From the start with its self-consciously studio-era page-turning opening credits, this hilarious homage to Hollywood classics, imbued with a sense of loss, evokes Hawks and McCarey, their beautifully absurd interest in mistaken identities and intentions, and their excellent character actors who made the panorama of their films as instantly known to us as those in the Looney Tunes cartoons, which gave Bogdanovich's charade its title. In spite of this, What's Up, Doc? is no more a simulated relic than is his inspired predecessor, The Last Picture Show. It has character of its own, which suggests the transformations, for better or worse, in American life in the several decades before them.
Bogdanovich, who had exhausted the previous decade or so soaking up the films of the vintage Hollywood greats of the 1930s, here shows himself a master of screwball comedy, a genre which everybody figured was bygone until the pantheon of throwback vaudevillian screwball romps of the Technicolor 1960s and early '70s of which What's Up, Doc? is the crowning achievement. This absolute smash is a deference to Howard Hawks, but Bogdanovich isn't a copycat but rather an enthusiast with thoughts of his own.
He also directs with the haphazard thrift of the '30s farces. This live cartoon wastes none of its time on slushy romantic scenes, and makes sure to be comical even throughout those potentially syrupy moments. These 90 trouble-free minutes of huge laughs is set in the egalitarian, normalized society that TV makes believe is within reach, then and presently, and the things it doesn't see give the film an deliberate lack of relevance that, in a roundabout way, makes it feel utterly of its time. On the screen itself is a brilliantly chaotic farce set in San Francisco and concerning the confusion of four indistinguishable red plaid travel bags, and, among other things, some stolen government documents, precious jewels, some clothes, some igneous rocks, a conference of musicologists, a distracted professor and a girl named Judy Maxwell who has complete retention of every class she ever took at all half dozen or so universities she's attended.
Not the slightest of Bogdanovich's achievements is his effective curtailing Streisand's celebrity persona to suit the proportions of farce. While she never lets us overlook the impact that seems invariably to be buttressed in unsure restraint, she's actually very charming, very attractive leading lady material. Bogdanovich has also had the prudence to allow her to sing no less than twice, the superb Cole Porter title song and As Time Goes By in the film itself.
The people who give the film its distinct flair are the first-class character actors including Austin Pendleton as the quirky young head of the Larrabee Foundation; Kenneth Mars as a callous, spiteful Croatian musicologist named Simon; Liam Dunn, as the beleaguered judge of the night court where all of the mayhem ends up; and, most particularly, Madeline Kahn, who almost pockets the whole movie as O'Neal's unbelievably upright fiancée.
Despite that there is such bittersweet sentiment about the past and dread for the present, I very rarely laugh at a higher frequency than I do during the last 40 minutes of this fast-paced, nostalgic ride. Involved is the second greatest chase of all time, next to The French Connection, which features something in each and every shot that makes me laugh every single time I see it. Then there is the courtroom scene, which may rival To Kill a Mockingbird purely based on the force of laughter Dunn alone induces as the judge.
There are thousands of languages, maybe a hundred times as many dialects, but everyone laughs. Babies laugh before they ever speak. And like a long, hard belly laugh, it is a profound relief to experience this movie.
Bogdanovich, who had exhausted the previous decade or so soaking up the films of the vintage Hollywood greats of the 1930s, here shows himself a master of screwball comedy, a genre which everybody figured was bygone until the pantheon of throwback vaudevillian screwball romps of the Technicolor 1960s and early '70s of which What's Up, Doc? is the crowning achievement. This absolute smash is a deference to Howard Hawks, but Bogdanovich isn't a copycat but rather an enthusiast with thoughts of his own.
He also directs with the haphazard thrift of the '30s farces. This live cartoon wastes none of its time on slushy romantic scenes, and makes sure to be comical even throughout those potentially syrupy moments. These 90 trouble-free minutes of huge laughs is set in the egalitarian, normalized society that TV makes believe is within reach, then and presently, and the things it doesn't see give the film an deliberate lack of relevance that, in a roundabout way, makes it feel utterly of its time. On the screen itself is a brilliantly chaotic farce set in San Francisco and concerning the confusion of four indistinguishable red plaid travel bags, and, among other things, some stolen government documents, precious jewels, some clothes, some igneous rocks, a conference of musicologists, a distracted professor and a girl named Judy Maxwell who has complete retention of every class she ever took at all half dozen or so universities she's attended.
Not the slightest of Bogdanovich's achievements is his effective curtailing Streisand's celebrity persona to suit the proportions of farce. While she never lets us overlook the impact that seems invariably to be buttressed in unsure restraint, she's actually very charming, very attractive leading lady material. Bogdanovich has also had the prudence to allow her to sing no less than twice, the superb Cole Porter title song and As Time Goes By in the film itself.
The people who give the film its distinct flair are the first-class character actors including Austin Pendleton as the quirky young head of the Larrabee Foundation; Kenneth Mars as a callous, spiteful Croatian musicologist named Simon; Liam Dunn, as the beleaguered judge of the night court where all of the mayhem ends up; and, most particularly, Madeline Kahn, who almost pockets the whole movie as O'Neal's unbelievably upright fiancée.
Despite that there is such bittersweet sentiment about the past and dread for the present, I very rarely laugh at a higher frequency than I do during the last 40 minutes of this fast-paced, nostalgic ride. Involved is the second greatest chase of all time, next to The French Connection, which features something in each and every shot that makes me laugh every single time I see it. Then there is the courtroom scene, which may rival To Kill a Mockingbird purely based on the force of laughter Dunn alone induces as the judge.
There are thousands of languages, maybe a hundred times as many dialects, but everyone laughs. Babies laugh before they ever speak. And like a long, hard belly laugh, it is a profound relief to experience this movie.