Themes: Journey of Self-Discovery, Generation Gap, Fighting the System
Main Cast: Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Frankie Avalon, Fred Clark, Michael Constantine
Release Year: 1968
Country: US
Run Time: 97 minutes
Plot
Producer and director Otto Preminger reportedly experimented with LSD in the late 60's, which inspired him to make this notorious comedy in which Jackie Gleason plays Tony, a mid-level gangster and former hired killer not very happy with his life. He bickers a lot with his wife Flo (Carol Channing) and isn't sure what to make of his daughter Darlene (Alexandra Hay), especially since she started dating a hippie named Stash (John Phillip Law). Two of Tony's superiors, Angie (Frankie Avalon) and Hechy (Cesar Romero), order him to get arrested, go to prison and once behind bars whack "Blue Chips" Packard (Mickey Rooney). Though he's not pleased with the idea, Tony grudgingly goes along, but once inside, he's accidentally dosed with LSD by counterculture activist the Professor (Austin Pendleton). His consciousness expanded by his trip, Tony leaves his violent lifestyle behind him and with the Professor's help plans an escape after turning the entire prison population on to acid. Certainly your only opportunity to see Groucho Marx play a character named "God," not to mention a supporting cast that includes Slim Pickens, Peter Lawford, George Raft, Frank Gorshin and Arnold Stang, Skidoo is also remembered as the film in which Harry Nilsson sang all the credits. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
One of the most legendary of all Hollywood fiascos, Skidoo witnessed Otto Preminger and most of his cast delving headfirst into psychedelic absurdity. The film predated Easy Rider and Bob & Carol by a year, rising like a festering wound out of the period when Tinseltown studios were making desperate and embarrassing attempts to connect - in any way possible - with the throes of the then-burgeoning counterculture. Unfortunately - unlike the same year's wonderful I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (yet another picture about squares who decide to drop out) - this lousy and misguided, acid-fueled gangster farce never finds its footing. That said, it doesn't begin as a complete disaster, but forks off into left field about halfway through. The curtain rises on a conventional and surprisingly genial note - in the first act, Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing and Frankie Avalon seem to be delivering the kind of characterizations and dialogue more at home in a Disney farce - but once Gleason gets imprisoned and accidentally ingests LSD, beware; the film makes a beeline toward supreme audience irritation and never lets up. Preminger seems to be equating nonsensical mishmash and illogic with "hipness"; this may be the only picture in memory to feature a "Dance of the Garbage Cans" musical number, a deus ex machina in which three prisoners escape by building a hot air balloon with materials found inside of a penitentiary, and a finale in which two romantically (and physically) involved couples swap partners and marry at the drop of a hat, just, apparently, for the sake of confounding the logical fabric of the script and being weird. Much has been made of the bizarre fact that Harry Nilsson sings the final credits (yes, right down to the "Copyright MCMLXVIII,") but that represents the very least of the film's problems. Frankly, the picture isn't funny, or for that matter, entertaining either - not even for aficionados of terrible cinema. The most depressing sidelight is that the studios' attempts to connect with the youth movement continued for several years after Skidoo, and quickly sank even lower. Hollywood didn't really figure out a way to squeeze psychedelic extremities like the ones seen here into a mainstream picture until the brilliant psychodrama End of the Road hit cinemas in 1970. But by that time, the counterculture was already at death's door. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
Robert Emmet Smith - Art Director, Tom Hansen - Choreography, Rudi Gernreich - Costume Designer, Erich Von Stroheim, Jr. - First Assistant Director, Otto Preminger - Director, George Rohrs - Editor, Harry Nilsson - Composer (Music Score), George Aliceson Tipton - Musical Direction/Supervision, Harry Nilsson - Songwriter, Webb Overlander - Makeup, Leon Shamroy - Cinematographer, Otto Preminger - Producer, Fred R. Price - Set Designer, Charles Spurgeon - Special Effects, Franklin E. Milton - Sound/Sound Designer, Glenn Anderson - Sound/Sound Designer, Stanley Ralph Ross - Screenwriter, Elliott Baker - Screenwriter, Doran William Cannon - Screenwriter, Erik Kirkland - Short Story Author
A retired mobster, Tony Banks (Gleason), now settled with wife Flo (Channing) and daughter Darlene (Hay), worries about his daughter's new hippie boyfriend Stash (Law), and his own paternity of Darlene. Romero and Avalon appear as two mob bosses, Hechy and Angie, who bring Tony the news that "God" (Marx) wants him to carry out one last job; murder his old pal "Blue Chips" Packard (Rooney), before he can testify before the US Senate's Crime Commission. Tony refuses, but upon finding his old friend Harry (Stang) shot through the head, goes along with God's wishes, and is sent to the new, high-tech island prison where Packard is being held, infiltrating as a convict.
In his absence, Flo invites Stash and his friends to stay at their house, to beat a vagrancy charge. She visits Angie (as does Darlene, looking for her in turn) to persuade him to either cancel the job, or take her to God (who's living without a country, on a yacht in international waters) so she can ask personally. Angie won't take Flo— but he will take Darlene, who nonetheless insists on bringing Stash along. God takes a liking to Darlene, as does God's mistress Elizabeth (Luna) to Stash, but both are frustrated in their pursuit.
One of Tony's cellmates turns out to be a draft dodger called Fred the Professor (Pendleton); an electronics wizard who has renounced technology, but still rigs a television set to allow Banks to communicate with Packard between cells. Banks realises he can't kill his old friend, and thus will probably never leave the prison. He writes his wife with the news, on stationery borrowed from Fred, and ignores Fred's pleas not to lick the envelope. When he does, he discovers the hard way that all the stationery is soaked with LSD... enough to send the whole prison on a hard trip. Fred guides Tony through the resulting acid experience, helping him come to terms with his worries about Darlene and his past, and plotting their escape.
Darlene and Stash spend the night aboard God's yacht, with Stash getting word back to Flo and his friends about their location, and a coded plea for help. As the hippies mount a rescue, Tony and Fred build a makeshift balloon from discarded freezer bags and garbage cans, dump the whole supply of stationery into the prison's lunch, and fly out of the prison as everyone below begins to freak out.
As it happens, both the hippies (led by Flo, who sings the title number as they storm the yacht) and the balloon arrive at God's hideaway at the same time. As they hunt him down, God abandons ship. Tony and Flo borrow a cabin on the yacht and renew their relationship, while Angie marries Elizabeth, and Stash and Darlene take their own hippie vows. God and Fred sail off together to pursue a simpler life.
Before anyone can leave their seat, Preminger's voice calls out "Stop!" and beckons the audience to stay for the credits, sung by Nilsson with asides ("How was your popcorn?").
The movie missed the mark with both critics and audiences, and bombed at the box-office. A soundtrack album by Nilsson was issued, along with a single, "I Will Take You There," but neither became a hit. The movie received some belated attention in the 1980s when it was shown on cable television, and the soundtrack was lauded when it was reissued on compact disc in 2000 (in the UK) and 2003 (in the US). Nonetheless, no official home video release has ever been made, and the movie is presumed locked away in the Preminger archives, as was Bunny Lake Is Missing for several years. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City periodically exhibits a 35mm print of the movie, and it was also shown in Los Angeles in 2007. Skidoo appeared most recently on cable, on January 5, 2008, on Turner Classic Movies as part of its TCM Underground movie series.
Writer Paul Krassner published a story in the February 1981 issue of High Times, relating how Groucho Marx "prepared" for his role in an LSD-related movie by taking a dose of the drug in Krassner's company, and had a moving, largely pleasant experience. (In his 1976 book The Groucho Phile, Marx commented that both the movie and his performance in it were "God-awful!") Most of the rest of the cast and crew, though, apparently had no familiarity with the drug; Nilsson later confessed he simply pretended to be drunk for his role. (His own later LSD experience inspired The Point!, a 1970animated movie Nilsson wrote and scored.[1])
References
^ Jacobson, Alan. What's The Point? The Legendary 1971 Animated Feature on DVD in Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 44, May 2004
