Wonderful Life - Küss mich mit Musik

Wonderful Life was reportedly a huge hit in 1964 because of the immense popularity of its star, Cliff Richard. Sadly, it hasn't stood the test of time very well at all and when I caught up with it in 2024, it reflected very poorly on the movie-making of the day.

However, it is not without its merits. Around the beginning of the second hour of the movie, there is a humorous and nostalgic look at the history of the cinema, with Cliff, The Shadows, Susan Hampshire and Una Stubbs reviving memories of screen legends such as Charlie Chaplin, the Keystone Cops, Rudolf Valentino, the Marx Brothers, Greta Garbo, Douglas Fairbanks, Rhett Butler & Scarlett O'Hara and all the way through to James Bond and Ursula Andress. Cliff and Susan Hampshire in particular shine brightly through this segment. And, indeed, Susan Hampshire shines brightly throughout the film.

If you can hold on through the corny plot, the movie nostalgia scene is worth waiting for. If you can't stand the nonsense in the first half of the film, fast-forward to this scene.

This is the third in a series of Cliff Richard films and the weakest of the lot. 'The Young Ones' was fun, 'Summer Holiday' was great, but by this time the screenwriters knew they had to make a film but didn't know what it should be about. In the end it's about nothing much at all. The music is flat for the most part and closer to show music than rock'n'roll.

It's not surprising that they didn't make a fourth.

I was a keen Shadows fan and saw this film when it came out and didn`t understand what on earth it was about. Now I am 50yrs old and still can`t make head nor tail of it. Funny, in a recent BBC radio documentary Susan Hampshire said she didn`t know what it was about and the only thing she remembers is the director throwing sheets of script out of his car window as it was re-written on as daily basis.

High spot "Theme for Young Lovers" by the Shadows, great melody written by Bruce Welch.

Not acknowledged as such, but probably the best of Sir Cliff's early sixties big screen vehicles; although even he dismissed it as "a disaster from the word go".

It has a witty script, choreography by Gillian Lynne performed by a young and enthusiastic cast, quirky little touches such as Gerald Harper cropping up in different supporting roles. And of course there's that wonderful potted history of the movies.

Guest stars Susan Hampshire and Walter Slezak are both well used; with Miss Hampshire cutting a far more provocative figure slouching from the waves in a bikini pastiching Ursula Andress in 'Dr. No' than Andress did in the original.

OK - The Young Ones was a pleasant enough little movie, with some great songs to hide the pacing problems and weaknesses in the plot. Summer Holiday was a towering success on every level and remains to this day an absolute joy to watch, so just how, only 1 year after that wonderful film, did the same production team manage to make a film so utterly uninteresting and unenjoyable? I mean, I really wanted to like this movie but after several viewings I had to give in and admit that it really is an absolute disaster!

Their first mistake of course was not keeping the same actors from Summer Holiday who all seemed to gel together so well and contribute to the enormous charm of that movie. And bringing the Richard O Sullivan character back from The Young Ones was surely a big mistake. The absence of Teddy Green in Wonderful Life is really felt, big time. I kept hoping he, Jeremy Bulloch and the others from Summer Holiday would appear and turn this monstrosity around, but sadly no. All we have is almost 2 hours of O Sullivan and Hayes irritating the heck out of us and a plot that just drifts with no direction whatsoever.

And this time the songs aren't strong enough to cover up the cracks in the plot. True, there are a few exceptions, notably The Shadows' "Theme for Young Lovers", "On The Beach" and "A Matter of Moments" but they aren't enough to disguise the fact that this is really a terribly disappointing film.