A Fine Madness

"A Fine Madness" is a very strange movie. It stars Sean Connery (with a very strange performance, one of his worst - somewhere between Bond and a plain ruffian; frankly, I don't think Connery is apt for any comedy at all) plus a lavish supporting cast consisting of renowned character actors - but, still, the film is horrible.

It has an absolutely inane screenplay, and Irvin Kershner's (lack of) direction leaves a most confusing impression, even considering the somewhat strange Sixties style which was "en vogue" then. (John Addison's score, however is quite enjoyable.) You never know what's going to happen, and worse, you're not even interested in any of it. Nothing is truly funny, and some aspects are merely annoying (at least by today's standards), e.g. the jocularity of a man beating up his female companion. Samson Shillitoe is a despicable character, so you don't really convey any empathy for him or his needs. - What a waste of talent.

The idea that free-spirited creativity is a social disorder that must be cured by a well-meaning but thoroughly incompetent psychiatric establishment is the theme here, and one quite familiar to anybody who has seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Sean Connery was a great choice to play a blocked, womanizing writer at the core of the drama and he centers the film with his amiable exuberance. Comparisons to Cuckoo's Nest are inevitable, and this film lacks the other's stifling power and resonance, but it shares a common vision of the psychiatric profession acting as a microcosm of authoritarian abuses in society at large. Still, this is a funny and charming, much lighter satire on the same subject, energetically directed by Irvin Kirschner, and enjoyable for Connery fans in any case.

Okay, to borrow a few things from the previous commenter's observations, sure, this is an adaptation from a novel, and apparently the main character is an obnoxious lout who happens to be a genius.

Here's where this film fails in just about every department.

Not for a second do we buy that Sean Connery's Samson is a "genius" in any sense of the word. He's a thick-headed brute who hollers anti-establishment rants that really aren't enlightened nor are they particularly radical. The fact is, though, that he hollers a lot. There is no modulation to Connery's performance. No sense of a human being in there. His character is drawn to just be the hunky societal interloper whose mere physicality and scowls suggest a counterpoint to everyday norm. Genius, he is not.

Topping poor Connery in the shouting department is the screeching yowl of Joanne Woodward, whose hapless wife character of Samson, Rhoda, is given all the depth of a punching bag (literally). Connery takes swipes at her head, connecting with her skull in the end, along with throwing every dish in the apartment in her direction. He even shoves her down the staircase resulting in a broken leg, and perhaps, 1960's sentiments saw this as an uproarious moment of hilarity. You know, madcap abuse of the wife is always so mercilessly humorous. Anyway, you get the picture (reference the above reference to "thick-headed brute").

Jean Seberg is absolutely wasted in this performance. She plays the stifled wife of a renowned psychiatrist, Patrick O'Neal, who for some reason, and quite illogically I can only add, winds up having sex with Connery in a whirlpool bath and then dumping him the next time she sees him. There is no logic in having her character even in this film other than to flesh out the above-the-line star wattage on the marquee.

Only Clive Revill, playing a hare-brained psycho-therapist in every sense of the word, cuts loose with the material and lends a Peter-Sellers-like diversion for a total of 3 minutes screen time.

I cannot conceive of any audience, whether in the '60s or today, eliciting anything more than ho-hum chuckle and a wan smile over this pale comedy with absolutely no focus and one of cinema's most ill-conceived one-note main characters.

My rating: 1 out of 5 stars.

I saw this film when it was first released. It was a "fish out of water" comedy, a coarse brute running rampant among effete elitists. At that time, I had a lot of contact with numerous psychiatrist/psychoanalysts. This film brilliantly caught the self satisfied pomposity, the self promotional tendencies, and the double standards of this group. The psychoanalysts couldn't cope with this guy! I found this part of the film hilarious, although most of the humor would go unappreciated by those who didn't know any people in the psychoanalytic world.

I have seen this film many times since then. Much of it now makes me wince. The field of psychoanalysis has imploded and almost disappeared. Making fun of the pretensions of a now forgotten group of elitists is no longer very funny. Thus, it is a clumsy, sexist mild comedy. Yet, see it as a document of its time, and it is worthwhile.

This is the sort of movie that makes me ponder the whole time I'm watching it, "Who SHOULD have been in these roles?" Connery and Woodward really give it a good try, chewing big hunks out of the scenery, but they never convince, not for a moment. The role of earnest but ignorant and garrulous wife could have been played to perfection by Geraldine Page or, in an earlier and lighter version of the story, Judy Holliday. The role of Samson Shillitoe, deranged poet, could have been handled well by Jason Robards or Walter Matthau, and his mysterious attraction for women would have been more believable with the former, and more humorous with the latter.

For me, the only real laughs came from the one short scene featuring pudgy businessman Sorrell Booke learning the facts about his wife's hysteria. "You'll ascertain MY virility????"

I think they were trying for the kind of thing here where, like Alec Guiness's deranged artist character in "The Horse's Mouth," the obnoxious jerk has a mysteriously endearing charm or ability that shines through despite his appalling behaviour, but this poet isn't the horse's mouth. Quite the opposite.

If you enjoy the type of film that leaves you shaking your head and wondering why, this is definitely for you.