Sour Grapes

BLAKE EDWARDS, the ads tell us, is "the man who painted the panther pink," and put Ravel's Bolero on Billboard's Top Forty. Yet before reviving The Pink Panther, Edwards sired a series of flops that turned Hollywood against him. No longer able to make films on the West Coast, Edwards produced the Panther series in Europe. From the height of his knowledge about Tinsel Town, Edwards, with all credibility now restored, takes a pot shot at Hollywood--the angry gesture, it would seem, of a much maliened man.

S.O.B., the culmination of six years of work, was to be a presentation of what really goes on out West from an autobiographical point of view. But rather than a sword thrust into the guts of the ball-breaking capital of the world, Hollywood receives merely an annoying pin-prick.

The premise is familiar enough: A respected director loses all credibility after the failure of his latest multi-million dollar flick. And the film moves quickly at the beginning. After a brief segment from Felix Farmer's (Richard Mulligan) epic disaster, the camera turns to Felix himself. Staring at Variety catatonically as his wife leaves him, he decides to kill himself by inhaling the exhaust of his $80,000 Cadillac. Julie Andrews, as Sally Miles, Farmer's wife and the star of his films, plays herself. When told by her lawyers that she should not seek a divorce in the wake of Farmer's disaster, at the risk of losing the public who sees her as, well, Julie Andrews, she exclaims, "Damn...sorry."

Meanwhile, the studio honchos gather to discuss salvaging Night Wind, Farmer's film, which no one but he can change or cut, by contract. Robert Vaughn, as the hard-assed producer determined to break Felix's contract first, and Felix next, plays the role straight in the early scenes.

Surrounded by a bevy of sycophants, he gives orders with the simple grace and rapidity of an SS Captain. But as the film progresses, the initial hardness and veneer of total control dissipate into a pastiche of the Hollywood studio man, a change in tone that signals Edwards' trepidation at biting the hand that slugged him. Edwards' directing gets in the way of his own script. Every time the charcaters verge on any sort of emotion, they play it for laughs. Reductio ad slapstick.

Having tried to kill himself twice, Farmer awakens from heavy sedation to find that his Malibu beach house has become the setting for an impromptu orgy--an epiphany for him. Farmer realizes that his film can only succeed as soft core porn. "We give them romance," he shouts, "when they want sado-masochism."

When Farmer haggles with the studio heavy to buy the rights to his film, and convinces his wife to star in it and change her image to that of a sex goddess, the film is at its best. Edwards' attacks on the twisted values of Hollywood come like a whirlwind, as Farmer pleads, orates, struts, gesticulates, and throws his body to strike a deal. Farmer does buy the film, but for all his assets, and he returns home to find his enraged wife ready to kill him. This is no Mary Poppins. Furious that her husband has sunk all his assets, (half hers by California law) into a piece of celluloid, she chases him through the house. "You son of a bitch," she cries. Farmer stops, and says, "Variety headline: 'Sally Miles Swears!' Another $10 million at the box office." Edwards excels at manic scenes like these. Farmer's irrationality, portrayed to perfection by Mulligan, overcome the hopelessly commonplace performances of Larry Hagman, as one of the producers' yes men, and William Holden, as Farmer's best friend.

BUT AS FARMER begins reworking his epic from a Grating to an R, the film stands still. The specter of Julie Andrews baring her breasts on the Silver Screen can't keep a movie going for another hour. Focusing on a Farmer now independent of Hollywood, Edwards loses touch with the object of his satire. He resorts to silliness, the gimmicks that sustained Pink Panther films--destructive car chases, etc.--that are incongruous and pointless here.

Edwards' script follows the pattern of his direction. He strikes on target at the beginning, setting up his figures to be knocked into the dust. The shadow that Tinsel Town casts on the lives of his characters, the absurd system of priorities that makes an angry man quote box office figures to his wife in the heat of the argument: These are the moments when Edwards nears his goal. Once the focus shifts to Farmer alone, the tone of the film becomes skewed, strained. The film cannot survive on its own, when it's not pontificating on the medium--or the medium's victims--themselves. Edwards, in real life, may be one tough S.O.B., but his film. alas, is not.