Wonderful Life

Cult Film-maker Sidney J. Furie's epically eccentric, fabulously far-flung and marvellous musical comedy remains a riotous, sun-drenched seaside spectacular, positively teaming with warmly-fuzzy holiday romance vibes, exotic excitements, fleet-footed dancing delirium, unbound youthful high spirits and sublime slapstick silliness! This is Cliff Richard as you've NEVER seen him before, unless, er, you HAVE seen him like this before, natch!!!! In these increasingly rum times, unrepentantly joyous filmic fripperies like 'Wonderful Life' (1964) provide a most welcome and divinely titillating, mood-raising tonic! The charismatic actor Walter Slezak is on especially fine form, and the devastatingly luminous screen siren Susan Hampshire is ALWAYS a rare feast for the eyes!

Not acknowledged as such, but probably the best of Sir Cliff's early sixties big screen vehicles; although even he dismissed it as "a disaster from the word go".

It has a witty script, choreography by Gillian Lynne performed by a young and enthusiastic cast, quirky little touches such as Gerald Harper cropping up in different supporting roles. And of course there's that wonderful potted history of the movies.

Guest stars Susan Hampshire and Walter Slezak are both well used; with Miss Hampshire cutting a far more provocative figure slouching from the waves in a bikini pastiching Ursula Andress in 'Dr. No' than Andress did in the original.

Wonderful Life was reportedly a huge hit in 1964 because of the immense popularity of its star, Cliff Richard. Sadly, it hasn't stood the test of time very well at all and when I caught up with it in 2024, it reflected very poorly on the movie-making of the day.

However, it is not without its merits. Around the beginning of the second hour of the movie, there is a humorous and nostalgic look at the history of the cinema, with Cliff, The Shadows, Susan Hampshire and Una Stubbs reviving memories of screen legends such as Charlie Chaplin, the Keystone Cops, Rudolf Valentino, the Marx Brothers, Greta Garbo, Douglas Fairbanks, Rhett Butler & Scarlett O'Hara and all the way through to James Bond and Ursula Andress. Cliff and Susan Hampshire in particular shine brightly through this segment. And, indeed, Susan Hampshire shines brightly throughout the film.

If you can hold on through the corny plot, the movie nostalgia scene is worth waiting for. If you can't stand the nonsense in the first half of the film, fast-forward to this scene.

A truly nonsenscial muscial comedy, it's nevertheless Cliff Richard's best in the musical genre. ( He did a couple of dramatic films which were his best) A rather bland singer competing with his similar American counterparts Elvis Presley and Frankie Avalon, Richards fared no better than they in comedy and musical scripts. This one at least contains Susan Hampshire and Walter Slezak. What makes this movie so entertaining is the zippy pace and the surprisingly great dancing and choreography. The big dance number on the set by the whole crew is spectacular and rivals "West Side Story". Incidentally, the long-legged Richards keeps right up with the rest of them and does even better at it than his singing! The cute little send-up of the history of the movies is also very entertaining.

This is the third in a series of Cliff Richard films and the weakest of the lot. 'The Young Ones' was fun, 'Summer Holiday' was great, but by this time the screenwriters knew they had to make a film but didn't know what it should be about. In the end it's about nothing much at all. The music is flat for the most part and closer to show music than rock'n'roll.

It's not surprising that they didn't make a fourth.