What's Up, Doc?

In an age when screwball comedies had largely disappeared from the screen, Peter Bogdonovich directed Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal in what is still one of the funniest comedies of the 1970's. The film was a tribute to all the classic screwball comedy elements (including a pie fight and a hilarious car chase). There's nothing here to offend, so its suitable for the entire family, but its by no means juvenile comedy. The story begins with the title card "Once upon a time there was this red suitcase..."; actually there are four of them and that's the gist of the story. Stuffy college professor Howard Bannister (O'Neal) and his uptight fiance Eunice Burns (hilariously played by Madeline Khan, in her film debut) come to San Francisco for a musicologists convention (Howard is carrying one of the suitcases). Once there, Bannister meets Judy Maxwell (Streisand) a college drop-out who meets Howard in the hotel giftshop (and also has a suitcase just like Howard's). Also in the hotel is a wealthy woman (with another of the red suitcases, her's filled with diamonds) and a man running from the government (with documents in another red suitcase). Get the idea; yes the bags get mixed up and produces some hilarious situations along the way. The entire cast blends so well with one another and this is one of those little gem movies that everyone deserves to see at least once. Look for Sorrell Booke (who would later gain fame as Boss Hogg on "The Dukes Of Hazzard") as the hotel security guard.

This film is very funny and stays so even after repeated viewings. The plot is silly, but it doesn't matter - the film is not about plot, so much as its about how this oddball bunch of characters interact - and the situations and dialog carry the film along effortlessly. Streisand and O'Neil are wonderful - surprisingly so. A much underseen and underappreciated film.

What's Up Doc is one of six movies I use to offset ANY bad mood. I have seen it countless times and still can't keep the suitcases straight.

This film is full of visual humor and one liners; Madeline Kahn screaming and taking on all comers while dragging the doorkeeper across the ballroom floor; the hotel crook using his "charm" to drop Mrs. Van Hoskins in her tracks; Eunice hiding in the bathroom because snakes "live in deathly fear of tile"; the promise of Howard conducting an avalanche in A Flat.

My only regret about this movie is that it began endless failed efforts by television and movie makers to replicate the chase through San Francisco. No one has. That sequence is the best example of humor, timing, backdrop, and action, of the chase genre. It has never been equalled by either serious or comedic directors.

Little mentioned in these reviews are Kenneth Mars and Austin Pendelton, two fantastic character actors who are the emeralds surrounding the diamonds of Streisand and O'Neal in the glorious setting of this jewel.

Thank goodness no one in What's Up Doc knows the meaning of the word "propriety!".

Barbra Streisand disliked the script, didn't want to make the film, and even gave press interviews predicting WHAT'S UP DOC? would be a major flop. Instead it became one of her most fondly remembered performances, a film in which she plays a disaster-prone college student who somehow manages to run afoul of everything from jewel thieves to secret agents.

The film is director Peter Bogdanovic's homage to the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s, and like most films of that genre the plot largely defies description. Professor Howard Bannister (Ryan O'Neal) and his fiancée Eunice (Madeline Kahn) are attending a San Francisco convention at which Howard hopes to receive a major grant--but when college student Judy Maxwell (Streisand) bumps into him she is immediately smitten, and her outrageous efforts to insert herself into his life results in car crashes, dining disasters, and a close encounter with a Chinese dragon.

The cast is absolutely flawless. Streisand's lunatic sense of comedy has never been better showcased than here, and while Ryan O'Neal is something of a flyweight talent he nails his role with tremendous charm. Then there is the supporting cast, which reads like a who's who of early 1970s comedy: Kenneth Mars, Austin Pendleton, Sorrell Brooke, Mabel Albertson (best recalled as Mrs. Stevens in the classic television series Bewitched), and Liam Dunn, to name but a few. And then there is the wonderful Madeline Kahn.

Kahn kicked around New York in various venues in the late 1960s and early 1970s, making one or two television appearances and at least one short film--but WHAT'S UP DOC? was her big screen debut, and boy was it a lulu. Eunice Burns is "that brave, unbalanced woman," and she screams, snarls, whimpers, faints, demands, mutters to herself, is kidnapped, fires off handguns, and suffers every indignity imaginable, and Kahn is so brilliant she steals every scene she's in. It was not only her debut, it was a break-out performance in every sense of the word, and it launched her to equally memorable roles in PAPER MOON, BLAZING SADDLES, and THE YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. Sadly, Hollywood seldom made full use of Kahn's talents in later years--but to our good fortune these great performances remain to charm and beguile us.

Based on Bogdanovic's original story, the script is a memorable one, combining the rapier-wit of screwball comedy dialogue with the outrageous situations the genre demands, and if you can get through this one without screaming laughter you might want to have some one check your pulse, because you're probably dead. A sure-fire way to cure the blues! GFT, Amazon Reviewer

A friend of mine recently recommended this film to me. I am not a big Barbra Streisand fan so it took me about 20 minutes to get into this film. Once I was in, I was hooked! So rarely do I laugh out loud at comedies from this time period. I especially liked the hotel detective using his "charm" to delay Mrs. Van Hoskins. Kenneth Mars and Liam Dunn were hilarious, too. If physical comedy is not your bag, you may not like What's Up, Doc? But this is definitely one of my favorite comedies...even better than the old comedies to which it is supposed to be an homage. I'm glad someone listed many of the funny quotes from the film in Message Boards. I want to buy this DVD!