WHAT'S UP DOC?

US, 1972, 94 minutes, Colour.
Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Madeleine Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Austin Pendleton, Liam Dunn.
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich.

What's Up Doc was one of the comedy surprises of the 70's; it delighted numerous audiences and gave them a chance for some hearty laughter. Director Peter Bogdanovich was a film critic and writer and applied his knowledge of and love for the classic film styles to his own. He incorporated the horror-tradition into his first film, Targets. He commented on the vanishing West in The Last Picture Show and went to the poor and the wealthy 30's for Paper Moon and At Long Last Love. Barbra Streisand is an excellent comedienne. Ryan O'Neal matches her. Madeleine Kahn, in her first film, is hilarious. There are spies, mistaken bags and rooms and the most spectacular funny chase through San Francisco. Worth enjoying to see how and why comedy works.

1. An enjoyable comedy? What comedy ingredients made it so successful? Comedy shows us human nature, its foibles and its ordinariness. Did this film do this successfully? Highlight some of the best features of this comedy and gauge the reasons for their success - situations, stock characters, dialogue, sight jokes - use of popular conventions - mixed identities, chases etc.

2. Was this a successful American comedy? What aspects of human nature, and the funny side of people, did the characters represent - Judy, Howard, Eunice, Hugh Simon, Frederick Larraby, Judy Maxwell, the spies, the thieves?

3. How good a parody of stock situations was the film? Why would fans who know the varying styles and ingredients of the Hollywood films over the decades enjoy this film?