Abenteurer auf der Lucky Lady

I saw this many moons ago as a kid on a late night show fell in love with it then and still love it now.

It is a strange mix with some great comedy and then some downright mean moments of violence, but that was one of the films nice little quirks.

Minelli's Fish Fart line has stuck with me for years, and recently the film made it to cable where I was able to get a copy.

With all the dross being rereleased onto DVD it's well overdue a release.

One of those guilty little pleasures we all have.

Burt Reynolds, Gene Hackman and Liza Minnelli and Robby Benson are a motley crew who whilst on-board the boat of the title make a killing transporting booze through treacherous waters in 1930's prohibition. Hackman/Reynolds become engaged in a hilarious menage-a-trios with Minnelli who is excellent in her role as Claire who is queen of the rum-runners, the four have to keep one step ahead of the villainous mobster Teague 'John Hillerman' and also avoid Geoffrey Lewis who is a by the book Coast Guard who is out to thwart the lucrative enterprise. The film has lots of laughs and some cracking set pieces most notably the Sea battle climax which in these days of pathetic 'CGI' remains amazing. Directed by Stanley Donen (Charade) 'Lucky Lady' is nothing short of excellent. It's great to finally have it on DVD in 1:85:1 16:9 Widescreen. It's an excellent transfer which was photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth. why this film isn't better known i don't know why? but i liked it:)

Might be called "Sally Bowles Comes Home And Runs Liquor." Her character is almost a parody of her "Cabaret" role. Hackman is Buck Barrow with a comedy twist and Reynolds is perfecting that moron-suave character that he took to such heights in "At Long Last Love."

The film has the distinction of having had, if memory serves, three different endings. I saw the first in previews. A real curve ball in which the male leads get killed and Minelli is left bereft. They went back to the drawing board and the movie premiered with a tacked on scene shot much later which involved the three stars, with the tackiest of make-up jobs, rolling around in a bed in their "elderly" years. From what I can tell by watching it recently, they dropped that entirely and simply cut together some outtakes which they ran under the credits which give us the impression that everybody ended up okay.

There was also this mid-70's technique of film "flashing" which involved pre-exposing the stock to give the film a lighter, airier look. Taken to ridiculous extremes here, it almost looks as if someone just scratched up the lens faces with a Brillo pad.

I still remember seeing this movie, way back in 1976, at the Fortway theater in Brooklyn, NY. It was a second run theater that showed double features, usually movies that were originally released 6 months earlier, for only $2.00 (ahh those were the days). Lucky Lady played on a double bill with Sky Riders, which starred James Coburn, Susannah York and Robert Culp. I was around 13 at the time, and had a little idea of what Sky Riders was about, no idea of the story to Lucky Lady, though I know it received poor reviews. I have to admit I enjoyed them both, but had a grand time watching Lucky Lady. It seemed a bit episodic, and the humor at times was kinda dumb, but I got to like the characters, even the minor ones like Robbie Benson as their "first mate," Michael Hordern as the old captain, and even Geoffrey Lewis as the zealous but loony Coast Guard captain out to sink any bootleggers he comes across. But the villains really stole the show, especially John Hillerman as the machine-gun toting main villain.

One complaint was that the final boat battle was a rip-off of the James Bond battles. Who cares, as long as it's done well--in fact Mr. Donen should have been approached to do some of the Bonds after this movie.

I may have seen the movie on tv shortly after its release. I don't remember if i liked it as much, seeing it on tv wasn't quite the same. I don't know if I would like it as much now either, but I would certainly be interested in seeing it on video. As another person commented, so much dreck is being released on DVD, I don't see why Lucky Lady shouldn't be made available. At least it tried to be a class act, which is more than you can say for many of today's releases.

Liza Minnelli plays such a selfish harpy in "Lucky Lady" that it's easy to see why this film won her no new admirers. Fans of 1972's "Cabaret" were already softened to love Minnelli no matter what, but here director Stanley Donen seems intent on making Liza's character Claire as brittle and abrasive as possible. The lumbering plot, about a trio of rum-runners in the 1930s who outsmart the competition and fall into an oddly casual three-way love affair, isn't worked out cohesively in terms of the narrative (and the overlapping scenes of raunch, comedy, and mobster melodrama eventually cause impatience and resentment). At first it's a bit shocking to see Liza in bed between Gene Hackman and Burt Reynolds, however the movie isn't all about after-hours fun under-the-sheets; Donen turns the third act into a violent extravaganza (with a slapstick bent), including boats blowing up, guns going off, and dead bodies everywhere. The picture walks a shaky line between nostalgia and bloodshed, with echoes of "Bonnie & Clyde"'s jangly tone. Little of it jells, though the attempt is certainly a curious one. **1/2 from ****