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Simply A Masterpiece

Good concept, poorly executed.

Excellent but underrated film

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Before I watched this on YouTube, I saw segments on the site of the only previous movie that starred the comedy team of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin-Once Upon a Horse from 1958. What I saw there wasn't very funny though I'll wait until I've seen the whole thing before I review it here. This second one-which they made 11 years later-is mostly lame to the point that I was ready to give this one star...until the scene in which the Julie Newmar character convinces Rowan that she can turn into a dog before a dog shows up before Dan comes back. The ending scene involving lots of shooting was also pretty amusing. Otherwise, I was bemused by how lame most of the punchlines were. Maybe it should have had some cameos from the co-stars of their "Laugh-In" TV show from that time like Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, or Goldie Hawn who herself was making her first starring picture called Cactus Flower during this time. Verdict: The Maltese Bippy is nice to look at, but nothing worth talking about otherwise.

I SO wanted to like this one, since i LOVED Laugh In, but the script was SO weak. None of the jokes are funny, but at least we get to see some familiar faces: Rowan & Martin, with Leon Askin (General Burkhalter from Hogan's Heroes), Robert Reed, from Brady Bunch, is the Lieutenant, and the fantabulous Catwoman Julie Newmar. So we go around the mulberry bush a few times, everyone gets a few one liners, and it ends. The funniest part of the whole movie is the last two minutes, but you'll have to watch it for yourself. Looks like Martin went on to direct a whole lot of TV, after the Laugh In days. This film directed by Norman Panama, who actually had directed many a comedy, but didn't really shine on this one. Maybe they lacked the budget for big names, or screenwriters to jazz up the script. As of today, it only rates a 4 out of 10 stars.

This was the big screen attempt at taking the success of Rowan and Martin from TV to Film. I know it failed as a mainstream hit, but it succeeds wonderfully as broad retro camp. I liked this film overall but it is not one you will watch over and over. It is a one shot watch, maybe once more if you with a good friend who really loves camp or laugh in. This is no classic in the way that Zorro the gay blade or Abbot and Costello were. If this were 1979, I might say pass on this film but just getting the feel of sixties, even a g-rated version, is a lot of fun now nearly forty years latter.For the record, vampires are mentioned in the movie but do not appear, not even actors who are pretending to be people pretending to be vampires. The fact that in dream sequence one character dresses like Dracula does not merit calling this a vampire/werewolf flick. The vampire angle was played up in way that comedy horror tries to tell the mainstream viewers: "hey this film has stuff like vampires/werewolves/zombies/mummies" Trying to tell people who don't know the difference between a zombie and a mummy that a flick has" werewolves and vampires and stuff" rarely works. One comment said this was neither fish nor fowl. That is the biggest problem of the movie. It borrows from comedy/horror/mystery and buddy flicks in such a way that it has no real focus. The mystery is not that mysterious, the horror not remotely scary, the romance angle weak (they really should have played that one up. If the movie ended with a couple walking off happily ever after THAT would appeal to mainstream people much more than the4th wall breaking so much in the last 5 minutes. This is the next real weak point after the lack of focus: the fourth wall breaking as the ending. It reminded me of The Holy Grail when writers obviously gifted enough to write a passable ending decide to break the 4th wall when they could not come up with a great ending.I did not like the ending...but it reminded me of dating....the fun of the relationship was worth the crappy ending.

This curious filmic transplant of Rowan and Martin's "Laugh-In" is notable for being the first movie I've ever seen in a movie theater and the first one I recall seeing at all. I was five years old and my family was traveling in a rinkydink town in Minnesota (Duluth, if you're interested) and it was on the same day as Neil Armstrong and company's landing on the moon. The only scene I remember from the original viewing was the one in which Dan Rowan is under the impression that the foxy vampiress can transmogrify into a tiger and, consequently, acts strangely intimate with the tiger. A most strange movie, like the TV show, and worth seeing for sixties psychedelia buffs.