11/15/06 Bedazzled

Bedazzled (1967), directed by Stanley Donen

watched solo; VHS (borrowed from John S.) @ home

No, no and no. This is not the 2000 remake (although, if you would have read my little description a few lines above you would not have assumed such an idiotic thing) by Harold Ramis that posed Brendan (why am I always cast as a big dumb oaf?) Fraser and Elizabeth (I'm hot & British, but took Hugh Grant back so I'm a big dumb oaf as well) Hurley...but rather the lesser known (and apparently unavailble on DVD) original of the same name from 1967. There are oddities abound in this quirky British dose of jolly good fun, starting off with the director himself, Stanley Donen, who is much more well-known and abundance of musicals..."Singin' In The Rain," "Damn Yankees!," "Funny Face," "The Pajama Game," and "Seven Brides For Seven Sisters." Granted, I don't watch a lot of musicals, but from the titles of those movies, and any person's penchant for such silly schlock as musicals provide...has to have some sort of sense of wry humor in order to ever try and take themselves seriously. In this psychedlic 60's version of "Bedazzled" we see a young Dudley Moore serving as a short-order cook Stanley in a joint called Whimpy Burger, and he's infatuated with the pretty waitress Margaret. Never good at much, especially when it comes to talking to women, Stanley decides to end it all...but even that he can't do right. Saving him from his untimely demise is one dapper fellow named George Spiggott, AKA the Devil himself. George makes a pact with hapless Stanley to land him the girl of his (day)dreams only if he signs over his soul in the bargain. With this price gladly taken on, as he didn't have much use for it anyway, Stanley proceeds to have his 7 wishes in transforming Margaret into his ideal woman...except the catch. That catch being that he's visited by the 7 Deadly Sins (a la "A Christmas Carol" and the ghosts of Christmas' past) who sabotage and advise him against meddling with people's true beings. One of the more memorable (and most appealing to watch even on an old grainy VHS recording) is Raquel Welch (isn't she still hot and pushing 70?!) as Lilian Lust. Being that it is a much older, wiser and successful low-budget version of a pretty clever twist on the old "sell your soul to the devil" pact...I don't understand why it's not well-known or hailed over the 2000 crappy remake. Oh wait...could it be that Hollywood too sold its soul in order to make tons of our hard-earned money in watching these crappy films in return for their collective Oscar-winning souls? Perhaps.

3 out of 5 stars