1971 Directed by Paul Sylbert
In the midst of the Cuban missile crisis, a mild-mannered professor decides to live out all of his daydreams, travelling across the country and adopting a different persona in each city.
USAR
USA
A man travels the US with a different personality in each city. The period of the film is tied to the time that it was made with multiple mentions of the Cuban Missile Crisis, although I found those ties to the story superficial. There were one or two funny moments here, but honestly it felt like watching a lying jerk get away with bullshit for an hour and a half. The war scenes being filmed in act three weren't bad and seriously boosted my score here, although they were more of a senseless montage that barely fit what plot there was for the film. After that the film abruptly ended with mention that Kennedy sent the Russians home, which was…
Watching again (on a terrible quality print shown on TV and badly panned and scanned), this still remains a funny film with a decent cast, but now having awareness of director Paul Sylbert's battles with studio management to get it done in the way he wanted (he failed), I can see it has clear problems.
Richard Benjamin plays a mid-mamnered professor geek who wants to be something he isn't, to do things he is not allowed to do - the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 seems to be the catalyst for his personality changes, with varied results.
Some scenes really hit - what if we did chase our daydreams? - and others fall a little short. Benjamin is OK but…
Fear of Nuclear War finds Andy Hardy (and the Maltese Falcon).
Richard Benjamin always seemed to be in smug, ogling, dissatisfied, chauvinist, navel gazing mode and this comedy which had a brief theatrical run and then pretty much disappeared is no different. It’s only really worked for me in Goodbye, Columbus. Has the same muddled unevenness as another Benjamin flop of the era - Portnoy’s Complaint (though given the pedigree of the source material of that one, it would have been a far bigger disappointment). An episodic film that is Cuban Missile Crisis panic filtered through a Walter Mitty/Billy Liar styled dreamer. There are a few winning bits (particularly relating to the movie industry) so checking out this oddity is…
It's not hard to understand why this one's been all but forgotten since it's release, sure it's got a few interesting ideas here and there but it's too messy to ever really come together in a satisfying way. For hardcore Richard Benjamin fans only.
This entertaining glimpse at a man’s libidinous reaction to the Cuban missile crisis was edited into oblivion by an incompetent studio boss. - ▼
