Biting the Hand of Hollywood

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

S.O.B. Directed and Written by Blake Edwards

The overweight jogger clutches his chest and sinks painfully to the sand, his ticker in mortal distress. He will lie there--at first in pain, later in death--for most of S. O. B. That is because it is his misfortune to have been taking his exercise in the world capital of self-absorption, the beach at Malibu, where movie people tend their tans, mend their deals and bend their minds with all sorts of curious additives. Dying is something that happens to your friend's act in Vegas or your rival's picture in Gotham. It is acceptable as metaphor, inconvenient as reality, something to be ignored in the hopes that it will go away, like a pinging in your Mercedes motor. It is a measure of this powerfully vicious and powerfully funny satire on Hollywood--undoubtedly the least benign movie about moviemakers ever released --that the only character with completely decent instincts is the runner's faithful dog, who stands by his man to the end, trying to call attention to his plight.

Chief among those ignoring the mutt's wails is Producer Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan), who, when he is not staring sightlessly at the trade papers reporting that his latest film, Night Wind, has set a new record for low grosses and bad reviews, is trying to kill himself. He doesn't even notice when his wife Sally (Julie Andrews), the star of his disaster, leaves with both kids and most of the family motor pool. Down to his last Cadillac, his suicide attempts going unnoticed at the orgy his pals are staging to take their minds off his misfortunes, he is a sad spectacle.

But not to worry. Felix is a born producer. That is to say, an improviser. A little recutting, a little reshooting, and he can save Night Wind. All it requires is fending off the studio sharks, stealing a few million from his wife and persuading her to abandon her Julie Andrews-like image with a nude-to-the-waist turn in the X-rated redo. This the real-life Andrews manages with aplomb and utterly winning self-humor. If they gave a good-sport Oscar, she would be a shoo-in.

Her image breaking is less a matter of undressing than it is of unbending morally, for Sally turns around and blithely participates in a plot to steal Felix's remade movie back from him. He dies defending it ("Don't worry, this could add $10 million to the box office") and is accorded a soundstage funeral--a stained-glass pattern projected on a cyclorama, his wife's guru reading from such sacred works as his list of credits (Chicken at the Wheel, Love on a Pogo Stick) and reports of boffo grosses for his last work. The mourners, of course, go right on making deals and trying to steal one another's lovers.

It is hard to say whether S.O.B. will be a meaningful comic experience outside the L.A.-N.Y. show-biz axis, but it is full of the splendid physical comedy that is Director Edwards' specialty. And besides, most of the movie types he so viciously caricatures are portrayed with high, vile spirits by the likes of Robert Preston, Larry Hagman, Robert Vaughn and Robert Webber, the meanest-looking crew since the Wild Bunch bit the dust. Edwards occasionally strays too far inside for his own good, lapsing from parodies of bad taste into the genuine article. But his work has pace and the courage of bleak convictions, not just about movie people, but the human race in general. In the end, one cannot help respecting a movie that hilariously links death and creativity, yet has enough childish lunacy to have one creep respond to another's admonitory finger wave by simply taking a bite out of the wagging digit. On a colossal scale, that is what Edwards has done in S.O.B. -- bitten the hand that feeds him. And discovered that it is soul food.

Blake Edwards is a lucky s.o.b. He is finally rich enough to support his career-long addiction to anger. The riches come from his Pink Panther films and "10. "The anger reached nearly self-destructive heights in the early '70s when, after making a string of hits (Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, A Shot in the Dark), he suffered an equal number of flops (Darling Lili, Wild Rovers, The Carey Treatment). These pictures, he insists, were sabotaged from conception to cutting room by studio production chiefs: Robert Evans, of Paramount, where Lili was made, and James Aubrey, of MGM, which financed the others.

"I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown," says Edwards, who spent a lot of time "withdrawn and very, very angry," nursing murderous fantasies. Working eight to ten hours a day for six weeks at his home in Switzerland, he churned out his first vengeful draft of S.O.B. That was in 1973, and it was not until eight years later that Lorimar agreed to make his black comedy about Hollywood. It is a typical movie business irony that after Edwards finished making it, Lorimar signed a distribution agreement with Paramount, where, as Edwards sees it, his troubles began. It is certainly typical of Edwards that although his old nemeses have left Paramount, he has been fighting with the new management over the film's promotion.

The flash point was the original ad campaign, which stressed the topless debut of Julie Andrews. "Clearly they perceive the film first as the baring of my wife's breasts and second as a comedy," he protests. Paramount scrapped the campaign when Edwards threatened to remove the scene. Next, he tangled with the studio over the cost of a press junket, finally paying the $110,000 tab himself. "I want to tell you that various people are repeating lines right out of the script," he cries. "It is life imitating art. Every day, by phone or telex, they validate it."

"They also help hype the picture, and an observer with his own taste for paranoia cannot help wondering how genuine this battle is. Edwards insists it is for real. "I cringe at what might come next," he told TIME Correspondent Mary Cronin. "The parallel between what is happening now and what happened on Darling Lili is chilling." This time Edwards has delivered the one sort of film the summer lacks--a tough, down-and-dirty comedy.

Anyway, Edwards has settled old scores. Evans and Aubrey will see something of themselves in Blackman, his lead heavy; Agent Sue Mengers has expressed the wish that an Alp fall on Edwards' house, which he says would be preferable to Mengers falling on it; Hollywood reporters will feel a twinge of recognition in his composite gossip columnist. "I don't think the movie will change people much, because the villains won't recognize themselves," he says. "They'll look at it and say, 'He's always been a crank.' But I made my statement. There it is, for better or worse." --By Richard Schickel

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.