Blake Edwards’ S.O.B. on VHS video. Starring Julie Andrews, William Holden. With Marisa Berenson, Larry Hagman, Robert Loggia, Stuart Margolin, Richard Mulligan, Robert Vaughn, Robert Webber, Shelley Winters, Loretta Swit, Rosanna Arquette. Directed by Blake Edwards. 1981.
From the VHS box:
The director who made the panther pink and taught you to count to 10 coins a new term for comedy.
Gobble-gobble! Felix Farmer’s latest film is a colossal turkey — and that sends lots of Hollywood types into action. Agents are called. Lawyers are retained. Press statements are issued. It’s what filmmaker Blake Edwards calls “Standard Operating Bull,” the subject of his gleefully satiric S.O.B.
A long list of notables joins in this convivial sock to Hollywood’s kisser. Julie Andrews is squeaky-clean superstar Sally Miles, married to Felix but living apart in one of their several homes. She’s the key to Felix’s sudden plan to flip his flop into a smash. He wants her to appear topless in a re-shot version of the film.
Sally’s agent says, “No… Maybe… How much?” A medical quack to the stars and a worldly director supply gin as a tonic for frazzled Felix and his equally frazzled press agent. A studio mogul angles for a piece of Felix’s can’t-miss idea. And a hitchhiking waif, studio yes-man and gossipy gadfly provide more tinsel beneath the tinsel.
The dialogue crackles like fat in a fire, the gags range from dead-on deadpan to comedic broadsides, the insights bristle and sting. There’s nothing standard here. S.O.B. is extraordinary.
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