Bedazzled stars Dudley Moore as Stanley Moon, a sadsack short-order cook at Wimpy's. He is mooning over waitress Margaret Spenser, played by Elizabeth Bron, last seen as the sacrifice in Help!. He is getting ready to kill himself, when a devilishly handsome Peter Cook walks in and offers him seven wishes in return for his soul. The first wish: an ice lolly, which the devil buys him after borrowing a sixpence.
His next wish is much better. Moon wants to be able to talk to Margaret, and devil gives a powerful
gift of persuausion. He has Margaret hanging on every word. They have a fantastic 60's pseudo-intellectual date, talking about man's animal nature, the beauty of Bartok, and how wonderful it is to just close your eyes and touch things. What they don't do is make out. The devil only gave him the power to talk, not act.
And so it goes, with Moon getting his wish, and the devil poisoning it, putting in a little trap. He explains that God gave him this task, and if he gets 1 billion souls before God does, he can go back to the Lord's side. In general, he seems like quite a nice guy, more friendly and sympathetic to Stanley than anyone has ever been. Oh evil, too, but you've just got to understand him.
The movie was directed by Stanley Donen (Singing in the Rain) in 1967. It has a nice swinging 60's feel without getting too trippy. Some fancy lenswork, some incidental flowerpeople, a couple of pop-rock numbers, it looks surprisingly undated. The musical numbers are particularly nice, with Dudley Moore doing creditably well in an emo number, and Peter Cook doing a cold Soft Cell style number about how bored he is,under the name Dremble Wedge.
Ths movie was remade in 2000 by Harold Ramis with Brendan Fraser as Moon and Elizabeth Hurley as the devil. It doesn't get a lot of critical love, but I liked it fine. It had a very similar feel, with the devil a quite sympathetic character. It makes the theological point clearer as well - the devil tempts you for a purpose.
In conclusion: Dremble Wedge!
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2 comments:
Do you do requests? This student of the cinema would like Bev's take on Hitchcock's "Frenzy." It might be my favorite Hitchcock film, even though it looks like it took only four maxed-out credit cards to produce. Very British. Bob's your uncle and all that.
Someone said it looked like it was done by a much younger filmmaker, not an old master near the end of his career. I think that's true.
What do you think, Bev? Queue it up?
Thanks for the suggestion Mr. S. Consider it fore-queued.
What? Fore-queue too?
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