Two terrible lounge singers get booked to play a gig in a Moroccan hotel but somehow become pawns in an international power play between the C.I.A., the Emir of Ishtar, and the rebels trying to overthrow his regime.
Director: Elaine May
Stars: Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Adjani, Charles Grodin, Jack Weston.
Watched late because disc just arrived.
26 songs in the Soundtracks, 10 with lyrics by Elaine May (sometimes with Paul Williams), 2 are music by Warren Beatty, 2 are Lyrics and Music by Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman; 22 are Performed by Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman. But most are partial songs, in the process of being created.
Rated 4.2 by almost 9.4k IMDb voters. This makes me want to like it, rooting for an underdog.
The film reminds me of the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby Road pictures, except they could sing and dance, and best of all, they competed to 1-up each other with "ad-lib" one-liners, some actually written by privately paid writers. They frequently broke the 4th wall, and sometimes broke each other.
WB & DH are likeable, watchable stars, and the fact that they're deeply mediocre singers (or pretend to be) is part of the joke. One of the running jokes is that WB professes he's hopeless with women, and can't wear certain clothes because he's too big (he envies DH's size). He also envies DH's face as one that's instantly attractive to women.
Additional fun is the fact that their favorite song, Dangerous Business, supposedly written by them but actually Lyrics and Music by Paul Williams, has clever yet terrible lyrics; that takes talent. We get some schtick by Matt Frewer running down which people in the marketplace are agents for whom, with Arabs dressed as Texans, and Russians dressed as Arabs, and more. I think he said the guys in Hawaiian shirts were tourists, but then they brandish guns.
At one point an emir offers various drinks to a guest, one of which was Pepsi Cola. This is a major inside joke, since Coca Cola owned Columbia at the time, and (per IMDb trivia) one reason the film is actually shot in Morocco was that they had money there which they couldn't get out of the country.
CG as a CIA agent is exactly what you'd expect, an asset to the film.
This is not a great film, not even super funny. Per IMDb trivia it cost much more than it brought in, and had major production and post-production problems, but that's really not evident onscreen. Had this been filmed in a studio like a Hope/Crosby film, it could have been quick and successful, just as funny, and might not have been May's final directing job. And if wishes were horses (or camels)... Then again, the big battle scene with 2 helicopters would need to be different, and that's kind of fun.
Columbia & more, dir. May; 6+
