Les aventuriers du Lucky Lady

Interesting little comedy featuring 3 down on their luck folks who, during the depression, formed a coalition to run booze past the coast guard. Turns out the CG is the least of their woes as a psychotic rumrunner decides to take over the entire area and rub out any who stand in his path. Good shootout as a finale with a multitude of boats gunning it out in a Pacific cove. Good one.

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:)

Released in Sydney in 1976 in the beautiful lost Plaza cinerama-screen theatre LL was crazily blown up to 70mm for release here and suffered horrible cropping to make it a rectangle 2.2 ratio pic when it seemed to be shot 1.66-1. Heads were cut off, or in one famous scene with Liza in a chair with Hackman and Reynolds standing behind her (the famous "fish fart" line) all we saw was her eyes on the stage and the men's chins at the top. I saw it again in proper ratio and it was far better, so whoever's idea to blow it up literally only added to the maligned 'bomb' status of this very expensive ($13m) 1975 film. Yes, the washed out image also looks weird, and makes you yearn for better access into the antics on screen. We had one of the 3 reported endings: the silly happy one where they all surface in the water after being blown up. The Butch Cassidy ending where the guys die and she is left would have been much better. Amazing that this film cost $4m more than STAR WARS filmed the next year. I saw a terrific 'making of' featurette at a nearby cinema at the same time which was in focus and offered a witty and attractive lead to the film, so there is plenty for the DVD if we get it. Reynolds other films of the time AT LONG LAST LOVE and NICKELODEON deserve favourable DVD releases too; all 3 are funny and enjoyable and compared to new multiplex releases from the USA, are masterpieces. LL is almost a musical and Reynolds is a hoot. The John Held artwork on the credits will make you rush to buy a book of his delicious 1920s cartoons.

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.