"S.O.B.", which is Blake Edwards' masterpiece, is a masterful and wicked satire of Hollywood. This is Edwards' revenge for Hollywood's shallow treatment of him during his 1968-1975 "down" period in which he made a series of quite good flops which died at the boxoffice.
In fact, Edwards uses one of those flops, 1970's "Darling Lili", which I gave three stars, as the backstory of "S.O.B." Let me describe to you what happened with that film, as to give you the flavor of what this film is about: In 1968-1970, Blake Edwards made Darling Lili, his first film with his wife Julie Andrews. It cost over 40 million dollars and took 3 at the box office. It was also savagely panned by the critics. Anyway,an undeterred Edwards withdrew the film, edited it down from 145 mins to 113 mins, took out the comic relief and rereleased it;here it did well enough to break even.(Today, the 113 minute cut is the one most often shown on TV)Critics liked the new version.
In "S.O.B.", Edwards takes everything one step further to create a savagely hilarious comedy. Everything works here. Everything. The opening credits sequence, in which he see the "Darling Lili" surrogate Night Wind play out (it's supposed to be BAD, so relax), to the great slapstick sequences (Mulligan's suicide attempts are particularly funny) to the ontarget performances which include Andrews, cast against type as a rich bitch actress, William Holden as the director, Richard Mulligan as the Blake Edwards surrogate and especially the great Robert Preston as the local Dr. Feelgood (called Finegarten in this; preston should have received a nomination for his good work)There are also many other Edwards veterans in the cast such as Robert Webber, Craig Stevens and Stuart Margolin, just to name a few.
Seeing this film once is just not enough. It demands multiple viewings because each time you find something new to enjoy and laugh at. Most of all, it makes you think about what occurred. And in the age of asinine so called comedies such as "Tomcats", "Joe Dirt" and "Deuce Bigelow", finding a rare and distinctive comedy like "S.O.B" is a real treasure. It's a real shame that Edwards has retired from theatrical films, just think of what he could say today. Fortunately, "S.O.B." has remained fresh and original.
In fact, Edwards uses one of those flops, 1970's "Darling Lili", which I gave three stars, as the backstory of "S.O.B." Let me describe to you what happened with that film, as to give you the flavor of what this film is about: In 1968-1970, Blake Edwards made Darling Lili, his first film with his wife Julie Andrews. It cost over 40 million dollars and took 3 at the box office. It was also savagely panned by the critics. Anyway,an undeterred Edwards withdrew the film, edited it down from 145 mins to 113 mins, took out the comic relief and rereleased it;here it did well enough to break even.(Today, the 113 minute cut is the one most often shown on TV)Critics liked the new version.
In "S.O.B.", Edwards takes everything one step further to create a savagely hilarious comedy. Everything works here. Everything. The opening credits sequence, in which he see the "Darling Lili" surrogate Night Wind play out (it's supposed to be BAD, so relax), to the great slapstick sequences (Mulligan's suicide attempts are particularly funny) to the ontarget performances which include Andrews, cast against type as a rich bitch actress, William Holden as the director, Richard Mulligan as the Blake Edwards surrogate and especially the great Robert Preston as the local Dr. Feelgood (called Finegarten in this; preston should have received a nomination for his good work)There are also many other Edwards veterans in the cast such as Robert Webber, Craig Stevens and Stuart Margolin, just to name a few.
Seeing this film once is just not enough. It demands multiple viewings because each time you find something new to enjoy and laugh at. Most of all, it makes you think about what occurred. And in the age of asinine so called comedies such as "Tomcats", "Joe Dirt" and "Deuce Bigelow", finding a rare and distinctive comedy like "S.O.B" is a real treasure. It's a real shame that Edwards has retired from theatrical films, just think of what he could say today. Fortunately, "S.O.B." has remained fresh and original.