The Phynx

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Trailer—The Phynx

source: The Phynx

Booker and Foster were apparently aiming for an audience of emotionally stunted 12 year-old boys, but still managed to insult the intelligence of their audience. Broad farces never age well, but this collection of tired cliches was old when it was written. Spoiler alert - its two jokes are: 1. Stereotypes. Just mentioning them. 2. Every adult character is stupid. Inconsistently and unrelated to the plot. The only bright spots are tiny cameos by people like Dick Clark, Richard Pryor, and Ed Sullivan, but these are insufficient to make up for the utter lack of originality, the uniformly dull acting (apart from those 5 second cameos), the dialog that never sounds natural. I guess you could say I didn't like it.

Well, I finally caught up with the true rarity entitled "The Phynx" (1970). In this rock and roll/secret agent spoof, many American celebrities have been disappearing after visiting the Communist country of Albania, and the U.S. government has decided to rescue them and put a stop to this. Their super computer, MUTHA, suggests forming a rock band that will be invited to play in Albania; the members of the band will be trained secret agents who will do their best to get the celebs released. Thus, four teenagers are selected and given the necessary musical and secret agent training. Dubbed The Phynx, the band does eventually prove a smash and gets invited to play in Albania. Anyway, this picture is truly a one-of-a-kind experience, with any number of goofy gags and fairly groovy rock numbers (by the famed songwriting team of Leiber & Stoller!). But its claim to fame today surely has to be the number of guest stars who pop up in cameo roles throughout the film; not since "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" has any film boasted so many celebs! Thus, look at who pops up here: Michael Ansara, George Tobias, Joan Blondell, Ultra Violet, Patty Andrews (of The Andrews Sisters), Edgar Bergen, James Brown, Xaviar Cugat, Andy Devine, Rona Barrett, Busby Berkeley, Dick Clark, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Louis Hayward, George Jessel, Ruby Keeler, Dorothy Lamour, Guy Lombardo, Joe Louis, Trini Lopez, Butterfly McQueen, Pat O'Brien, Maureen O'Sullivan, Richard Pryor, Martha Raye, Harold "Oddjob" Sakata, Colonel Sanders, Ed Sullivan, Jay Silverheels, Rudy Vallee AND Johnny Weissmuller. Whew! Pretty amazing, right? The film was directed by somebody named Lee H. Katzin and in all is as mind boggling a 90 minutes as you're ever likely to come across. A recommended time capsule, to be sure!

This is a great film. Yeah, you read that right. It's what Otto Preminger's Skidoo should have been. Sure, The Phynx is dated to a large degree. It's definitely a pyschedelic, 1960's film with all those trappings, but it's often very funny, often satiric, with some of the humor dating and some of it still funny as hell. The early scenes of an agent trying to break into Albania are funny, and one of the members of the band does a beer commercial that has a hilarious punchline. There are some brilliant surreal touches throughout the film, and it has gorgeous sets and cinematography. The songs (by Lieber and Stroller) are pretty good too. The old school stars seem to be having a good time, and have some very funny dialogue along the way. It's also a funny parody of the Cold War at the time on both sides. So check this out, and ignore those who hate it. It's only 90 minutes long, and often hilarious.

Somebody's stealing the celebrities of Hollywood's Golden Age, and that somebody is in Communist Albania. Our Super Secret Agency spies get the idea that the way to bring the celebrities back is to create some new celebrities, in the form of a pop band who will get invited to Albania themselves. Thus the band "The Phynx" is created. (The less said about the music of Lieber and Stoller, the better. Although, there was one song that kept reminding me of the Fifth Dimension's "Up, Up and Away".) The movie is normally considered a bomb, although I found it not quite as bad as that. The build-up is exceedingly slow, and most of the celebrities are underused. Thankfully, most of the celebrities - at least, the ones in Albania - are introduced red-carpet style so nobody will have trouble putting names to faces. The people playing the band members, of course, have no acting talent, although they could probably dance as well as Ruby Keeler. There are a lot of celebrities in this one. Maureen O'Sullivan and Johnny Weismuller; Rudy Vallee; Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey, the latter looking like death warmed over (he died before the movie was released); George Jessel; and even Col. Sanders are among those in captivity in Albania. Joan Blondell plays the First Lady of Albania. Martha Raye is one of the few who gets a chance to shine as the Agency's contact in London. James Brown comes next closest to shining. Richard Pryor is woefully underused. One other good thing is the sequence in Rome. The band members are looking for a piece of a map tattooed on a woman's abdomen; they're given x-ray glasses to look through people's clothes. This sets up several opportunities for sight gags, some of which actually work. There's one of a man chatting up a woman in a club, where it turns out that both of them are actually men, and another of two young women talking to two nuns. If you like "so bad it's good" movies, this one is actually worth watching since you'll find a whole bunch of "What were they thinking?" moments. I give it a 7/10 on that scale, not on the same scale I would rate Casablanca.

Another horrifying example of Old Hollywood trying to be "hip" with the kids. Old Hollywood's attempts in the late 60's/early 70's to reach Boomers with movies they thought reflected the ongoing youth-culture resulted in either cringe-inducing embarrassments or outright cinematic horrors. "The Phynx" is an example of both. The plot: it's an overlong and far less entertaining episode of The Monkees. American "celebrities" (most of whose fame peaked circa 1946) have been taken hostage by Albania. To rescue them, an American espionage outfit creates a fake rock band, The Phynx, and manufactures its popularity in order for it to be so famous that Albania will invite it to play. Once in Albania, the four band members will rescue the hostages. (Imagine "Argo" except made by talentless people who should have been told that: "Drugs are bad, mkay.") However, the plot is just a thin cover for the numerous celebrity cameos and for cheesy approximations of late 60's pop music to be played while the ersatz Monkees, The Phynx (yeah, a fake of a fake), ogle at numerous miniskirt/underwear clad young women. It's supposed to be satire on the pop music industry/youth counterculture, but it's done so ham-fistedly that it's just eye-rollingly stupid. There's nothing clever or witty about this film. In sum: a ridiculous and awful time capsule from a transitory time in Hollywood history: the old gasping out its last and the new about to take over. The only good thing about it were probably all those miniskirt-clad young women. As for the four "actors" who played The Phynx? They were regulated to the "where are they now file" shortly after this film's release.

I've heard for years that this previously lost Warner Brothers musical comedy was an absolute trainwreck, but it's actually quite a sweet view of a mixture of various generations coming together for a purpose and revealing a bit of the purpose of previous generations. The Phynx is actually a fictional rock band brought together to save an oddball group of celebrities of generations past, some of whom will make the audience ask, "Who?" But it came at a time in entertainment history where there was a surprising nostalgia craze, and if the presence of Ruby Keeler and Patsy Kelly (soon to be featured together in Broadway's surprise hit "No No Nanette") isn't evidence of that, then how about a reunion of Johnny Weissmueller and Maureen O'Sullivan from the Tarzan movies, veteran lip popper Fritz Feld, Knute Rockne's Pat O'Brien (making a Reagan joke) and Slip and Sach from the Bowery Boys movies? This film is "Help!" meets "The Monkees" meets "Hogan's Heroes", a deliciously screwy and often ridiculous concoction of a cry for the good old days vs. the disillusioned young facing an incoming decade with severe cynicism and distrust for anybody over 30, particularly Nixon voters. The music for the most part is forgettable but on occasion, energetic, and the four young members do have some talent and charm. I certainly can do why this flopped, but somebody at Warner Brothers jumped the gun when they pulled it from circulation. Clint Walker, Butterfly McQueen, Joe Louis, Edgar Bergen (with Charlie of course), the Lone Ranger and Tonto and Patty Andrews are just a few others getting cameos, with George Tobias and Joan Blondell getting actual characters to play. I guess this will have to be removed from my "worst films of all time" list because in spite of its absurdities, i quite enjoyed it.

Hollywood tried so hard to assimilate the new hippie movement in their TV shows and movies and usually got it way wrong. so many films failed to do the "mix", SKIDOO, I LOVE YOU ALICE B. TOKLAS, etc. The Phynx boasts a huge cast of Hollywood idols and can actually stand alone on that basis! Old stars, solo, or with their partners, are "relocated" to a huge estate, held hostage by the supposed "new" generation of entertainer...and indeed, when James Brown and 1969-70 entourage arrive, as ambassadors of the new music industry, we are impressed. Songwriters Leiber and Stoller wrote the songs for this bizarre experiment and none are any good. That's why James Brown should have done a song or two from his own catalogue. OK, OK................... Getting' back to those "old" stars: there are many here which justify the proverbial price of admission. I bought the DVD for the 1970 version of Gorcey and Hall. No laffs. But a gas to behold, so many years later!