mike48128 Review of Gaily, Gaily

Gaily, Gaily (1969)

Enjoyable Biographical Piece Turned into a Farce

[7/10 · 6 September 2013]

First of all, it's the memoirs of Ben Hecht's 1963 book of the same name. His name is changed to Ben Harvey. It has a wonderful cast: Beau Bridges, Margot Kidder, Melodie Johnson, Melina Mercouri, Hume Cronyn, George Kennedy and others. Directed by Norman Jewison in the style of a Blake Edwards comedy. It starts out with great promise. Beau (as Ben Harvey) lusts after George Kennedy's beautiful young "niece" whom ends up being the mistress. Not knowing this, he runs off to Chicago to repent, becomes an "assistant" to cantankerous drunk newspaper reporter Brian Keith, ends up "rescued", by a madam and living at a bawdy house. He is so innocent that he first believes it to be a boarding house for women! He falls in love with the proverbial "prostitute with a heart of gold" (played by a very young Margot Kidder. While some of this actually happened, it is exaggerated, and ends up deteriorating into an unbelievable comical farce during the second half of the movie. It starts out as a very fine film with wonderful period sets, including a famous Chicago landmark, The Sullivan Theater. Sadly, it has little resemblance to the autobiographical book it is based upon. It borrows from every cliché, including Mark Twain, as Ben attends his own funeral, quite alive after being resurrected from a drowning by the then-new wonder-drug Adrenalin. Involves all the standard comic devices: The madcap chase for the climax of the movie, the multiple "switched" prop, (that looks like a small Bible) which in this case is a little black book involving commodity price-fixing and politicians. It ends very slapstick,it wraps up in about 5 minutes at the end and looks rushed; although the movie is 2 hours long. Of course Ben gets the girl, now reformed. Also, "The Madam Queen" Melina gets to belt out a very forgettable tune, in her "gravelly" voice. The uncut "R" version (very brief nudity) is 117 minutes long and can only be seen on TMC at this time. No Region 1 DVD is available.