Friday, 27 December 2024

What's Up Doc? (1972 Peter Bogdanovich)

Do people realise just how smoothly and skilfully this film is made? It's heart is of course in Hawks - not just Bringing Up Baby (the way she calls him 'Steve' is for example straight out of To Have and Have Not) but also references sources as diverse as silent movies (firemen as Keystone Cops) and Billy Wilder (use of Larabie name for one thing is no coincidence).

Streisand and O'Neal are wonderfully watchable and there's the treat of an Austin Pendleton for those in the know.

Also, you don't realise quite how wonderfully Laszlo Kovacs has filmed it (which, I think, is one of his distinctive - or rather, indistinctive - trademarks).

Roger Corman told Peter to recut his own sequences from The Wild Angels if he thought he could do better. Peter said "Well I don't know how to cut" and Roger said "Go down and see Dennis - he'll show you how you do it". We assume this must have been Dennis Jakob, who is credited as the editor of the film. Then after Targets and The Last Picture Show Peter was still reluctant to let anyone else cut his film, so he marked it with S and C so Verna Fields knew where to 'Start' and 'Cut'.




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