A Fine Mess (film)

A Fine Mess

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Blake Edwards
Produced by Tony Adams
Written by Blake Edwards
Starring
Music by Henry Mancini
Cinematography Harry Stradling, Jr.
Production
company
Columbia Pictures
Blake Edwards Entertainment
Distributed by The Coca-Cola Company
Release dates
  • August 8, 1986 (1986-08-08)
Running time
 90 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $6,029,824

A Fine Mess is a 1986 American comedy film written and directed by Blake Edwards and starring Ted Danson and Howie Mandel.

The film was intended as a remake of Laurel & Hardy's classic short "The Music Box"[1] and was to be semi-improvised in the same style as the director's earlier comedy, The Party, but studio interference, poor previews and subsequent re-editing resulted in the film becoming a fully scripted chase comedy with very little of the original ideas for the film remaining intact. Writer/director Blake Edwards actually gave television interviews telling audiences to avoid the film. It received overwhelmingly negative reviews and was a box-office failure.

Plot

While filming on location at a race track, womanizing bit actor Spencer Holden, who lives life on one scam after another, overhears a couple of inept thugs named Binky and Turnip while they dope a race horse with a supposed undetectable super stimulant. The thugs find out that Spence overheard them and will do anything to catch him to prevent him from going to the authorities with the information. Spence, however, enlists the help of his best friend, drive-in carhop and aspiring restaurateur Dennis Powell, to bet on the race with that horse so that they can make some guaranteed money. Spence and Dennis end up having to outrun not only the thugs, who manage to put a few bullet holes in Spence's car, but also the police after they find Spence's bullet-riddled car and after the race horse, Sorry Sue, dies from the drugs. The plot also includes an antique player piano of which Dennis comes into possession, sympathetic but naive auction house employee Ellen Frankenthaler who is attracted to Dennis, and exotically beautiful Claudia Pazzo who is interested in buying the piano and whom Spence can't resist.

Cast

Reception

Critical reception

A Fine Mess received heavily negative reviews (Rotten Tomatoes gave it an insufficient score), including one from The New York Times, which stated "Mr. Edwards, who on happier occasions gave us the Pink Panther movies, piles on the pileups until you may suspect that he is trying to distract the audience from the absence of a diverting story or dialogue. The 11 musical numbers by some well-known performers (available, you can bet, on record and cassette) seem designed for the same purpose."[2]

Blake Edwards' reaction

Edwards mostly avoided doing interviews promoting the film and when he did them, he explicitly told audiences to avoid the film altogether, especially since That's Life was debuting in September of that year.

Box office

The film flopped tremendously on a cost of an undetermined budget, and, in the US, grossed $6,029,824, so it became a box office bomb.

Soundtrack

A Fine Mess
Soundtrack album
Released 1986
Genre Soundtrack
Label Motown
  1. "Can't Help Falling In Love" - Christine McVie
  2. "Easier Said Than Done" - Chico DeBarge
  3. "A Fine Mess" - Temptations
  4. "I'm Gonna Be A Wheel Someday" - Los Lobos
  5. "Love's Closing In" - Nick Jameson
  6. "Moving So Close" - Keith Burston & Darryl Littlejohn
  7. "Slow Down" - Billy Vera & Beaters
  8. "Stan And Ollie" - Henry Mancini
  9. "Walk Like A Man" - Mary Jane Girls
  10. "Wishful Thinking" - Smokey Robinson

References

  1. ↑ MOVIES: EDWARDS' YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY Mann, Roderick. Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File) [Los Angeles, Calif] 25 Nov 1984: x21.
  2. ↑ Walter Goodman (August 8, 1986). "A Fine Mess (1986) - SCREEN: EDWARDS'S 'FINE MESS'". © 1986 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved. Retrieved August 23, 2013.

External links

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