The revenge of the Ghost of the Son of the 31 days of Cheese

I know I wasn’t able to do this last year and again I am starting late but…I will give it a try this time and therefore

Day One.

The Day the Fish Came out – (1967)

This film is.. interesting…Mihalis Kakogiannis made good films and was even nominated for a slew of awards for the film Zorba the Greek , Tom Courtenay, Colin Blakely, Candice Bergen all of who are in this were in good films.  But this is not a good film.

Made by Mihalis right after the massive success of Zorba this is an attempted black comedy in the mode of Dr. Strangelove that falls amazingly flat.

And yes the costumes – well, the film is apparently (I’ve watched a few times and I can’t remember where this was mentioned) set in 1974 with the assumption that things just got weirder after the 60’s well they did but not in a good way but that’s a story for another time.

Back to the costumes – one does not want to say they are too gay but – well they are just too gay – folks at the Greenwich Village Halloween parade would be saying ‘hey tone it down a bit guys’ .

So some 20 young men led by Col. Whatever arrived on the small Greek island – announce they are looking for site to build a hotel – as they wander the rocky part of the island they are seen by the Navigator and pilot who assume they are all gay (they don’t use that word) and hide from them.

I suppose it was intended to be ironic that the help they are looking for are right in front of them but it comes off stupid.

Meantime meantime meantine – it seems that a goat herder has found object Q and assuming whatever is inside of it must be insanely valuable tries to open it using a hammer, a dentist drill and other devices, these sequences like those of the two running about in their underwear go on far longer than anything needs to.

Meantime meantime meantime word has gotten out to the jet set that someone is thinking of building a hotel on this island, which instantly transforms into the hot stop of the season. Soon boatloads of people are coming ashore in costumes are in keeping with the ones the USAF team wears – soon there is drinking and dancing and all sorts of things.

Meantime meantime meantime meantime – the USAF group is getting frustrated because they cannot find Q – they have the two bombs but Q eludes them. When one of the interchangeable air force guys suggests maybe one of the goat herders found it, Col. Whatever shrugs this off and says there is no danger the metal is a special alloy that only a special formula can open.

I think we cut back to the goat herder banging the box with a hammer but I am not sure it could have been the clowns in the underwear.

This was a film that took itself seriously or something one of the weird notes is that the pair’s underwear gets dirtier as time goes on – of course, this means that whoever was in charge of wardrobe or someone underneath them was spending some part of their day making underwear look dirty. “What and leave Show Business?”

Meantime (take the rest as given) – a statue is found on the island which brings an pair of archeologists one of whom is Candice Bergen who was very young when she did this film and is stunning to look at – a beauty that is unblemished by any real acting – to be fair there isn’t’ much for her to do – 1 – to totally turn the head of the poor sap from the air force  and to the mechanism by which the acid arrives on the island.

There is a weird moment when she is looking at the statue and talking about how beautiful it is then jabbering something about a woman’s body being boring with all the bumps and things – to which I say speak for yourself my dear.

Candice gets to wear some bizarre outfits which because she is so stunningly beautiful look good on here – she and poor sap have a brief fling – during the course of the goatherd steals the acid and Candice for reasons other than the movie hating us, leaves.

I’ve probably written more about this than most of the films I’ll do this time but – this one really irked me no more so than at the end.

Eventually the goatherd after a false start manages to open container Q – inside are honestly what look like dog turds goatherd and wife handle them without apparent harm although we’ve been lead to whatever is in the box is insanely dangerous.  Goatherd then dumps the box and most of the turds into the ocean and the wife who has held onto some of the turds because movie ends up tossing them into the islands water supply

Then the fish come out dead one assumes from whatever the hell was Q. I mean god in heaven not even a hint? I watched this movie a couple of times just to make sure no. they never tell us what the hell was in the box and why it was so deadly –

The film ends with the USAF team realizing Q has been opened – the dead fish are the giveaway, mutt and Jeff realize that the team is from the air force, the people are all drinking the contaminated water (we think) and then the film ends with someone saying attention please over and over again as the film just kind of ends.

Film just doesn’t work – either as serious or comedy or satire – I think it was trying to hit too many targets at the same time and didn’t really have a point of view or tone that carries itself through the film which is why this think irritates me so , there was something there but it got lost in the scattershot tone of the film.

Enjoy with Greek take out.