Bedazzled (1967 film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Bedazzled | |
|---|---|
 Bedazzled 1967 film poster |
|
| Directed by | Stanley Donen |
| Produced by | Stanley Donen |
| Written by | Peter Cook Dudley Moore |
| Starring | Peter Cook Dudley Moore Eleanor Bron Raquel Welch |
| Music by | Dudley Moore |
| Cinematography | Austin Dempster |
| Editing by | Richard Marden |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | December 10 1967 (US) |
| Running time | 103 min |
| Country |  United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Bedazzled is a 1967 film which retells the Faust legend in the Swinging London of the 1960s. It was remade in 2000 under the same name.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Stanley Moon (Moore) is a dissatisfied introverted young man who works in a fast-food restaurant and admires, from afar, the waitress Margaret (Bron). Despairing of his unrequited infatuation, he is in the process of an incompetent suicide attempt, when he is interrupted by the Devil, incarnated as George Spiggott (Cook). Spiggott is in a contest with God, trying to be the first to gather 100 billion souls. If he achieves this first, he will be readmitted to Heaven.
In return for his soul, Spiggott offers Stanley seven wishes. Stanley consumes these opportunities in trying to satisfy his lust for Margaret (frequent Cook and Moore collaborator Eleanor Bron), but Spiggott twists his words to frustrate any consummation of desire. On the last occasion, he reincarnates Stanley as a nun in a convent: whilst being specific about nearly every other aspect of the wish, he had forgotten to specify his gender and vocation.
Spiggott fills the time between these episodes with acts of minor vandalism and spite, incompetently assisted by the personification of the seven deadly sins, most memorably Lust (Raquel Welch).
Meanwhile, Margaret finds the noose from Stanley's suicide attempt, as well as his suicide note, and accompanies a police inspector looking for signs of Stanley's corpse. The police inspector also seems to be interested in seducing Margaret, and is dismayed by Margaret's sudden interest in Stanley after his disappearance. He is a largely amoral character who searches for evidence of Stanley's suicide only so he can console and seduce Margaret.
Ultimately, Spiggott spares Stanley eternal damnation out of pity (and because he has exceeded his quota of 100 billion), and Stanley returns to his old job, wiser and more clear-sighted.
Spigott meanwhile is interviewed by God, rejected again. In the closing scene, Spiggott threatens revenge on God by unleashing all the tawdry and shallow technological curses of the modern age: All right, you great git, you've asked for it. I'll cover the world in Tastee-Freez and Wimpy Burgers.
[edit] The wishes
Most (and arguably all) of the wishes that George grants to Stanley take the form of pocket universes or alternate realities.[citation needed] In these realities, Margaret's personality is perverted or distorted in some way, while George is also altered, appearing as a piece of background or a foil to Stanley's plans. Stanley's personality is distorted, much like Margaret's, though he is conscious of the fact that he is solipsistically living out one of his wishes.
- Stanley wishes to be more "articulate". George turns him into a talkative and somewhat pretentious intellectual. Margaret becomes an equally pretentious character, and enthusiastically agrees with all of Stanley's beliefs. They visit the zoo, where they encounter George collecting donations for "the Society for the Advancement of Depraved Criminals". Then they catch the bus back to Stanley's apartment. Stanley discusses Freud and Rousseau with Margaret, and, with the intent of seducing her, stresses the importance of breaking free from one's social and moral constraints. Sexual tension develops between them when they relax in Stanley's apartment, with Margaret becoming seemingly aroused by Stanley's music collection and the fabric of his woven tie. However, even though she agrees with Stanley that people must act on their sexual desires, she begins screaming when he tries to initiate sexual intercourse, suggesting that she doesn't live by the values that she claims to believe in.
- In this wish, Stanley is a "multi-millionare" and Margaret is his "very physical" wife. Unfortunately, she has no more sexual interest in Stanley than in the past wish, and constantly flirts with her well-built music teacher, Randolph. Stanley is slowly tortured by her flirtations, and eventually snaps when he catches her with George.
- In the third wish, Stanley is a rock star. However, his fame is short lived, and is usurped by a newcomer called "Drimble Wedge and the Vegetation" (George). Margaret becomes a vapid and excitable groupie.
- Stanley becomes a fly-on-the-wall in a morgue, where the inspector is showing Margaret various dead bodies, hoping that she will identify one as Stanley. Stanley is injured by a can of fly spray, and exits the wish.
- George promises Stanley a wish where he has a quiet life in the countryside, with children playing in the front yard of his house, and Margaret making the anniversary dinner. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Margaret is actually George's wife, and that she is having an illicit affair with Stanley, who is George's best student. Both Stanley and Margaret feel guilty about having an affair behind George's back, and they are unable to have sex.
- Stanley attempts to dictate a wish that George cannot ruin, and wishes that he and Margaret were two pious people who lived in isolation from the "false glitter" of the big city and would always be together. Because Stanley doesn't specify the gender he wants to be in the wish, George turns him into a nun named Sister Luna (a play on Moon, Stanley's surname). He encounters Margaret, who has a lesbian attraction towards him/her.
- It is revealed that Stanley has already wished for his seventh wish. Before signing the contract, George offers him any wish to prove that he is the Devil. Stanley wishes for a Frobisher and Gleeson Raspberry Ice Lolly. However, he is unaware that this counts as a wish until he is unable to escape his 6th wish.
[edit] Reception
Roger Ebert, in a review written early in his career, compared the film's humor to that of Bob and Ray. He called Bedazzled's satire "barbed and contemporary[,...] dry and understated" and overall, a "magnificently photographed, intelligent, very funny film."[1]
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it a "pretentiously metaphorical picture" which becomes "awfully precious and monotonous and eventually ... fags out in sheer bad taste."[2] Crowther does compliment Donen for his "colorful and graphic" mise-en-scène.[2]
[edit] Cultural effects
 |
This section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the talk page for details.(March 2008) |
Films exploiting and celebrating the social and economic freedoms of the so-called swinging 60s were common, but Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's comedy attempted to both amuse and to reassert the Faust legend's caveats about greed and sexual passion. The film is loosely based on Marie Corelli's The Sorrows of Satan.
[edit] Missing scene
At least one sequence did not make it into the final film, and it is unclear as to whether it even went before the cameras, although the scene is in a draft of the script held in the British Film Institute Library.[citation needed]
Before the opening titles, Stanley Donen was to sit in a director's chair and address the audience, expressing anger at having been signed-up to direct such a trivial piece. Donen then claims to have had a change of heart and is about to present us with a more worthy piece. Spiggott then rose from behind the chair, leaned forward, and murmurred in Donen's ear, "Just think of the money, Stanley..." The scene then segues in the film's opening credits.
[edit] Quotes
 |
This section is a candidate to be copied to Wikiquote using the Transwiki process. If the content can be changed to be more encyclopedic rather than just a list of quotes, please do so and remove this message. Otherwise, you can help by formatting it per the Wikiquote guidelines in preparation for the duplication. |
- George Spiggott:
- "Do hope this isn't an awkward moment." (After walking in on someone who has performed a failed suicide attempt)
- "You fill me with inertia." (spoken as musical performer Drimble Wedge)
- "What terrible sins I have working for me. I suppose it's the wages."
- [to Lust] "Pick your clothes up. You're due down at the Foreign Office."
- [offering anything in exchange for Stanley's soul ] "What would you like to be? Prime Minister? Oh no, wait, I've already signed that deal."
- "There was a time when I used to get lots of ideas... I thought up the Seven Deadly Sins in one afternoon. The only thing I've come up with recently is advertising."
- "It's the standard contract. Gives you seven wishes in accordance with the mystic rules of life. Seven Days of the Week, Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Seas, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers..." (also directed by Donen)
- [To a pigeon about to fly over a man] "Release your doo-dahs"
- "You realize that suicide's a criminal offense. In less enlightened times, they'd have hung you for it."
- "Suicide, really — that's the last thing you should try."
- [During a conversation about politics, a character with a severe speech impediment struggles to express a thought. Spiggot replies dismissively...] "Well, that's easy for you to say."
- "In the words of Marcel Proust — and this applies to any woman in the world — if you can stay up and listen with a fair degree of attention to whatever garbage, no matter how stupid it is, that they're coming out with, till ten minutes past four in the morning... you're in!"
- [Regarding last minute repentance ]"I lost Mussolini that way, all that work, then right at the end with the rope around his neck, he says, 'Scusi. Mille regretti,' and up he goes!"
- Stanley Moon:
- [reading Faustian contract] "I, Stanley Moon, hereinafter and in the hereafter to be known as 'The Damned' — The damned?!"
[edit] References
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008) |
- ^ Review of Bedazzled, from Roger Ebert, published January 30, 1968
- ^ a b The Screen: Son of Seven Deadly Sins: Bedazzled, by Moore and Cook, a December 11, 1967 review from The New York Times
|
||||||||
