Themes: Social Climbing, High School Life, Self-Destructive Romance
Main Cast: Roddy McDowall, Tuesday Weld, Lola Albright, Martin West, Ruth Gordon
Release Year: 1966
Country: US
Run Time: 95 minutes
Plot
An intelligent, eccentric high school senior devotes his life to indulging the every whim of the beautiful girl he adores in this quirky, dark-humored comedy. Roddy McDowall plays Alan Musgrave, an odd duck who immediately falls for the school's new student, Barbara Ann Greene (Tuesday Weld). Using his quick wits, he helps her win acceptance amongst the popular girls and a cushy job in the principal's office. Never demanding anything in return, Alan doesn't even complain when she falls for an upper-class college boy, and he does everything he can to bring the two together. However, as time passes, this seemingly well-intentioned dedication spins out of control, with results that become increasingly bizarre and even potentially fatal. The irreverent attitude and erratic tone may be an acquired taste, but the film's audacious humor and idiosyncratic approach have won it a cult following. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
Review
The sole directorial effort of playwright/screenwriter/producer George Axelrod, Lord Love a Duck offers an odd mix of pointed comedy and inexplicable strangeness. Not particularly skilled behind the camera -- the shadow of a boom mike makes an uncredited guest appearance in at least one scene -- Axelrod makes for a pit bull of a satirist, tearing with abandon into the California youth culture that had become the center of the pop culture universe by 1966. The direct inspiration for Heathers and other high school-set black comedies, it features a strangely intense performance by Roddy McDowall as a charming, if cryptic, high school student who might also be a dangerous nihilist. His attempt to help transfer student Tuesday Weld make the transition to her new home allow the film to explore numerous aspects of '60s California, and Axlerod clearly delights in sending up his target of choice. He has less success finding a consistent tone or pace for the film, which is about as disjointed as they come, dipping from light comedy to high seriousness with little warning. Forgettable it's not, however, and fans of offbeat comedies owe it to themselves to give this one a chance. ~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide
Harvey Korman - Weldon Emmett; Sarah Marshall - Miss Schwartz; Lynn Carey - Sally Grace; Max Showalter - Howard Greene; Don Murphy - Phil Neuhauser; Judith Loomis - Mrs. Butch Neuhauser; Joseph Mell - Dr. Lippman; Dan Frazer - Used Car Salesman; Martine Bartlett - Inez; Jo Collins - Kitten; Martin Gabel - Harry Belmont; Hal Baylor - Jack; Phyllis Davis; David Draper - Billy Gibbons; Gay Gordon; Vicki London; Laurie Mitchell - Jack's Wife; Donald Foster - Mr. Beverly
Credit
Malcolm Brown - Art Director, Paula Giokaris - Costume Designer, George Axelrod - Director, William Lyon - Editor, Neal Hefti - Composer (Music Score), Daniel L. Fapp - Cinematographer, George Axelrod - Producer, Raphael Bretton - Set Designer, Herman Townsley - Special Effects, George Axelrod - Screenwriter, Al Hine - Book Author
From his prison cell, Alan Musgrave dictates his experiences of the previous year, which he dedicated to fulfilling the unending wishes and ambitions of high school senior Barbara Ann Greene. The daughter of Marie, a cocktail waitress sinking unhappily into her forties, Barbara wants every kind of success and for everyone to love her. Signing a pact with Alan in wet cement, Barbara soon has the 12 cashmere sweaters needed to join an exclusive girl's club. She drops out of school to become the principal's new secretary and gets involved in church activities run by strait-laced but hyper-hormonal Bob Bernard. Barbara decides she wants Bob for her husband, which Alan helps make possible by keeping Bob's eccentric mother Stella (who disapproves of Barbara Ann) perpetually plastered. Then Barbara meets schlock producer T. Harrison Belmont, the King of Beach Party movies, and decides to become the biggest star that ever was. But Bob refuses to allow his wife to have a Hollywood screen test, so Barbara Ann decides she wants a divorce. Since Bob's mother frowns upon divorce, this prompts Alan to take matters into his own hands and kill Bob . Bob proves almost indestructible, but by graduation time Alan has him in a wheelchair. At the graduation ceremony Alan pursues a wheelchair bound Bob with a bulldozer, killing him and everyone else on the speakers' platform. Barbara Ann goes on to Hollywood fame in her debut film "Bikini Widow", while Alan is sent to prison.
