The Secret Diary of Sigmund Freud

I've seen funnier movies and I was at first thinking, oh no, it's a terrible vehicle for Carol Kane, Carol Baker, and Bud Cort. But it seduced me with humor. I overlooked the "European Farce" sense of humor and just went with it. Discovered many, many thought provoking gems that actually resonated with what I've read about the Freud phenomenon that explores our hidden thoughts and desires, according to his own neuroses. I've read serious writers that describe his distaste for blood and avoidance of established medical fields for that reason. It seems obvious that you can't establish scientific theories and test them if the data is hidden in disparate peoples unconscious. Most recently I've looked into his foot fetish ideas concerning a bas relief in the ruins of Pompeii. The film is not for serious admirers of psychoanalysis. It's a romp of making fun of Freud's theories and the wit is sharp. Dick Shawn was super. The ladies were enjoyable to watch.

Dr. Freud discovers psychotherapy, hypnotism and free association--cribbing terms and ideas from his patients, girlfriend and mother along the way. Low-budget comedy is so clumsy and inept, it almost looks like a bad foreign film. It was a good idea to pair Bud Cort with Carol Kane--both run on the same type of irreverent energy--and Carroll Baker is a hoot as Freud's mother, but the biggest surprise is Marisa Berenson as a scheming patient of Freud's who turns every man into a paying customer(Berenson is just winging it here, but she's clearly relishing the opportunity to play a wicked vixen). The lighting and cinematography(if you can actually call it that)is so poor that the actors look chalky and pasty--deadly for a pseudo-bawdy comedy. It's hard to laugh when everyone looks so pallid.

This movie tries to be a combination of Mel Brooks and Woody Allen, with a bit of dense Eastern European farce thrown in. It was made in Yugoslavia and looks like it. It's just too painful to watch, even with Carol Kane. She was one reason I watched it, but everyone else was terrible. Who is (was) Bud Cort and where did they dig him up? I also wanted to see what they came up with about Freud (not one of my favorite people) and it was dreadfully unfunny. Also the period got skewered again, just like in other films when the producers treat the period style and costumes in a cavalier manner. Why can't movie makers be satisfied with making the actors and actresses look like they would have at the time of the story? It's unbelievable how "off" they usually are. Sometimes you can't tell if it's 1870 or 1970. And of course there always have to be references to inventions that haven't been invented yet or to people who haven't been born yet or hanging framed paintings or photos of people from later periods. Why can't they get experts like me to work on these period films? But then, you wouldn't have jobs for all those relatives of producers, directors, "stars", etc. who need "work".

Imagine my surprise when I saw that Carol Kane was born in Cleveland ! She always plays the wacky, offbeat characters (Taxi, Scrooged, and so many more) with a foreign accent. "Freud" has a similar timing to Blazing Saddles, but with weaker jokes, and relatively unknown actors. Turns out that Greene, the director, was nominated for Oscars in editing... for Blazing Saddles, and MASH ! This was the only film Greene directed, and after watching this, we know why. The jokes and the story move V-E-R-Y slowly. Our star, Bud Cort, (from Harold & Maude) is Freud, and we observe his awkward interactions with everyone as he grows up. Cadavers, family, professors, friends. He realizes he is not cut out to be a medical doctor, and stumbles into psychiatry.

Some funny jokes here and there, and lots of sight gags and plays-on-words. A huge member on a horse, just a couple minutes in, and the nun (Kane) with a megaphone. Chimney sweep jokes. Dick Shawn in some over the top characters... many connections to Mel Brooks here. It gets better as it goes along, fun to watch on a Saturday afternoon. It needed Madeline Kahn or some other big names to zing it up. Caught this one on fox movie channel.

Not a good film by any means, The Secret Diary of Sigmund Freud's best attributes are the CAMPY performances of its veteran camp cast. Carol Kane is as adorable as always, though many of her lines are, like the rest of the script, predictable and uninspiring. Perhaps the saddest aspect of this film, however, is the fact that it was the last major film with the brilliant Klaus Kinski, and his role was so far from a signature piece it's almost an embarrassment.

The plot is pretty silly, and follows a very predictable formula. Sigmund Freud is shown as a young doctor full of neuroses about blood and various other things doctors are not supposed to be concerned with. As he grows into the profession he more or less invented, hypnotism of his patients yields their own self-diagnoses, and he gets rich and famous writing down his patients' ideas. within the last ten minutes or so, a plot develops, simply so the film can end properly, but it's far too late.

Overall, I would characterize this film as tedious. Unlike a few others who have reviewed it, I don't think it really had any potential to begin with, though I did enjoy some of Carol Kane's scenes. My advice is to avoid this one.