A Fish Called Wanda
A heist movie with a bunch of characters who betray the others, A Fish Called Wanda was written by John Cleese, legendary comic genius. What's odd is that he plays the sanest character in the film. No silly walks, no Basil Fawlty breakdowns, just a quiet, unassuming romantic lead. Perhaps he had always wanted to play such a part.
He surrounds himself with funny people, like Michael Palin, as a stuttering animal lover (and owner of the title fish). I've never thought stuttering was funny, even briefly, but Palin does so throughout the film. Still, he is funny as he tries to kill a little old lady who is a witness to a bank robbery, and only succeeds in killing her little dogs.
The funniest guy in the room here is Kline, as Otto, a dim-witted weapons man. There's a lot that's funny on the page, as when he repeatedly asks not to be called stupid, or pretends to speak Italian by saying words like "mozzarella and parmigiana", but he invests so much in every line, such as when he opens an empty safe and yells, "I'm disappointed!" In some ways Otto is like a Bugs Bunny nemesis, Yosemite Sam, say, who can never die but undergo repeated humiliations, none so much as being ground into cement by a steamroller. Kline as Otto is one of the few actors to win an Oscar for a broad comic role.
Jamie Lee Curtis is the femme fatale, and while she is engaging she isn't given a lot to do, other than seduce every man she comes across.
A Fish Called Wanda was the last film directed by Charles Crichton, who was a big time director during Britain's Ealing Studio days, directing films starring Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers. This film isn't in their class, but it's a pleasant way to spend a few hours. Oddly, Cleese has only written one film since then, the not-so-well received Fierce Creatures, which featured the same four lead actors.
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