"A FISH CALLED WANDA"
DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: ****1/2 (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: **** (out of 5 stars) STARRING John Cleese as ARCHIE LEACH Jamie Lee Curtis as WANDA GERSHWITZ Kevin Kline as OTTO Michael Palin as KEN PILE Maria Aitken as WENDY LEACH Tom Georgeson as GEORGE THOMASON Rated R Studio: MGM Directed by: Charles Crichton Back to DVD Review Home |  |
Ever since my teenage years when I discovered “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” broadcast on our local PBS affiliate, I was hooked on Monty Python. With these rebroadcasts, I was able to see many of their old television shows, and with the wonders of home video, I was also able to see their films which had been hard to come by in the theaters and on television.
In the late 1980s, I was still in high school, and movies on the weekend were my main form of entertainment. So when I saw an advertisement for “A Fish Called Wanda,” which featured two of the Pythons, I dragged all my friends to see it.
My girlfriend at the time just didn’t get it (she thought the dogs Michael Palin mistakenly killed looked too much like her family pooch), but the rest of the group found it to be a scream. To this day, I consider the sequence in which John Cleese strips down to his birthday suit while speaking fluently in Russian to be one of the funniest things ever seen on American screens.
The movie is a somewhat standard screwball comedy with a distinctive British twist to it. Fans of Python humor will enjoy seeing John Cleese and Michael Palin together again (even though they don’t share the screen until the last part of the film). The story follows a group of American and British jewel thieves who have stolen a cache of diamonds from a London jeweler.
The Americans Wanda and Otto (Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline) frame Brit George (Tom Georgeson) and give him up to the police. However, George has also pulled a fast one by hiding the diamonds in a different place. Wanda then tries to keep the scheme alive by wooing George’s Barrister (Cleese), until she starts to fall for him.
No pun intended, but all the stars aligned for this film. It was the perfect blend of British and American humor. Kevin Klein is at his best as the bumbling, jealous Otto who keeps blowing Wanda’s plans when he thinks she’s screwing around on him. While Klein blows hot and cold in his films, sometimes falling flat on his face (as in “Wild, Wild West”) and other times overpowering the audience with pomposity (as in “Consenting Adults”), he scores big in this film. Klein even won an Oscar for his work in the movie, which was very well deserved.
Cleese is completely at home playing the straight man, and his chemistry with Jamie Lee Curtis is quite amazing considering their styles are completely different. Of course, the unsung hero of the film is Michael Palin, who has somewhat of a bit part but manages to steal every scene he’s in. His character is the stuttering side-kick of George who also has the hots for Wanda. As an animal rights supporter, he is constantly distraught when animals are harmed in the crimes – often at his own hand.
MGM was to have released the special edition DVD of this movie this summer, but it got delayed until this winter. Now, it is available in a 2-disc special edition, featuring an entire bonus disc of special features.
The film comes with an audio commentary by Cleese as well as 25 minutes of deleted and alternate scenes. There are several documentaries available, some of which were produced for the film’s original release and others that were produced later. Other special features include a photo gallery, a special message from John Cleese and a pop-up trivia track that plays throughout the film.
“A Fish Called Wanda” was a perfect comedy because it pulled no punches with its humor and cut close to the bone. It’s by no means politically correct, but it’s funny as hell.
Specifications: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Widescreen (1.85:1) – enhanced for 16x9 televisions. French and Spanish language tracks. Spanish subtitles. English subtitles for the hearing impaired.
