Hello Down There

Hello Down There
June 25, 1969
Paramount
Comedy, Musical, Sci-Fi, Action
VHS
B+

No, I didn't grow up with this one, but I wish I had.  Even discovering it in my early 20s, I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing, and I still don't.  It's not exactly a kids' movie, too much drug humor and sex humor, although pretty mild by post-1972 standards.  And, yet, just like Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady?, it could pass for a '60s sitcom pilot if you squint a bit.  I mean, look at this cast!  Tony Randall, Ken Berry (as Randall's rival), Arnold Stang (as Berry's stupider [!] assistant, and like in Skidoo he dies, or at least his character is left for dead and forgotten), Jim Backus (Howelling up a storm as Randall's boss), Backus's wife as a concerned parent,  Charlotte Rae (as a wacky maid, there's a stretch), Harvey Lembeck (as a radar technician), Merv Griffin as himself, Janet Leigh, Richard Dreyfuss-- wait a minute.  Janet Leigh and Richard Dreyfuss?  What are they doing here?  Well, like everyone else, they are both embarrassing themselves and playing to their strengths, respectively screaming and being sarcastic.

This was an Ivan Tors production, so we get a lot of shots of dolphins and other sea critters frolicking around the underwater home that Randall, wife Leigh, forgettable blond kids, and the kids' friends (Dreyfuss and the comic relief one named Marvin) live in for somewhere between two weeks and thirty days.  (The movie ends in media res, with Navy parachutists attacking.)  The house is called the Green Onion, even though it's white, so the band that the teens are in is renamed from Harold and His Hang-Ups to, yes, the Green Onion.  There's also an orange submarine that becomes yellow.  Continuity is not this movie's strong point, as seen in the fact that Leigh's character is established as a writer (of Forty Nights in a Harem), and then this is forgotten for over an hour.

The script is co-written by Tors, Art Arthur (who also co-wrote Birds Do It), and a couple other people.  The director is Jack Arnold, who did a lot of TV, including Gilligan's Island.  Obviously, this adds to the TV feel.  But in an attempt to be more contemporary than television, we get McDowall sort of reprising his Tony Krum character in The Cool Ones, this time as "boy millionaire" record producer Nate Ashbury.  (I never said this movie was subtle.)  As in The Cool Ones, there's a computer that determines the potential success of a rock band, this time one that's operated by Catwoman: Lee Meriwether as a miniskirted computer scientist.  The songs are, well, wonderful, in an absolutely cheesy way.  Not only are they worthy of the Archies, but they're quite obviously lip-synced (except for Randall's serenade of Leigh).  No wonder Rae, who drinks tonic that she worries is spiked with LSD, can't resist shaking her groove thang.

I'm still marveling over the cast.  I mean, there's a moment where Merv Griffin translates McDowall's hip slang for Backus, and they're not even the ones stealing the scene.  A couple less familiar faces:  Jay Laskay, Philo here, was Willie in Birds Do It; Janine King, age unknown, plays a crying baby and would turn up as a carnival patron in Scavenger Hunt.

This is, incidentally, the 100th comedy I've reviewed, although I'll admit my genre tags are somewhat arbitrary.  Clearly, this one isn't just a comedy, but, man, is it hilarious!