Skidoo (1968)

Skidoo (USA, 1968) 97 min color DIR-PROD: Otto Preminger. SCR: Doran William Cannon, Rob Reiner (uncredited). MUSIC: Harry Nilsson. DOP: Leon Shamroy. CAST: Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Frankie Avalon, Fred Clark, Michael Constantine, Frank Gorshin, John Phillip Law, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, George Raft, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Groucho Marx, Austin Pendleton, Donyale Luna. (Paramount Pictures)

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Otto Preminger had surely received much notoriety in his tempestuous career. His lightweight romantic comedy, The Moon is Blue (1953), in its approach to sexuality, and The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), with the subject of drug addiction, shook the stringent white-picket fence morals of the 1950s, and were released without seals of approval by the Production Code Authority. Although they were eventually given in 1961, these films nonetheless were instrumental in cracking the foundation of the Code, which had governed the content of Hollywood films since the 1930s. Preminger’s later work, Anatomy of a Murder (1959), which frankly dealt with a rape-murder case, was granted a seal, although reluctantly. In the 1960s however, as public tastes became increasingly liberal, there were less barriers for Otto Preminger to break. As many other filmmakers of his generation would finish out their careers with work that more belonged to an earlier era, his final period of filmmaking featured the most bizarre run of movies in his career. In the “New Hollywood”, the only rule was that there were no rules, therefore Otto Preminger was free to experiment with whatever indulgences fancied him…. for better or for worse. In this lot, he made Skidoo, which today is thought to be the most infamous of his filmography, and that’s saying something!

Its reputation has preceded itself over the decades with its LSD themes somehow involving old-generation actors Jackie Gleason and Groucho Marx! It is certainly not his worst movie: with all of the panache onscreen, how could it be? Despite that the Preminger estate considers this film to be an embarrassment (Toronto’s Cinematheque ran into obstacles with them, over efforts to include the title in a recent Preminger retrospective), it has, believe it or not, dated better than most films of the day made by aged studio personnel trying to capture the youth generation. Where most of these so-called psychedelic movies now plod along with tired humour and quickly outmoded cinematic devices, Skidoo on the other hand moves like greased lightning. This insane movie actually works, because it appears that all the personnel involved were in on the joke: this film has the foresight to realize that the youth generation was on a collision course anyway, so why bother trying to suck up to them? Instead, Skidoo is a gleefully sarcastic look at a world gone out of control.

The “plot” is admittedly operable at best, but since counterculture films concerned themselves the least with storytelling, this film then succeeds in that criteria. But even so, the threadbare story exists for the same reason in the movies Groucho made with his brothers– it’s just an excuse to get us from one surreal moment to another. The script by Doran William Cannon (who would soon pen another counterculture masterpiece in Robert Altman’s Brewster McCloud) features Jackie Gleason as ex-mobster Tony Banks, who is recruited by the gangland boss named “God” (Groucho!) to do a hit on gangster “Blue Chips” Packard (Mickey Rooney) who is currently serving time, but is planning to rat out his colleagues. Thus, “God” arranges for Tony to be imprisoned so he can carry out the deed. Tony’s daughter Darlene (Alexandra Hay) is in love with the hippie Stash (John Phillip Law in a longhaired wig– this you have to see), and while dear old dad is in the pen, his wife Flo (Carol Channing) lets the hippies move in! (If you’ve been waiting to see Carol Channing in bed with Frankie Avalon, here is your chance.)

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Meanwhile, thanks to the help of his draft-dodging cellmate “the professor” (Austin Pendleton- a character actor I’ve always enjoyed in eccentric roles), Tony tries LSD, and then realizes that killing is bad, so the two conspire to get the entire prison high on acid, so they can make their escape using garbage bags as balloons, and land on “God”s yacht to rescue Darlene, who is being held hostage. Meanwhile, Flo and the hippies come to the rescue. Will the flower children save the day?

Sure, the acid trip sequence is hokey, but it’s certainly more creative than Lana Turner’s hallucination in The Big Cube (to compare it to another studio film which attempted to cash in on the psychedelic craze). We see a sweaty Jackie Gleason cackle at red gelled patterns, numbers made of bullet holes, cel animations of a screw hovering in mid-air with Groucho’s head attached to it, and Mickey Rooney doing a song-and-dance routine. (Wait, this makes Tony like the counterculture movement?)

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Skidoo has a big cast of veterans (Cesar Romero, George Raft, Burgess Meredith, Peter Lawford, and even Frank Gorshin shows up as an inmate) which only serves to remind us how much trouble old Hollywood had fitting into the new age. And to also keep up with the times, there is a song score by Harry Nilsson, which of course gets lost amidst all the noise and confusion that occurs to hide the thin plot. Plus more hip young stars like Frankie Avalon and cover girl model Donyale Luna (as “God”s companion) harmoniously blend with the pandemonium.

The humour is pedestrian, but it does have some spirited moments like the opening scene with a decoupage of images from the modern world as seen while being flipped through on a TV set, and when the closing credits are sung. On the surface, it may be embarrassing to see these veterans attempt to be “with it” in the new generation, but despite all of the frolic on screen (in the jaw-dropping climax where the young and old sing and dance to the title theme), there is something curiously calculated about it. Beneath all the frolic is a slightly dark tone which suggests that the filmmakers knew that this generation (and this film) was a train wreck, so in its own way, this movie offers a cautionary fable about the so-called hippie utopia.

(Now, you may take this laudatory review of Skidoo with whatever grains of salt you choose, because I’m generally fond of dated counterculture pics. I even found virtue in Myra Breckinridge!)

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Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #24, excerpted from a larger piece on the late period films of Otto Preminger. This film is now available on DVD via Olive Films, in a typically barebones release.