Lord Love a Duck

An oddity of 1960s pop culture, Lord Love a Duck is a black comedy that satirizes many elements of that culture, particularly teenage beach movies. Directed by George Axelrod, it's anarchic style was too much for 1966 audiences, and it flopped. It's interesting, but not very good, and far too ambitious for its own good.

Roddy McDowall stars as high school senior Alan Musgrave (that McDowall was 37 at the time may have been Axelrod's attempt to instantly alienate the audience). McDowall is the smartest kid in school, but is also something of a mythic figure, calling himself "Mollymauk," a kind of bird (with requisite squawks and flapping of arms).

For unstated reasons, he decides to serve as a sort of guardian angel for Barbara Ann Greene (Tuesday Weld), a typical high school girl. McDowall works to grant her wishes, whether it's to get enough cashmere sweaters to join a club, go on a trip to the beach, or get married to a college student (Martin West), despite the protests of her future mother-in-law (Ruth Gordon). When Weld wants to be do a screen test to be a movie star for a producer of bikini movies (Martin Gabel), McDowall tries to kill West, with increasingly bizarre results.

Lord Love a Duck isn't concerned much with structure, nor with aesthetics. It's shot in black and white, but a kind of dingy black and white that reminds one of stag films. There's plenty of girls in bikinis for the raincoat crowd, and Weld looks great, but the larger point of the thing remains elusive, other than that everything is stupid. There are some pointed shots at education--Harvey Korman is the boobish principal, and there are jokes about education reforms--Botany is now called "Plant Skills for Life." But then there is just plain weirdness, such as a scene between Weld and her dad (Martin Showalter), in which she orgiastically tries on sweaters while intoning their gimmicky colors ("Periwinkle Pussycat") while Showalter leers at her like the Tex Avery wolf.

Axelrod wrote the stage plays The Seven-Year Itch and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and the screenplays for Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Manchurian Candidate. Lord Love a Duck was his directorial debut. He only directed one other film.