Watch A Fine Madness For Free

That was an excellent one.

An Exercise In Nonsense

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

If ever there was an award given out for "Most Outrageously, Sexist-Minded Film Ever (of the 1960s, that is)", I think that A Fine Madness would, most definitely, be a sure-fire winner.And, with that said - If you are, indeed, a total feminist (or a feminist-hugger), I guarantee you that frequent key moments throughout this utterly absurd comedy will surely get your dander up like no other film from that era ever has. (I'm not kidding about this, folks!) Of course, in order to get any sort of real entertainment value out of A Fine Madness's story one must keep it firmly in mind that here is a film that is a complete product of its time. This is a picture that proudly beats its chest and clearly states that "Hey! This is a man's world!" (so if you're a woman you better like it, or lump it).In my opinion - A Fine Madness was solely made to cash-in on Sean Connery's rugged animal magnetism and his equally virile screen-charisma (following his huge success playing James Bond in 1965's "Thunderball").So, just be warned - If you're prone to detest a lead character who just happens to be nothing but a boozing, womanizing, wife-beating, loudmouth with a hair-trigger temper, then, believe me, you're probably not likely to find this comedy to be much of a laughing matter, in the long run.

Alright, this film is generally awful, admitedly...However, I always try to look at any motion picture in the context of it's day and in it's retrospective historical perspective.I like to look at movies as sociological studies, and the best ones transcend their time, becoming truly timeless."A Fine Madness" fairly stinks of clueless farce. The filmmakers completely lacked any shred of inspiration; a must for ALL art, IMHO.Just looked at it; it's big,loud and randy without any awareness of the cultural changes about to happen in the late 1960s. These artifacts are unintentionally funny, as with any generation gap showing the older generation trying to be hip, but just embarrassing themselves, as when the Rat Pack tried fruitlessly to stay cool in the late 60s. Hollywood was out of touch with the youth of the counter culture, and with some exceptions, like "Hard Days Night", "Alfie", "Medium Cool" and "Easy Rider", most 1960s movies that tried to look authentic and relevant to the times, failed.So, despite its badly written characters, it's hopelessly dated Psychiatric themes, its corrosively dated sexism and the apaulingly visionless, artless presentation, there ARE a few interesting elements.Clearly a big budget film, I was impressed by the progressive bravado that the director showed in manhandling New York City. These bold tracking shots and cunningly calculated hand held camera work was quite new for 1966. These classy looking outdoor location scenes merging actors staying in character with the hubbub of the steaming cauldren of street life in Manhattan could not have been pulled off with a small budget. Look at that amazing tracking shot of Connery running on the Brooklyn Bridge. Many neighborhoods were captured in a stunning naturalism that was unprecidented. So if nothing else, it is as amazing a record of the city as when Harold Lloyd caught it back in the 1920s.It's too bad the story couldn't have been embued with a great script. Perhaps something about the Village, with all it's alternative zeal, and incorporating the changing times which the city was such a part of.The Music score tried to be wacky and inventive too...One could even see elements of Danny Elfman 30 years earlier, with all the big, burlesque horns and drums. Evidently the score was trying to compensate for the dull script and shrill, yet pedestrian performances by spicing up the soundtrack. But after a while the relentless music became as grating as Joanne Woodward's shrill hollering voice.We have to wonder what Billy Wilder or Elia Kazan would have done for this material? Sigh...But Hollywood has always been bottom line, and wants to make its profit fast. Art? Who cares. Vision? Timelessness? Feh, sez the Movie Machine that has forever pandered to the lowest common denominator.One leaves this dreadful film with the notion that it was teetering right on the precepis of the Martini vs. Mariquana epochs and fell back into its pre-sexual revolution, postwar establishment ethos with the thud of someone who just missed his train.Interestingly and awkwardly, one is easily reminded of one of Connery's famous statements in a latter interview where he cavalierly remarked that 'Women should be hit now and then to keep them in line', or something to that effect. One can imagine his brutish Samson saying the same thing in this antique archive of a darker time in American HIStory.

A Fine Madness marks Sean Connery's venture into screen comedy and while the man has had many funny moments in his film, comedy was not his strong suit. Ironically he's cast opposite Joanne Woodward who as we know was married to someone who many critics also said was not at his best in comedy.Whatever else is wrong with A Fine Madness I have always loved Connery's character name, Samson Shillitoe. One of the best screen names ever invented and so right for a would be poet.Samson for Connery is a peculiar combination of James Bond and Ralph Kramden with Joanne Woodward as his long suffering Alice. This lout is also a chick magnet in the James Bond tradition, though God knows why. He's suffering writer's block and can't seem to finish this epic poem he's trying to write. He also has a process server in John Fiedler chasing him down for back alimony to a former wife.Woodward puts him in the hands of psychiatrist Patrick O'Neal who claims he can cure creative people of their hangups so they can do their thing. Connery proves an interesting case however to O'Neal's colleagues, Colleen Dewhurst, Jon Lormer, Werner Peters, and especially Clive Revill who's developed a modified lobotomy that can really cure anti-social behavior. You'll find few screen characters as anti-social as Samson Shillitoe. He's also of interest to O'Neal's wife Jean Seberg who just plain ain't getting any lately.There are some funny moments in A Fine Madness, but ultimately I found it unsatisfying. When all's said and done, though Ralph Kramden threatened many times to bang/zoom Alice to the moon, he never really did. Connery has battered Woodward and quite frankly she's a battered spouse. Why she puts up with him is beyond me completely.And I'm surprised that this script didn't offend Joanne Woodward's feminist soul. She did the thing though to an unsatisfactory conclusion.

While this may not be the worst film I have ever seen, it comes very close to being the worst comedy of all time. And it may be the most sexist film ever to be produced in the United States. Wife-beating is portrayed as humorous, cheating on your spouse is depicted as admirable, and yelling at, humiliating and degrading women is de rigueur throughout the movie. It's a distillation of everything that was wrong with '60s comedies.Sean Connery plays a violent, philandering, selfish, hateful bully who imagines himself to be a brilliant poet. When he suffers writer's block, his screeching, yammering nag of a wife (Joanne Woodward, at the nadir of her career) sends him to a pretentious psychiatrist for treatment. After Connery ends up seducing the psychiatrist's sexy wife (Jean Seaberg, in a squandered, vapid role), he is condemned (spoiler alert) to have a lobotomy. Yes, folks, this is a lobotomy comedy. It's about as funny as it sounds. Along the way the audience is treated to "wacky" chase scenes, goofy camera angles, rinky-dink pianos and theremins in the soundtrack, and incessant shouted dialogue -- while every female role is an insulting caricature: the prissy old matron, the nymphomaniac secretary, the harpy of a wife, the bored socialite, and so on. Connery's poet is supposed to be a lovable anti-hero, but he comes across as loathsome and contemptible, and by the end you'll want to give him a lobotomy yourself just to shut him up.What makes all this especially puzzling is that Connery was the top leading man in the world when "A Fine Madness" was made, riding high on the unparalleled success of his James Bond roles. Why in heaven's name did he choose this embarrassingly amateurish script when he had the entire film industry at his feet? A terrible career blunder.Imagine taking the film "Charly" (aka "Flowers for Algernon," about a retarded man who is given brain surgery), the worst episode of the TV sex farce "Love American Style," and some outtakes from the Keystone Kops, and then editing them all together into a disastrous mash- up of conflicting styles and painfully unfunny humor -- voila, you have "A Fine Madness."The only redeeming features are the true-life location shots on the streets of mid-'60s Manhattan (which New-York-o-philes might enjoy), and a hilarious mini-documentary about Sean Connery made in 1966 to promote the movie, included on the DVD as a bonus. Aside from that, though, "A Fine Madness" is a depressing fiasco of a film, not even worth watching in the "so bad it's unintentionally funny" category. And to top it all off, the ending makes absolutely no sense, and serves to render the entire film pointless, even when accepted at face value. What were they thinking?If, by writing this review, I can save just one person from having to endure sitting through "A Fine Madness," then my life will have been worthwhile.