input: ... and in *no way* as clean, logical, and understandable as in pictured in that pathetic sum of tired Hollywood cliches.

I'm 27, and I've spent 16 years of my life struggling through delusional phobia and paranoid hallucinations. Like the main character in the film, I was successful mainly because of logic : because I kept thinking over and over to keep delusion away from reality, and to know what was really going on and what wasn't. In the end, I was really successful because of medication, by the way, but I certainly escaped madness because I knew before I took medication the difference between what was real and what wasn't.

So, I feel entitled to tell you that this movie is a total fraud. Not only does it cheat with the main character's story (who wasn't faithful to his wife, who was bisexual - something really important here), but mostly, it shows a comforting, tamed view of schizophrenia - which is entirely missing the point.

Schizophrenia is a mind structure, not a disease. A schizophrenic *isn't* a "normal man with a disease", it's someone who from early on views and feels things differently from most people : for him, things like time, space, and people's personalities aren't solid things. He feels it can be bent, it can change, it can mutate, and maybe even disappear. To cope with this, a schizophrenic has a rich, very imaginative inner world which "normal" people don't expect - but he's trapped in it because he can't relate with most people, and his world gets poorer and poorer until he finishes in a blank, delusive dead end.

This is very different to what's depicted in this ridiculous "cure", tear-jerking movie. It should be violently frightening. People other than the main character should appear strange, weird and absurd, like in Lynch's "Eraserhead", for example. There should be *really* impressive, weird, gross hallucinations, because that's what schizophrenia is all about. It's not about *details*.

I mean, watch "Naked Lunch", "Lost Highway", read P.K. Dick's "Martian Time-Split" or "Ubik", DO watch "The Cell", "Perfect Blue", "Dark City", or play "American McGee's Alice" on PC, and you may have a vague idea of what it's like. Don't watch the "feel good" movie of the month, with banal situations, cleaned characters and visuals, and stupid plot tricks. "The Cell" is the most accurate movie about a schizophrenic's mind, his visions and his inner consistency - it's violent, weird, confusing, and very, very scary.

Once again, Schizophrenia isn't about details, it's not a neat, tame trick played to you. It jumps in your face and won't let you go : walls fall apart, people turn into strange hostile creatures, you feel like you go backward in time, you're not sure you're who you think you are, everything feels... strange, unnatural. Believe me, this is much much more than what's depicted in this soap-like melodrama

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input: To me, the final scene, in which Harris responds to the press corp, is worthy of viewing this intelligent and timeless slice of politics(especially the campaign phase). If only the "real-life" pols would respond in the intelligent, articulate manner as did Mr Harris,then the arrogant, self-serving members of the press would perhaps think twice before surfacing irrelevant, confrontational "garbage" that has absolutely nothing to do with a candidates abilities to effectively handle the challenges of the office for which he/she is pursuing.

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input: The spoilers in this review are offered as a public service, because the only way to enjoy this costume melodrama is to know that our protagonist, the Lady Barbara Skelton, gets raped and gunned down in the end. And not a moment too soon. I'd have shot the screen myself but I was afraid I'd hit James Mason.

The original 1943 novel, called "The Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton" (I guess people didn't whine about spoilers back then), was written by a woman, an English navy brat who was either troubled or cynical or both. Her heroine is devastatingly beautiful, and the author seems to think that if you have beauty, nothing else matters. But other things do matter, such as the fact that Lady Barbara's immediate and only response when someone gets in her way is homicide. She murders three men in five attempts. A serial femme fatale, she's got a case of dissocial personality disorder that should have landed her in either Bedlam or Newgate.

Lockwood plays her as a narcissistic vamp, wearing so much makeup that I thought of her as a Restoration-era Joan Rivers (or a restoration-era Joan Rivers, ha!). Yet Lady B. is irresistible to all three principal male characters-- Michael Rennie, James Mason, and Griffith Jones, all of whom do good work, as does Patricia Roc. Of course, all three admirers realize in short order what a psychotic bitch Barbara is, but the plot keeps them all in her orbit until one of them finally does gun her down - accidentally, in what is meant to be either irony or just desserts. Given the dramatic death scene with a boom lifting the camera out through the windows and heavenward, I presume we're meant to give a damn about her death. But hers is the first corpse we don't care about.

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input: It's one of the funny things about being young that one can be fooled easily by advertising. I have spoken before on another film,in which the commercial for the (comedy) film makes it seem funnier than it is. Seeing the ad for this in 1981 made me think this was going to be a wildly funny film. What I and my brother who went and saw it with me didn't know is that the scene used in the TV ad was the very last scene in the film!

Since this scene is the end result of all that came before in the film,I can only guess that there was nothing else funny to use! The last scene is,thanks to a youth potion,Dr. Fu Manchu turns from a long bearded old man,into a bright young Asian/Elvis like rock star! (With back up singers no less!)

Set for no real reason,in the 1930's,Peter Sellers does his best with the material at hand but he's not given any really good reason for his "comedic" moments. The rest of the actors were just plain dull and my brother and I sat all through this barely laughing at anything. It was only natural that we were expecting a "Pink Panther" type comedy,Peter Sellers was so great at that.

It's a pitiful shame this was his last film before he died. His appearance on the Muppet Show was more entertaining than this ill-conceived flop. Still,I don't fault him. I fault everyone else involved for not trying to make a better film of this. 2 stars is being generous!!

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negative