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This was not a great movie. Probably barely a good movie if that. I give it a 7 because it was so much fun. It was a very summertime type of movie. Break out the suntan, break out the shorts and head to the nearest beach. Kidnapped by beatniks but not worth it to his fellow mobsters or loved ones, Mr. Quinn gives a great performance , when on the scale of things this movie is not cinematic art. I do not mean that in a bad way. Its the type of film you watch while drinking a couple or a few beers or more. Supremes song The Happening, the title cut fits in with this oddball movie. In many ways this movie sort of brought the hippie movement to main stream and not in a bad way. I liked this movie and took it for what it was . A fun movie and a very young , sexy Faye Dunaway . Do not expect much , have a party with old friends and reminisce about childhood times and if you are a bit younger like I am , mid 40s , just watch this film and enjoy it anyway. It will make you laugh and really thats what its all about folks.

Hey, the premise is pretty good: some fairly appealing but terminally bored young people kidnap a restaurateur (Anthony Quinn), and then they find that neither Quinn's wife nor his business partner partner want him back. After spending some time with the old coot Quinn, they end up feeling sorry for him, and they help him wreak vengeance on the people who have been making his life miserable all these years. The performances are a bit idiosyncratic: Michael Parks working on his James Dean thing, but with blonde hair; George Maharis trying to look like a hippie in a ducktail; Robert Walker Jr being typically odd and, of course, a very young Faye Dunaway overacting broadly and getting away with it. Some of the hijinks might seem slow and lame, but some of it is funny, and I can't vouch for others' musical taste, but I like the theme song.

I caught this movie on late-night TV one night when I had nothing better to do and I'm not sure I might have been better off just doing nothing. I have a weakness for these kind of swingin' sixties movies, but even I couldn't take this junk. The story is about four alleged hipsters who kidnap a Mafia kingpin just for kicks, but then it goes from hijinks to pathos rather suddenly when the don realizes he can't extract the ransom money from his so-called "friends". I guess this is Hollywood's interpretation of what constituted coolness and hip in the late 60s, but in a post-Manson world, I don't know that there's anything funny about any of this. The music, surprisingly for the time, is just dreadful. The Supremes theme song is all right, but the rest of the soundtrack is a lot of Herb Alpert-ish tripe.

As for the acting, Michael Parks and George Maharis turn in the usual rotten performances. The big stars in the movie have a few good moments- Milton Berle as a restaurant owner has a fairly hilarious scene where he tends to various guest complaints. And Anthony Quinn as the Mafia don has a beautiful scene outside, I guess, Dodger Stadium, when it finally hits him that everyone has turned their back on him for the ransom money, and he becomes disturbingly violent and on the edge of tears, and Faye Dunaway says to the others, "I don't want to play this game anymore", which is a genuinely moving episode. But that's part of the problem with the movie: it can't quite reconcile the comedy with the sadness and back to comedy again. It's generally a lousy movie, only significant that it was Faye Dunaway's first big-time movie role, and not significant in any other way. 1 1/2 * out of 4

My friend and I, laughed so hard, had a hard time walking out of the theater. Lucille Ball also had a cameo appearance in the movie. Lucy was the wife of Anthony Quinn, and showed her in bed with Uncle Milty.

As for the slam on the Supreme's song "The Happening", I still like it, and it always brings back the good times, my friend and I had that day at the movies.

I have confounded for a long time this film with another one, also starring Anthony Quinn - THE WILD PARTY - with more or less a close plot. A bunch of punks abduct - kidnap someone. In THE WILD PARTY, Anthony Quinn was a former football player and was one of the punks. Here, he is a mob boss who, this time, is abducted and by hippies. So, you have understood that this movie is very typical from the late sixties and the peace and love generation - don't miss the first five or ten minutes. The tone is sometimes funny, in the total comedy mode, but not all the time. The overall result is however very light hearted, not a gritty movie. So, if you look for a harsh and tough crime flick, avoid this rare film from the director of CAT BALLOU and THE CAR; I nearly forgot A MAN CALLED HORSE.