The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), directed by John Landis

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Clinch Mountain Back-Step", by The Kentucky Colonels

       If you ever needed proof of how pop culture’s tastes shift and change with the tides, look no further then the Zuckers. During the 1980s, what some nerds might call the renaissance period of American comedy films, David and Jerry Zucker (and Jim Abrahams) were responsible for what are often regarded as some of the most hilarious films of the decade, maybe even of all time. Airplane!, The Naked Gun series, these movies were like living cartoons, combining slapstick, wordplay, gallows humor, raunchiness and absurdism into madcap adventures where a joke could strike from anywhere and everywhere, and take any numbers of different forms. Films whose scripts were practically built wholesale out of quotable lines, which transformed Leslie Nielsen from an underappreciated dramatic actor into a beloved comic legend without so much as a lateral move, that are so funny that you are always thrown off guard when O.J. Simpson walks on screen. Where Mel Brooks appeared to be slowing down in the 80s it seemed like the Zuckers were gonna be the guys who could pick up the slack into a new era.

Fast forward to 2019, however, and no one really talks about those screwball, madcap style movies anymore. Oh sure, there have been many of them made, like the Scary Movie franchise and what have you (some of which were even directed by David Zucker), but they’re not treated with the same love and affection that those films in the 80s. Far from it in fact, the general opinion of these newer movies tends towards them being hackneyed, unfunny tripe, suitable more for mockery than for any possible enjoyment of their content. What changed? Was there some great cultural shift that turned movie audiences away from the Airplane! type of film, or were the Zuckers so amazing at what they did that other filmmakers felt like there was no point in trying to top them? I can’t say for certain, but while I pondered that question, I decided to take a look at the genesis of this formula that would see so much success in the future.

Released in 1977 and directed by a young John Landis, someone who would also see his greatest critical and commercial success in the 80s, The Kentucky Fried Movie was the debut film of the The Kentucky Fried Theater, the original name for the writing team of David Zucker, Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams. Centered mainly around the framework of television & the cinema, including commercials, previews and even a short film, The Kentucky Fried Movie presents a skewed and satirical take on pop culture of the day. Whether it’s the titillating farce of “Catholic High School Girls in Trouble”, or a morning news show that’s interrupted by a gorilla with erectile dysfunction, nothing and nobody is safe when the camera is rolling. Starring Bill Bixby, Donald Sutherland, and everyone’s favorite block of wood, George Lazenby

So The Kentucky Fried Movie isn’t an anthology film, or a collection of vignettes, rather it could be more accurately described as a ‘skit movie’. The closest example I can think of at the moment is the original Monty Python film And Now For Something Completely Different, which was just a collection of sketches from Flying Circus that were remade for the cinema, but even that doesn’t quite describe what you’re getting here. The Kentucky Fried Movie is all about motion, constantly moving towards the next joke as if they were being charged a dollar a minute. There are proper sketches, sure, but there are just as many moments that exist for a single joke and then it’s off to something else. It can be bit a bit overwhelming at first, by the time you’ve finished processing one joke you could already be two or three jokes behind, but at the very least it insures that there’s always something to potentially laugh at.

Of course as a movie, it’s perhaps appropriate that the most memorable parts are those that spoof the popular cinema of the day. There’s the aforementioned “Catholic High School Girls In Trouble”, a sendup of the sleazy exploitation flicks of the day, and a spoof of the Irwin Allen era disaster films like The Towering Inferno called “That’s Armageddon”, but the most ‘developed and arguably best part of the film is its feature attraction, “A Fistful of Yen”. A parody of the Bruce Lee film Enter the Dragon and to some degree the Bond series, Evan Kim plays the martial artist ‘Loo’, who is tasked by British intelligence to infiltrate the compound of ‘Dr. Klahn’ in order to rescue a Chinese nuclear physicist and save the world from potential destruction. While it unfortunately suffers from some lame racist humor, characters having names like ‘Chow Mein’ for instance, what’s surprising is that in many respects ‘A Fistful of Yen’ has captured the essence of Lee’s films pretty well. Kim has a great physical presence on screen and many of the fight scenes are filmed in long takes with minimal cuts, which end up looking way more impressive than you would expect from a short parody. It is, no offense to John Landis, really the only point in the film where to me the directing really shined, as opposed to the writing.

“A Fistful of Yen” is also the segment that feels the most like what we would see the Zuckers do in the future, and I think therein lies the major issue with the film in hindsight; The Kentucky Fried Movie is the prototype of the formula that would be perfected in later films, so there’s not really much of an incentive to go back to it. Besides gratuitous tits I guess, in case you’re one of those people who don’t know the internet contains porn. I mean there’s still jokes, what would become known as the Zucker formula is there, but the engine just won’t turn over for some reason. I can watch The Kentucky Fried Movie and be amused for example, but I watch a single episode of Police Squad and get more than a couple laughs out of it. Maybe it’s the actors involved, maybe the fact there’s a story structure in later films allows for more concentrated jokes rather than the almost stream-of-consciousness style thing that we’ve got here, maybe it’s because this was made for a 1977 audience in mind and not for someone almost half a century in the future. I dunno, but whatever buttons it pushes for other people it doesn’t push them for me.

If we’re talking historically, as the movie that not only launched the Zucker’s career in film but that of John Landis as well (the success of this film is what landed him the Animal House gig), then I could see why this movie might be of interest. Otherwise, since most folks will probably already be familiar with Airplane! and The Naked Gun, there’s not much here that’s going to be radically different from what you’ve already seen. Aside from “A Fistful of Yen”, which I’d say is worth a watch even if you do it separated from the rest of the film. Play it by ear folks, and you’ll be fine.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), directed by Peter Hunt

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Cross Country Skiing", by Heidecker and Wood

       I might have mentioned it before, but I’m not exactly the biggest James Bond fan in the world. Even before I found the idea of glorifying state-sponsored murder rather distasteful, there was always something about the franchise that I found very manufactured. That Bond always had to have the fancy cars and suits, that women had to throw themselves at him at every opportunity, it all seemed rather dull to me. Laughable even, although growing up in Austin Powers might have helped that along a bit.  That James Bond was the pinnacle of manliness, the ideal male power fantasy, ultimately seemed embarrassing to me because it apparently meant that men peaked at 14 years old. Might as have the next Bond film be about 007 arguing about pewdiepie in a youtube video comment section and finally complete the cycle. Theme song by Beyonce.

Way back near the dawn of this blog I actually covered another Bond film, 1987’s The Living Daylights, starring Timothy Dalton. A rather unfortunate fate, those Dalton-Bond era films; An attempt at a darker, more serious take on the character in reaction to the goofier Roger Moore era films that was abandoned after two films for the slightly less goofy Pierce Brosnan era, and sort of forgotten afterwards. Arguably not the fate they deserve, although I recall Daylights as being rather dry, but at the end of that review I mentioned that one day I would be covering a movie that some people might wish they could forget. The black sheep of the franchise, aside from all those other shitty ones of course. I’m talking, of course, about On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

While out on his regular international jaunt, secret agent James Bond ends up saving the life of a strange, beautiful woman who is trying to drown herself at sea. The woman as it turns out is the Contessa Theresa Di Vincenzo, the strong-willed daughter of Draco Di Vincenzo, local industry magnate/crime boss. Draco’s idea of helping his daughter’s sense of well-being is paying some dude she just met to have sex with her, and having sex with women he barely knows is Bond’s whole thing. More importantly though, 007 is looking for information on the location of one Ernst Stavro Blofeld, international criminal mastermind and known lover of white cats. Blofeld has been in hiding for a while now, but the rumblings through the underworld seem to place him getting some shenanigans in Switzerland. Shenanigans which, if successful, could spell the end for millions of lives and the global economy. Which probably isn’t good, so it’s up to James Bond to save the day in his very special way.

So let’s start with the elephant in the room: James Bond himself. After Sean Connery decided to depart the series, the powers-that-be decided to bring in former model George Lazenby to fill the role. Not a bad idea necessarily -- While he didn’t have Connery’s rugged charisma, Lazenby literally had the skills to pay the bills in the looks department, and his youthful energy (Lazenby was only 29 when this movie came out) meant that he had the physicality for the role. The money they could potentially save by slotting in a young fresh replacement for Connery in their franchise and low balling him on the contract likely also had a hand in the decision.   

Then he decides to talk.

Now you could pin the blame on inexperience (this was Lazenby’s debut film), or the fact that we was segregated from the rest of the cast during filming, leading to some onscreen and offscreen tension between him and the cast, but the fact is the moment he opens his mouth all that charisma fades away. The man has an astounding lack of range, it’s as if they had someone run through the entire film and physically mix his audio to be as passive as possible. Good enough, but still not great, when Lazenby needs to put on the Bond charm, but when he needs to have some emotional range (which this script explicitly calls for) it’s like you’re transported back to a high school drama class. When  you’ve got not only the series regulars but actors like Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas, Lazenby seems almost a second wheel in his own damn movie. He’s James Bond sure, he does all the James Bond things, but through every action sequence and every one liner you get the sense that there should be an asterisk every time his name pops up in the script. I’d almost feel bad for him if he wasn’t a millionaire actor/former model.

       Speaking of Mr. Kojak, I have to say that Blofeld might be my favorite character in the film. Clearly evil, clearly the villain, performed in a very calm, understated way. You can see why they decided to base their design of Lex Luthor on Savalas when they were working on Superman: The Animated Series. You could totally believe that this dude is bad enough and smart enough to pose a threat to the Man of Steel. That we never got Telly Savalas as Luthor in the Superman films is actually a bit of a shame, now that I've finally seen him as Blofeld.

I’m also not a huge fan of how the story is structured. The film is over two hours long in total, the first hour being dedicated to the Bond/Tracy relationship, and the second to Blofeld’s virus plot, eventually crossing by the end. It works, in the same way that a rock works as a hammer, but at the same time the two plots feel very disconnected from each other. That Tracy just so happens to be Draco’s daughter, who just so happens to be the one person who can point out the whereabouts of Blofeld seems a bit convenient even for a dumb action movie, as is Tracy’s deus ex machina return to the plot near the end, which seems to only exist in order to remind us that she still exists. Even though the last hour of the movie you just watched didn’t even acknowledge her existence until that moment and had Bond do his normal banging random women routine, and that we’re basing a ‘one true love’ relationship on about two weeks and a montage. It feels like you need more development on the romance but it’s the Blofeld section that the audience came to see, so you’ve got the odd situation of a two and a half hour movie feeling cramped and rushed at the same time.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service does find time to squeeze in some old fashioned racism and misogyny though. Whether it’s having the only Black woman in the film eating a dinner consisting solely of bananas, or Tracy’s father basically stating that she needs to get over the death of her mother by being fucked into submissiveness (and of course both he and Bond get a chance to sucker punch her), it’s just enough to remind you that the 007 franchise has always been pretty lame. That Tracy gets one scene where barely manages to fend off a single guard doesn’t really change much. And yeah, it being ‘a different time’ doesn’t either.

If there’s one thing I’ll give the movie though, it’s in its setting. Portugal looks okay, but once the film transitions to Switzerland it gets downright lovely. The filmmakers knew it too, because we get a whole bunch of snow-related stuff. Aerial shots of the Alps, open vistas, the  skiing scenes (which feel about three hours long) and for some reason a fight scene that takes place in a bobsled. No one ever seems all that cold, despite things like being buried under snow for minutes at a time, but I guess it wouldn’t be the ultimate male power fantasy if 007’s dick fell off from frostbite. I’m not even remotely interested in skiing and it made me want to visit the Swiss Alps, which was probably the point. Even if Bond fans weren’t happy with this movie, I’m sure the Swiss Tourism Bureau was.

Lastly, the music. Not much to say on that front, except that for some reason it seems like they added a synthesizer or some kind of electric organ to the Bond theme. It ended up making it sound tinny and rather unpleasant to the ears, but it only really comes up during the beginning and the ending so it’s forgivable. Not sure why you would even want to mess around with one of the most recognizable pieces of music in Western cinema, to be honest, seems like an unnecessary risk. Just give the audience the horns and shit and you’re golden.

On Her Majesty’s Service has an easy enough story and decent action, but given what they were aiming for, the new face of the franchise, an attempt at pathos, it falls short of expectations. Certainly watchable, it’s not the worst movie I’ve ever seen by a long shot, but at the same time I’m no more a Bond fan after watching it as when I started. Give it a shot if you’re feeling so inclined, but it’s not really a priority viewing. 

James Bond Will Return 

In

Never Say Never Again