If you can get past the credits without feeling yourself going blind, you may want to pull out sunglasses for the sight of Jackie Gleason in a very loud black and white striped jacket with a colorful scarf that looks like something more out of "Boys in the Band" than something that Ralph Kramden would wear. But this certainly isn't as bizarre as some of the things he was forced to wear in Otto Preminger's disastrous "Skidoo" (made the same year) and in place of Carol Channing as his spouse, he gets Estelle Parsons, not screaming here as she did in her Oscar Winning role as Blanche in "Bonnie and Clyde", but spoofing the perfect wife and mother, overly cheerful at every moment, as they prepare to take off from Newark Airport to head to Europe for a nice family vacation. Of course, this was during a whole series of planes being hijacked, so no sooner are they sitting on the plane (grabbing a nut out of a tray passing by) than the plane lands in Vulgaria, that fictional European country first visited in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", and now obviously under a communist regime. Taking this chance to get off the plane for home movies, Gleason, Parsons and their daughter (Joan Delaney) are chased by machine gun carrying military and end up in the American Embassy, protected by none other than "That Girl's" Ted Bessell and accused of being spies. As they wait for their accusers to learn the truth, Gleason insults world leaders, Parsons waxes the entire mansion's floor, and a romance ensues between Delaney and Bessell. When the opportunity arises for these unfortunate out of towner's to return to the quite life of Newark, New Jersey, it still isn't easy, and like the Griswalds of the "National Lampoon's Vacation" series and Sandy Dennis and Jack Lemmon of "The Out of Towners", the results are dangerously wacky to say the least.
This Woody Allen play was a huge hit on Broadway, and its movie version uses every odd late 1960's cliché for its structure. However, while Allen wrote the screenplay, he didn't direct it, that job being given to T.V. veteran Howard Morris who gives it a rather strange pacing, sometimes frenetic and sometimes too frantic to catch everything going on. Gleason, though, milks every laugh for what its worth, particularly in a scene where he finds him holding onto an obvious bomb. Parsons manages to be funny with her eternal smile, good nature and dim-witted reactions to everything going on, never once giving any indication that she fears her life might actually be in danger. Some really funny character performances help this along, particularly Richard Libertini who could always take the most generic line and turn into something hysterical. Not a perfect comedy (and certainly extremely dated), it still gives an interesting look back to a time in film history where traveling the globe really proved that it was indeed a mod, mod world.
This Woody Allen play was a huge hit on Broadway, and its movie version uses every odd late 1960's cliché for its structure. However, while Allen wrote the screenplay, he didn't direct it, that job being given to T.V. veteran Howard Morris who gives it a rather strange pacing, sometimes frenetic and sometimes too frantic to catch everything going on. Gleason, though, milks every laugh for what its worth, particularly in a scene where he finds him holding onto an obvious bomb. Parsons manages to be funny with her eternal smile, good nature and dim-witted reactions to everything going on, never once giving any indication that she fears her life might actually be in danger. Some really funny character performances help this along, particularly Richard Libertini who could always take the most generic line and turn into something hysterical. Not a perfect comedy (and certainly extremely dated), it still gives an interesting look back to a time in film history where traveling the globe really proved that it was indeed a mod, mod world.