As part of the Indieweb movie club for March, I watched the 1972 film What’s Up Doc?.
I hadn’t heard of this movie before but I ended up having a lot of fun with it. If you don’t mind silly older commedies, then I definitely recommend giving this a watch.
The film is billed as a screwball comedy starring Barbara Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. That’s really all you need to know going into it. I was surprised to learn however, a “screwball comedy” is actually a very specific sub-genre of romantic commedies dating back to it’s peak during the 1940s. After reading a bit more about it, I realized that this film is a fun homage to the genre and I recognized several of the common tropes such as a “one-sided courtship”, crazy coincidences, and a classic chase scene to name a few.
Part of the appeal of watching older movies for me these days, is the glimpse into simpler times they can offer. For instance, certain gags were almost certainly more impactful back then, such as the sheet of glass crossing the street, or the car chase down the winding Lombard street. But I found it fascinating to seem them played straight for a change.
Despite this I still found myself laughing quite a bit. It was also fun to watch with my mom, a long-time fan of Streisand (a streis-head?), who regaled me with her memories of movies from this time period such as Ryan O’Neal’s prior film “Love Story” — which I otherwise wouldn’t have realized was being poked fun at with the ending line of this movie.
So all in all, if you feel like you could use some light-hearted laughs, I recommend it.