CANDY (1968) - Just as awful as I remembered it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XghPOP2b9mw
This movie seems to have fallen apart while it was being filmed. It wastes an impressive cast (who seem embarrassed to be there, as if they didn't know the cameras would really be running). If it has a satirical point, I can't find it. Basically, a blonde teenager walks listlessly from one scene into the next, has an older man rape her (or try to) in each of the scenes, and all the while this disappointing psychedelic music rattles on the soundtrack (Steppenwolf? The Byrds? Are you SURE it was them?). It's not even titillating. Ewa Aulin was so pretty that it makes you wistful to watch her, but her glimpses of nudity are almost subliminal and the sex scenes are so clumsily directed and edited that you're never really sure what's going on (if anything). Candy's resistance to having all these strange men pulling her clothes off and penetrating her is so half-hearted and diffident that you're not sure if maybe she doesn't mind or she doesn't fully understand what's going on.
I remember references to this being an updating of Voltaire's CANDIDE, about an innocent soul exposing the hypocrisy of society. I wish that movie had been made, this isn't it. At the very start, some sort of swirling light show (like the Northern Lights) comes to Earth from outer space and we zoom in on young Candy Christian sitting in class. Right off the bat, I wasted time wondering if that was an alien life form somehow possessing Candy or if Candy was that life form mimicing a human girl. But in that case, how can her father be there teaching the class? At the very end, Cindy saunters through a field past all the characters she met during the movie (this is Very Deep and Significant, I'm sure of it) before turning back into the Aurora Borealis and heading out to space again. Well, I wish her luck.
As for the story? Let's see. Candy encounters and is molested by a pretentious drunken poet (Richard Burton), then a Mexican gardener (Ringo Starr, simply dreadful and he was so natural and likable in A HARD DAY'S NIGHT and HELP! too), then a megalomaniacal surgeon (James Coburn), an avant-garde photographer (I forget), a hunchback who plays the ol' hunchback card to make liberal white girls guilty enough to yield (Charles Aznavour), a gruff Brigadier General who seems to be a less inspired outtake from DR STRANGELOVE (Walter Matthau) and a completely phony con artist Guru (the Maharish Mahesh Yogi errr I mean Marlon Brando). Oh, and by John Astin as both Candy's father and her uncle (both of whom also lust for her nubile little form). My God, look at that cast! I bet if you had just given them a day or so to improvise, they would have ad-libbed a perfectly enjoyable movie by themselves.
And this multi-car pile-up of a movie can't be blamed on Ewa Aulin. I've seen her in a few Eurothrillers and she was fine. Not a great actress but competent. Here, she is so vacant and distant in every shot that either she was directed specifically to be that way or someone hit her in the forehead with a rock before each scene. Candy has not a trace of personality or motivation. She's not seeking the Truth, she's not trying to find out what she wants to do with her life, she really just seems to wander aimlessly from one encounter to the next. Not that she learns anything at all along the way or even remembers what has just happened. I swear, if Ray Harryhausen had animated a little Ewa Aulin puppet, it would seem more alive.
The script was by Buck Henry, and honestly I expected better from him. Maybe there was extensive tampering by the studio or the director. Every now and then, there is a clever line or sight gag (I like the tough gangster bar where the bartender smashed the neck of a Coke bottle before pouring it for Candy) but they are just scattered gems in a gravel pit. The movie was based on a 1959 novel by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg; maybe the characters made more sense back then, being based on then-current celebrities (although the guru would not have been around then).
One final note. This movie was filmed in Rome with a largely Italian crew. Before I knew this, though, I had the oddest feeling I was watching a foreign film that had been dubbed into English, which would explain the klunky and pointless dialogue. But surely it was shot in English?
This movie seems to have fallen apart while it was being filmed. It wastes an impressive cast (who seem embarrassed to be there, as if they didn't know the cameras would really be running). If it has a satirical point, I can't find it. Basically, a blonde teenager walks listlessly from one scene into the next, has an older man rape her (or try to) in each of the scenes, and all the while this disappointing psychedelic music rattles on the soundtrack (Steppenwolf? The Byrds? Are you SURE it was them?). It's not even titillating. Ewa Aulin was so pretty that it makes you wistful to watch her, but her glimpses of nudity are almost subliminal and the sex scenes are so clumsily directed and edited that you're never really sure what's going on (if anything). Candy's resistance to having all these strange men pulling her clothes off and penetrating her is so half-hearted and diffident that you're not sure if maybe she doesn't mind or she doesn't fully understand what's going on.
I remember references to this being an updating of Voltaire's CANDIDE, about an innocent soul exposing the hypocrisy of society. I wish that movie had been made, this isn't it. At the very start, some sort of swirling light show (like the Northern Lights) comes to Earth from outer space and we zoom in on young Candy Christian sitting in class. Right off the bat, I wasted time wondering if that was an alien life form somehow possessing Candy or if Candy was that life form mimicing a human girl. But in that case, how can her father be there teaching the class? At the very end, Cindy saunters through a field past all the characters she met during the movie (this is Very Deep and Significant, I'm sure of it) before turning back into the Aurora Borealis and heading out to space again. Well, I wish her luck.
As for the story? Let's see. Candy encounters and is molested by a pretentious drunken poet (Richard Burton), then a Mexican gardener (Ringo Starr, simply dreadful and he was so natural and likable in A HARD DAY'S NIGHT and HELP! too), then a megalomaniacal surgeon (James Coburn), an avant-garde photographer (I forget), a hunchback who plays the ol' hunchback card to make liberal white girls guilty enough to yield (Charles Aznavour), a gruff Brigadier General who seems to be a less inspired outtake from DR STRANGELOVE (Walter Matthau) and a completely phony con artist Guru (the Maharish Mahesh Yogi errr I mean Marlon Brando). Oh, and by John Astin as both Candy's father and her uncle (both of whom also lust for her nubile little form). My God, look at that cast! I bet if you had just given them a day or so to improvise, they would have ad-libbed a perfectly enjoyable movie by themselves.
And this multi-car pile-up of a movie can't be blamed on Ewa Aulin. I've seen her in a few Eurothrillers and she was fine. Not a great actress but competent. Here, she is so vacant and distant in every shot that either she was directed specifically to be that way or someone hit her in the forehead with a rock before each scene. Candy has not a trace of personality or motivation. She's not seeking the Truth, she's not trying to find out what she wants to do with her life, she really just seems to wander aimlessly from one encounter to the next. Not that she learns anything at all along the way or even remembers what has just happened. I swear, if Ray Harryhausen had animated a little Ewa Aulin puppet, it would seem more alive.
The script was by Buck Henry, and honestly I expected better from him. Maybe there was extensive tampering by the studio or the director. Every now and then, there is a clever line or sight gag (I like the tough gangster bar where the bartender smashed the neck of a Coke bottle before pouring it for Candy) but they are just scattered gems in a gravel pit. The movie was based on a 1959 novel by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg; maybe the characters made more sense back then, being based on then-current celebrities (although the guru would not have been around then).
One final note. This movie was filmed in Rome with a largely Italian crew. Before I knew this, though, I had the oddest feeling I was watching a foreign film that had been dubbed into English, which would explain the klunky and pointless dialogue. But surely it was shot in English?