Review of What's Up, Doc?

Every old country cook knows that a good soup improves with age. So it is the Peter Bogdonavich has kept a stock pot of screwball comedies of the 30's simmering on the back burner from his memory to serve it up in the brilliantly derivative "What's Up Doc?" It's more than broth, it must be admitted, but the chef's hand is sure as he tosses in every ingredient that made such joyful smashes as "Theodora Goes Wild", "Nothing Is Sacred" and "Bringing Up Baby". Take one square boy (Ryan O'Neal) and one 'noodnick' girl (Barbara Streisand), stir in the uptight fiance, the suspicious clerk partner, the hilarious judge, add a soupcon of prat-falls, pie-in-the-face and the walking sheet of glass and garnish with a mal and merry chase that should write 'finis' to what has become a standard movie gimmick since its Keystone Kops birthing to its 'French Connection" maturation. Bogdonavich is beautifully served by his writers Buck Henry, Robert Benton and David Newman, less well by his stars. Ryan O'Neal is pleasant, but his metier is not comedy and Streisand, wonderfully talented though she is, lacks that very special charm that was part of the great appeal of Carole Lombard. But this is nit-picking in the face of the outstanding performances and the resulting 94 minutes of fun. Bogdonavich willingly acknowledges his debt to directors Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, Leo McCarey, and it is a tribute to him and his mentors that he is so successful without being outrageously campy. "What's Up Doc?" offers mature audiences a movie they might never have expected to see on the contemporary screen, for a younger generation gagging on too many pretentious puddings served up in the name of social concern, this dish is just what the doctor ordered.