SKIDOO

US, 1968, 97 minutes, Colour.
Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Frankie Avalon, Fred Clark, Michael Constantine, Frank Gorshin, John Philip Law, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, George Raft, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Groucho Marx, Arnold Stang, Doro Merande, Slim Pickens, Richard Kiel, Harry Nilssen, Austin Pendleton, Alexandra Hay, Donyale Luna.
Directed by Otto Preminger.

Skidoo is an odd film. It was even odd at the time that it was produced in the late 1960s. Otto Preminger had proven himself one of Hollywood’s top directors especially with Laura in 1944 when he went on to make a number of big-budget films including Forever Amber but also some small-budget films like The Moon is Blue, which raised controversy about its use of the word ‘virgin’ and ‘pregnant’, challenging the Motion Picture Code. By 1959 he was making bigger-budget films including Anatomy of a Murder, Exodus, Advise and Consent, The Cardinal, In Harm’s Way. With the upheaval of the 1960s, Preminger thought that he would make an offbeat hippie, acid comedy.

Groucho Marx, in his last film, portrays God, the head of the Mob. He employs Jackie Gleason who is in retirement with his wife Carol Channing. There are complications in the carrying out of the hit, Jackie Gleason going to prison, meeting with all kinds of oddball characters.

The film has several of the old faces of Hollywood feigning acid trips in the 60s style. And Harry Nilssen sings all the final credits.

The film was not released in some locations because of its presentation of drugs and drug culture. It now stands as a strange addition to Otto Preminger’s work and an odd film of the 60s.

1. A typical comedy of the 1960s, the psychedelic era of the late sixties, drugs? The film judged a failure on release? Not released in Australia, possibly because of the drug sequences? Was the film a successful comedy? Its impact in the seventies?

2. What kind of comedy? Jackie Gleason and his style, Otto Preminger and, his heavy style? The cue taken from the satire on television at the opening?

3. The quality of the comedy as a farce? About the American way of life? The film as a message comedy about the American way of life?

4. The picture of American society in the late sixties? A satirical look? Criticism of the establishment and its respectability, yet on the basis of crookedness and gangsterism? The hippies and their odd look and yet their kindness? The importance of the confrontation with the Mayor at her expelling the hippies from the city?

5. The atmosphere in America of the evil of drugs versus the evil of gangsterism? The exaltation of drugs? Was this justified?

6. The film's focus on Tony? Jackie Gleason's style, his friendship with Harry and his death, his career based on being a gangster, his relationship with "God"? His relationship with Flo and his daughter Darlene? His double standards, loyalty to God and attacking of the hippies? His willingness to go to prison and murder Packard? The criticism in this surface respectability?

7. The satire on the American wife and mother in Carol Channing's performance? Flo in exuberant but empty, sympathetic to the hippies, loving her husband and daughter, willing to compromise herself with a criminal, leading the rescue, etc.? The significance of her singing the song at the end?

8. The portrayal of the hippies in the atmosphere of the late sixties? The cliches about hippies opting out, freedom, their jargon, drugs and friendship? Stash and his relationship with Darlene? Yet his help of Tony and the hippies rescuing the establishment? The humour of this with the small boats and the siege of the yacht?

9. The picture of gangsters and criminals in America; Hechy and his son, careers from God, Angie and his elaborate apartment and the satire on mechanism and comfort? The seductions? Packard and his running things from prison? The prison contacts? The head criminal in isolation and in fear of germs calling himself God? And his assistant? The comment on American criminals, farcical comment?

10. The portrayal of Chris and life, the emphasis on the professor, his persecution and haircut, etc.? The picturing of the guards?

11. Audience response to the taking of L.S.D.. the L.S.D. fantasies? As experienced by Tony in terms of colour, reduction in size, etc.? The preparation for the use of L.S.D. for the escape?

12. How effectively comic was the escape sequence? Impossible things happening because of the L.S.D? The visit of the Senator and the prison Governor? The satire in these two men? (The Senator being reprised from the initial television satire?) The guards and their hallucinations, the garbage tin dance, the phone exchange men and their hallucinations? Packard and God intervening within this framework?

13. The picturing of God and his role on the yacht, the fact that George Raft was his assistant? His values and way of life? The appropriateness of Groucho Marx in this role? His use of Stash, imprisoning of Darlens, the rescue?

14. The final comment on America and what was wrong in the sixties? The comment on gangsters throughout the film tying in with the television interviews at the beginning?

15. The importance of the credits being sung and their effect?

16. To what purpose was this film really made?