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Wild and Wonderful

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Wild and Wonderful
Directed byMichael Anderson
Written byRichard M. Powell
Philip Rapp
Larry Markes
Michael Morris
Waldo Salt
Based on"I Married a Dog" (story)
by Dorothy Crider
Produced byHarold Hecht
StarringTony Curtis
Christine Kaufmann
CinematographyJoseph LaShelle
Edited byGene Milford
Music byMorton Stevens
Production
companies
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • June 10, 1964 (1964-06-10)
Running time
88 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box officeest. $2,000,000 (US/ Canada)[1]

Wild and Wonderful is a 1964 comedy film directed by Michael Anderson and starring Tony Curtis and Christine Kaufmann. The screenplay concerns a clever French poodle named Monsieur Cognac, and the dog's effect on the newly married couple portrayed by Curtis and Kaufmann.[2] The film was co-produced by Harold Hecht and Curtis, the actor's last under his long contractual relationship with Universal Studios.[3]

Plot

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"Monsieur Cognac" is a white male poodle, a television and advertising star of 1960s Paris. The pampered pooch takes time out periodically by escaping his young mistress, Mademoiselle Giselle Ponchon, to roam the streets of Paris by night.

At a jazz bar American Terry Williams is performing with his combo. Monsieur Cognac takes a sip of the eponymous beverage from one of the musician's cups, but is really there to see the pretty female poodles appearing on the program. He teams up with Terry on a pub crawl, gets drunk - and accidentally turns green. Terry meets Giselle, Monsieur Cognac's owner, the following morning, when she, her father and the police storm Terry's apartment to arrest him for dog-napping.

Soon Terry and Giselle fall in love and even get married - much to the dismay of Giselle's father and Monsieur Cognac; the dog is jealous and tries to get rid of Terry. To have some peace and quiet on the wedding night at least, Terry pours a powdered sleeping pill into Monsieur Cognac's champagne glass. But the dog smells the ruse and switches glasses on Terry, who falls asleep on the wedding night! Next day Terry tries to make peace with a private "handshake", but the wily dog squeaks so loudly that Giselle, her father and her uncle rush into the room, assuming that Terry has hurt the dog.

Although Giselle ultimately catches on to Cognac's 'injured' act everyone else is duped, and the couple are driven apart when Terry walks out. Visiting his musician friends, Terry suddenly realizes that Monsieur Cognac is missing a Madame Cognac – and sets about to introduce him to Madam Poupée, a lovely white female poodle who appears at the jazz bar; Terry “borrows” her to smuggle onto the set where Giselle is recording a TV show with Monsieur Cognac. When Poupée's owner appears and accuses those present of kidnapping her, the poodles run riot. All ends well when Terry and Giselle finally kiss – in front of the TV camera.

Cast

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Reception

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The film had six credited writers, including Waldo Salt, who was then still working his way back from years on the Hollywood blacklist and who reportedly "hated" the film.[4] In his 1999 obituary for Larry Markes, another of the credited writers, Dick Vosburgh of The Independent commented, "Critics found it hard to accept that it had taken six writers to fashion the wafer-thin tale of a jazz flautist whose marriage to a French film star is threatened by the jealous tricks of Monsieur Cognac, her neurotic, alcoholic French poodle."[5] In his obituary for Tony Curtis in 2010, film critic Dave Kehr dismissed the film as "disastrous," noting that Curtis was rebuilding his reputation after an earlier affair with Kaufmann, his co-star in Wild and Wonderful, and subsequent divorce from Janet Leigh.[6]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Big Rental Pictures of 1964", Variety, 6 January 1965 p 39. Please note this figure is rentals accruing to distributors not total gross.
  2. ^ "'Wild and Wonderful' is Wild and Wacky Fun", Boxoffice reprinted in Evening Independent, June 4, 1964.
  3. ^ Biography at tonycurtis.com official website.
  4. ^ Buhle, Paul; Wagner, Dave (2005). Hide in Plain Sight: The Hollywood Blacklistees in Film and Television, 1950-2002. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 208. ISBN 978-1403966841.
  5. ^ Vosburgh, Dick (June 10, 1999). "Obituary: Larry Markes". The Independent. Archived from the original on January 25, 2013..
  6. ^ Kehr, Dave (September 30, 2010). "Tony Curtis, Hollywood Leading Man, Dies at 85". The New York Times.
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