Good Times

I'm a 60's fan and a Cher fan and I still had trouble getting through this movie. It's a touch of The Sonny & Cher Show, a touch of Laugh-In, a touch of early MTV and a touch of early reality show. This description sounds better than it actually is. It is still fun to watch a young & beautiful Cher in some fab clothes and singing great. She is surprisingly natural in her straight scenes. Sonny plays his scenes like a skit from The Sonny & Cher show or a Carol Burnett sketch. George Saunders looks like he was aging well playing his Allison Dewitt character from All Abot Eve. He committed suicide not long after this movie with one of the most upsetting suicide notes ever written. Sad. I believe the house that they filmed this movie is Sonny & Cher's actual home that they bought from Tony Curtis and had to mortgage to finish this film. I'm still glad I watched the whole film but doubt if I ever will need to see it again.

The puppy, the monkeys, the elephants, the crocodile, the lions, the tiger and the horses in this film are all natural so, I would say that they all are playing well. I do not know if I can say the same about Sonny & Cher. Cher's luck is that she looks very good. And both of them, Sonny & Cher, they are singing beautiful songs, very entertaining. George Sanders is George Sanders, big ego, big personality. It is one of the first films of the great William Friedkin. Just a musical without great expectations. The third episode, in which Sonny is a detective, is much more funny than the first two. Watch it only if you don't have anything better to do.

Pop-singing duo (and mod-dressed lovebirds) Sonny & Cher are tapped to star in their own movie, but the couple are distressed over the corny script. Sonny Bono's soundtrack to "Good Times", which he produced and arranged (impeccably so), sounds like the very best of Phil Spector; the songs may give non-fans a glimpse at true musical genius. Unfortunately, all this aural greatness comes at the expense of a wayward, throw-away feature. Sonny & Cher spend most of their time on-screen bickering in a too-real example of marital discord. Debuting director William Friedkin stuffs the proceedings with eye-candy, but he can't get any momentum going in the fantasy scenes and they just peter out. It's a strenuous comedy, the biggest mistake of which was to plunk the leads down in the middle of so much unhappiness. They don't want to make the movie, they're being forced to make the movie, they fight about compromising their ideals about making the damn movie. Only the opening and closing montages are sunny, the rest is much too heavy--even with all that groovy music in the background. ** from ****

The best parts of this movie are Cher singing, Cher berating future U.S. Congressman Sonny ("Why don't you take off that hat...you look like an idiot."), and Cher in a jungle suit lying on a tree (Great Gams, Sonnyman!).

This movie is about Sonny and Cher making a movie. The script is awful -- both of them. And the "satirical" situations are ridiculous. Watch this, if you must, as a period piece of the freewheeling '60s. (Was the scriptwriter on LSD?)

If you like stupid humor, then this movie's for you. Otherwise, this is a movie you can "watch" from another room with your ears.

I recommend that you fast forward through all the dialog scenes and watch only the musical numbers, which are quite good (and the reason I bumped my rating up a point). Or buy the soundtrack, if you can find it, and listen to that while you do housework or something else productive.

It's honestly not that bad. Cheeky may be the closest I can come up with because Sonny and Cher play on their pop personas, dress to the nines in mod 60s style, and introduce what would be the skits that would make up the bulk of their variety show of the mid 70s.

There isn't much a plot to speak of, except that Sonny and Cher are asked to come up with a movie and Sonny fantasizes of the myriad ways he could reconfigure established genres and make them successful. Spoofs of note are the ones targeting THE MALTESE FALCON (film noir). Other genres made fun of are the Western and the adventure film. George Sanders plays up his stiff persona to play their boss Mr Mordicus and Sonny's heavy/villain in the skits. And yes, that's William Friedkin, some time before THE EXORCIST, making a cute little film that seems to have been aimed at the teeny-boppers, much like many of the teeny-bopper films promoting the likes of (insert teen idol here) in a fluffy movie about nothing spectacular.