But now in 2017 this
tide seems to be shifting for the better, particularly as Brit-born Arrow
Academy has been granted access to their archives. So, does this new to Blu
re-issue of A Fish Called Wanda mean
the old way of doing things is over? Hmmmm. We’ll see. What it does suggest, at
least for fans of this movie, is Arrow may now hold the keys to the kingdom,
applying their renown due diligence to this brand new 4K remaster with
considerably improved video quality; albeit, in 1080p. Prepare to be thoroughly
impressed. A Fish Called Wanda looks
fabulous in this exclusively restored edition, culled from original 35mm camera
negatives. Painstaking digital clean-up has yielded an image virtually free of
age-related artifacts, with image stabilization applied. We tip our hats to
Arrow and give sincere thanks for their efforts. Colors are robust, if exhibiting a slightly
dated characteristic, more and more to mimic the perfect reincarnation of
vintage 80’s film stock. Saturation – bang on. Contrast – ditto. Love, LOVE
this transfer – period!
We get two audio
tracks: DTS 5.1 and LPCM mono, the latter recreating the original theatrical
exhibition. It may ‘sound’ like sacrilege, but I prefer the mono here: less
straining for reasons to envelope your surround channels – although, conversely
the 5.1 does come with the added benefit of listening to John Du Prez’s
underscore in true stereo. Arrow has been granted the rights to port over
virtually all the extras from the old MGM/Fox Blu-ray, alas, with zero
remastering applied. These extras are in 480i (yuck!) but include the
comprehensive 1988 ‘making of’ documentary, nearly a half hour retrospective,
produced for Wanda’s 15th anniversary, an ‘on location’ fluff
piece hosted by Robert Powell, and ‘a message’ from Cleese. Arrow has also
spiffed up its own extra content: a newly produced ‘appreciation’ by BFI archivist, Vic Pratt (clocking in at just
under 20 min. and in 1080p) and an interview with production designer, Roger
Murray-Leach (much too brief at 7 min. but also in 1080p). We also get nearly
30 min. of deleted scenes in 1080p hosted by Cleese, an image gallery and a
theatrical trailer. Competing with Criterion here, Arrow has produced a
handsome booklet with reflections and social critique by film critic, Sophie
Monks Kaufman. While I completely disagree with Kaufman’s assessment of this
movie, she writes it well and validates her position with class. Nicely done.
Bottom line: A Fish Called Wanda
from Arrow is a great stocking stuffer for the movie lover in your household.
You want this disc. It’s that simple!
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
5+
VIDEO/AUDIO
5+
EXTRAS
5+
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