What's Up, Doc?

You like screwball comedies? I like screwball comedies. I like it when everyone wants the McGuffin (or McGuffins, as the case may be), and hijinks ensue. I like it when the operator drives the poor sap crazy with her machinations. And I like it when the operator discovers, much to her surprise and delight, that she has a heart of gold.

And I really like when the whole thing is set in San Francisco, one of the greatest and most photogenic cities in the world.

So really, the only way WHAT’S UP, DOC? could have dropped the ball would have been to have one of its characters leap out of the screen and punch me in the nose.

Here’s the deal: four people bring four identical overnight bags to the same hotel. One holds rocks that mean a lot to an academic because he intends to use them in an important presentation; one holds rocks that are important to everyone because they glitter nicely in the light and are surrounded with worked gold; one holds underwear, which matters to the person who owns the underwear; and one holds a cache of top secret documents which may or may not be the Pentagon Papers. The movie is pretty much a game of musical overnight bags, the loser getting stuck with the underwear, and away we go.

Director Peter Bogdanovich does a great job of keeping all the balls in the air, perfectly executing classic screwball bits while keeping track of the locations and ownerships of various bags, hearts, and miscellaneous bits of clothing. He casts great actors like Barbara Streisand, Madeleine Khan, and Austin Pendleton in critical roles, and they help buttress a weak Ryan O’Neal leading performance as the hapless academic who’s no match for (really) anyone.

WHAT’S UP, DOC? made me laugh out loud. When I wasn’t laughing, I was rolling along quite pleasantly. This is solid screwball, lots of fun, and a good time at the movies.