Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?

Little seen ego-trip for the resistible talents of writer/producer/director/composer/star Anthony Newley (featuring his then-wife Joan Collins) which, due to its copious and gratuitous nudity (including its creator!), is surely the most notorious production ever to be filmed in Malta – and, consequently, something of a holy grail for local film buffs! Given its unavailability, then, I wasn't overly disappointed in the poor (but certainly not unwatchable) quality of the print – and the film itself, possessing a certain sense of style, wasn't as worthless as its reputation would have it!

In itself, a flashy and pretentious semi-autobiographical piece obviously inspired by Fellini's 8½ (1963), it's largely set on a beach where the protagonist is apparently mounting a film based on his own life (how self-indulgent can you get?). In fact, what plot there is resolves itself into a music-hall revue with plenty of rather quaint musical numbers (one of which is reprised ad nauseam throughout) by Newley and others. These, however, are often interrupted by the surprising presence of legendary American showmen George Jessel (as a wise-cracking, white-clad Angel Of Death figure, dubbed "The Presence") and Milton Berle as the Mephistophelean Goodtime Eddie Filth.

Newley's choice of character names is, if anything, admirably Fieldsan: indeed, here, Heironymus Merkin is torn between Collins' Polyester Poontang and Playboy playmate Connie Kreski's Mercy Humppe (hence the film's unwieldy title). Occasionally, too, Merkin is able to step out of character in order to observe his own actions enacted, in the interim, by a blank-faced dummy! Also incorporated is an irrelevant adult-oriented fairy-tale, entitled "The Princess And The Donkey", involving the intimate relationship between one Trampolena Whambang and a mule (which then turns into a dwarf!); amazingly, this infamous sequence was filmed in Malta's Presidential Palace!! The cast includes other familiar faces such as Stubby Kaye as Merkin's long-suffering scriptwriter and Victor Spinetti as a bewildered film critic who, perhaps justly, blames Fellini for Merkin's (and, by extension, Newley's) folie de grandeur.

There's a possible goof, too, in the appearance of a religious statue in the background during one of the beach sequences; this was supposedly removed for filming purposes and, consequently, has been the cause of much consternation locally to this day! I'm also confused by the film's actual running time: the X-rated version I watched, which one would assume to be uncut, ran for 107 mins. (with the trimmed R-rated version being 106 mins. long)…but the BBFC gives its complete length as 117 mins.!

As a performer (musical or otherwise), Anthony Newley has always been an acquired taste. His cabaret-born stylings and exaggerated delivery (again, while singing or acting) can either be interpreted as heartfelt or preening. Newley had done nothing on the screen up to this point to justify the jaded, indifferent, Felliniesque "Heironymus Merkin", an autobiographical jumble of vaudeville skits, sex and songs. Newley directed and has the lead; he also co-wrote the script with Herman Raucher, scored the music and produced. Obviously, this project meant a lot to him, but it was shunned upon its release (the ungainly title was most likely no help). The film gives off bad vibrations, as well as the puzzling impression it was made by somebody who hoped to get out of show business. A musical-comedy star reflects on his life upon turning 40 (the age, Merkin tells us, when men's bodies begin to decay); he's guided along his journey by George Jessel (dressed in all-white) and Milton Berle (dressed in suit jackets and shorts, like a leering carnival barker). Newley cavorts with a bevy of women (a handful of whom were featured in a nude Playboy layout, which figured in the advertising), but Merkin/Newley views sex cheerlessly. The women are sex objects to be ogled and then cheated on--until they get pregnant, which leads to the ultimate trap: marriage. While Newley is anxious to show off the bare breasts of his actresses (minus those of wife Joan Collins, who is turned into a shrew), he stops short of celebrating their bodies; in Newley's world, a sex scene is included only to showcase his prowess as a ladies' man. He's not only the star of his own movie, he's the leading man in each of his lovers' movies (the ladies have no personalities--only lascivious names). This self-adoration is probably the reason the film was taken to task by the critics, who called it a megalomaniacal disaster. Is it truly wretched? I would say Newley adopts a certain style from the Masters, which is unfortunately hindered in the end by the lenient editing. There are far too many shots of Newley with his shirt off, or with his shoes off, allowing the camera to admire him. He primps, he sticks out his bottom lip and looks boyish, he dresses as a life-size marionette and collapses, hoping to grab our hearts. The picture isn't a personal triumph because it has been shaped and styled to reveal Anthony Newley as a sad puppet, a crying clown, and the image is so false that nobody--least of all of Newley--could get away with it. *1/2 from ****

I've read some raves and some scathing reviews of this film. The reviewers seem wildly opposed.

What one should remember when viewing this work is the era when it was made. The world was a little different in the late '60s; the war in Vietnam was beginning to be opposed vehemently, nudity and profanity were being more tolerated in films, and a new era of permissiveness was dawning. Films that came out at this time were taking more "avante garde" chances, and there were as many misses as hits.

This film was a mixture of good and bad scenes, but never-the-less an interesting work. The humor in it is somewhat crude, and the music has neither enough polish, or conversely, edge to work completely.

I do remember being entertained by the film, and isn't that the bottom line? Trying to compare it to today's standards is not a valid comparison. No one would try to compare Chaplin's films with Eddie Murphy's. This work is one that will probably stay obscure, because it was more of an experiment than an expression.

Bottom line: A mixture of good and bad comedy, music and philosophy. See it for yourself and see if you can eke out a valid point of view.

The title alone was enough to kill it dead in the water but if you got past that and made it into the few cinemas that showed it then the first ten minutes might have finished you off but this hugely self-indulgent picture is actually worth sticking around for. Okay, the gags are terrible and Newley, who directed it, co-wrote it, composed the music and plays the lead is no Orson Welles but there is a surfeit of imagination at work here and presuming it is mostly autobiographical, (his wife, Joan Collins, and children play his wife and children), few artists, and Newley surely is that, have ever been so self-critical in public; it's as if he wants us to hate him.

Fellini, of course, is the most obvious object of his affections, (he even gets a name-check), which probably riled the critics the most. How dare he think he could remake "8 1/2" and as a musical comedy, they probably screamed, and needless to say the film was not just a gigantic flop, both critically and commercially, but often figures in lists of the worst films ever made. It's certainly not always an easy watch; like a traffic accident it's very hard to look at what's happened yet impossible to look away. It's also impossible to ignore.

People complain that studios don't take chances anymore. Well, although sometimes when they did take a chance they made a masterpiece, they also came up with movies like this! This movie is a mess, so...weird. For much of the running time, it's fascinating to watch its insanity, though eventually it becomes tiring. The only really funny bit is the hilariously tasteless "The Princess and the Donkey" number.