Des amis comme les miens

It has only a couple of scenes that you'll remember and the plot is too slow. Otto Preminger may have done a good work with the actors in this film but this is not enough.

Even though it has no ambition either so ...

By the time Otto Preminger got around to making "Such Good Friends" his reputation had already begun to wane but while this is hardly one of his masterpieces it's still a brilliant and nicely nasty satire on consumerism, sex and all things medical. It was written by Elaine May under the pseudonym Esther Dale with help from David Shaber from Lois Gould novel and it's beautifully played by the likes of Dyan Cannon, James Coco, Ken Howard, Nina Foch and Laurence Luckinbill and while the jokes are often very funny in that New York Jewish kind of way they are often sour enough to leave a nasty aftertaste.

These are characters we wouldn't want to meet or spend time with so when one of them, (Luckinbill), goes into a coma after a very simple operation goes wrong, you hardly care. He's an art director on a New York magazine, an author of children's books and a real sleaze-ball and it's only after he goes into hospital that his wife, (Cannon), discovers just what a philandering sleaze-ball he actually is.

With a very large cast and overlapping dialogue this is more like an Altman film than a Preminger picture but I doubt if Altman would be this cynical. The humour, however, is all May's, totally off-the-wall and razor sharp. Of course, it wasn't a hit either commercially or critically and Preminger only made two more films, both failures. This gem certainly deserved a better fate and Cannon is really extraordinary.

A sharp, deadpan-hilarious dark comedy which never found its audience, probably because there are so many different targets set up by the material: modern marriage, adultery, doctors, hospitals, the literary world, sexual fantasies, sexual positions, Jewishness, lesbian experimentation, revenge (maybe feminist revenge) and, of course, the hard work of dying--which brings everything full circle by the finale. Director Otto Preminger chases after the pungent satire in Elaine May's script (under a pseudonym) in every direction, and yet the film doesn't feel scattershot; it is a rude, wicked rose in constant bloom. The wife of a celebrated writer and magazine editor in New York City finds out her husband's been cheating on her within their circle of friends--and this discovery comes while he's in the hospital dying after having had a mole removed! Dyan Cannon delivers one of her best performances; she's glib, bitter, sexy and naughty, which helps viewers overlook the fact the tone of the movie sometimes has an icy pallor. One of Pauline Kael's complaints was that Cannon's character goes after men without seeing the irony of her actions--that she has no self-respect--and this in fact may be true. We never learn where the wife's priorities lie; she's a good mother to her boys, she's a good listener when her friends come around to bitch, but she's too encompassed in thoughts of the past or in trying to stay strong to figure out how being cheated on really makes her feel. Preminger gets fine performances out of a colorful cast, and there are big laughs in the film, but cutting-edge comedies can also cut too deeply without nimble handling. Preminger isn't very careful, but that may be intentional. ***1/2 from ****

Otto Preminger's later films are an acquired taste. But this one, while completely outrageous, seems to be one of his better efforts.

Some of the more memorable scenes: Burgess Meredith walking around nude at a cocktail party (!); Ken Howard impotent while making love to Dyan Cannon; Cannon attempting to seduce obese James Coco who is wearing a girdle (!); and Cannon finding her husband's black book with notes about sex with other women.

Despite its unusualness, SUCH GOOD FRIENDS is an enjoyable picture to watch because it's something you don't have to take seriously. It is obviously a black comedy and the first few minutes establish the mood perfectly. It does become a bit of a maudlin soap opera where Cannon's character is figuring out her husband's infidelities and trying to decide if she still loves the guy or not. But the melodramatic aspects are definitely overshadowed by the satirical look at urban mores that Preminger presents.

I came to this after seeing a very recent You Tube interview with Dyan Cannon, in which this film was mentioned positively. And for good reason. Yes, of course the styles, clothes, and culture have all evolved and those elements create a sense of dated-ness. But it doesn't matter! The characters/characteristics satirized remain as dead-on as ever: male egotism, overbearing, critical mothers, self-important artists, an untrustworthy medical establishment (talk about THAT one still being timely), spoiled children, but most of all (and sadly so) the ease with which supposed good friends readily demean a friendship to satisfy a personal tryst. Ms. Cannon portrays a realistically complex character with consummate skill and integrates a constantly careening tonality into a coherent whole. This is a funny, albeit painfully so, minor classic.