Candy (1968), Funnier Than You Think
A film that only exists because the director was friends with Marlon Brando (though Brando went on to say it was the worst movie he ever made), Candy was financed for 3 million dollars. That’s 3 million 1968 dollars! The director, Christian Marquand, had almost no experience making films, and didn’t go on to make any more. The film is ludicrous and has absolutely no right to have succeeded on any level…yet it does. Candy is hilarious and so off the wall, it’s really hard to look away.
This review will be full of spoilers.
The film starts with images of space and alight floating around. This light eventually lands in the desert and turns into a young blonde girl named Candy. Why? No idea. Immediately after that, she’s attending school with a family. Her father, played by the incomparable John Astin, is a teacher at her school. I assume it’s a college, but it feels like a high school. From here, Candy embarks on a fantastic journey, enduring one strange ordeal after another. The cast is comprised on A-list stars that somehow wandered into this movie. There are 5 Oscar winners in Candy! Richard Burton as the poet MacPhisto, who always has find blowing through his hair and fashionable scarves, but doesn’t quite know how to control his urges. Ringo Starr as the Mexican gardener who insists he’s a “good boy” in spectacular cultural appropriation. Also, Walter Matthau who plays the eccentric general that has spent the last 6 years in a plane in the sky that only lands to refuel.
Moving from one scene to another is often jarring and play out as vignettes rather than a consistent plot. There are moments that feel like the movie lost entire reels but shipped, anyway. There is much hype around Candy’s eroticism, but the film is honestly pretty tame. Candy often gets naked, but her body is usually shielded by something on set or her hair. Bare asses are about the only sexy thing you can find here. The focus is really on the psychedelic comedy, and I love it. There were so many moments that my mouth hung open or I said “What the fuck?” to myself, but mostly I laughed. The comical timing is terrible, yet I laughed. Most of the cast isn’t actually very funny, yet I laughed.
Candy is available to watch on Amazon Prime, and it’s a must see in my book. So bad, yet so funny. You can’t go wrong. What’s the funniest movie you’ve ever seen that wasn’t well received?
