MOVIE REVIEW: THE YOUNG DOCTORS

THE YOUNG DOCTORS (1961)
dir: Phil Karlson

MOVIE REVIEW: THE YOUNG DOCTORS
Sick #10, December 1961
author unknown

The is the last of the movie reviews. I only say this because it's peoples' least favorite part of this blog according to my portal.

JUNE UPDATE 1: A HARD DAY'S HELP

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964)
dir: Richard Lester

When they say “Off-Beatle”, they really mean it. None of them look like the actual Beatles. They took everybody by surprise when they came to America and revived what was assumed a dead genre outside of cities, and I guess Jack Davis and the staff of Sick thought the Beatles would be just a passing fad and by 1966 nobody would remember them. Boy, were they wrong.

MOVIE SPOOF: A HARD DAY'S NIGHT
Sick #33, December 1964
w: Paul Laikin

It's funny they say “staff writer” as if to imply there's a bunch of people who work in an office together when it was just a cubicle where one person probably put several magazines together.

Jake Ehrlich=celebrity fixer/lawyer. Xavier Cugat=Cuban bandleader. C. Aubrey Smith=British cricket player. Jean Hersholt=silent matinee idol. Percy Kilbride and Maria Ouspenskaya=character actors who were old. Shelley Berman=more known now for Curb Your Enthusiasm was once popular stand-up comic.

Frankie Darro=child actor

Tommy Manville=socialite with 13 marriages

Willie Sutton=bank robber. The movies mentioned were known for being inconsequential.

MAD had many references to the Beatles over the years. This was a poster they had as an insert in MAD Super Special #25 in 1978, eight years after they broke up. Did the MAD staff think they were a new thing?

Most of the jokes about them were about their hair. This was a parody of the Breck shampoo ads that had paintings of famous models from the 30s to the 60s. The back cover of MAD #90 in October 1964.

Frank Frazetta only did a few jobs for them and they wanted him to be a regular but they could never work a deal about keeping the original art (contributors were able to just send digital files towards the end). Had he become one of the “usual gang of idiots” he might not have been known for his fantasy art.

Other jokes about the Beatles were just about their name.

More articles from the issue of Sick I showed the cover for at the beginning of this post.

The centerspread for this issue reads more like something you'd read in a fan magazine than something you'd see in a humor magazine.

Back cover for that issue.

Probably a coincidence they were bald for the cover of Help!

Probably also a coincidence the Beatles' next movie was called Help!

National Lampoon did a whole issue dedicated to The Beatles.

The grandfather wasn't actually reading Sick in the movie like above, but they very well couldn't use the photo of their manager with the competition.

MOVIE REVIEW: THE WILD ROVERS

WILD ROVERS (1971)
dir: Blake Edwards

MOVIE REVIEW: THE WILD ROVERS
Sick #87, November 1971
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)

MOVIE SPOOF: THE WICKED DREAMS OF PAULA SCHULTZ

THE WICKED DREAMS OF PAULA SCHULTZ (1968)
dir: George Marshall

MOVIE SPOOF
Sick #62, August 1968
w: Bill Majeski

Sorry everything's all scrunched up. It's all I could find on YouTube. Well, there are a couple other things. Another copy of the whole movie's there, but the link's only been there a year and I don't trust any links to stay if they've been up less than two years. There's also the opening titles on my own web page, which contains mostly animated sequences from movies. (Suggestions always welcome, but do a search to make sure they're not already there first). Almost everything I've posted a spoof of is on YouTube for that matter, the catch is they charge money, and I ain't payin' fer nuthin'.

WHO IN HECK IS VIRGINIA WOOLFE?

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966)
dir: Mike Nichols

WHO IN HECK IS VIRGINIA WOOLFE?
MAD #109, March 1967
w: Larry Siegel
a: Mort Drucker

Called that because the some of characters sing it to the tune of Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?, but just its meter, probably because they couldn't get the rights, as if it's the funniest thing they ever heard. It had an adults only warning when it was released theatrically before there was a rating system, though by today's standards there's nothing particularly dirty other than their behavior and somebody being called “angel boobs”. It had to pass MAD's ratings, which is why they used 'heck' instead of 'hell' in the title.

George (Richard Burton) and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) are a forty-ish married couple coming back from a faculty party late at night drunk and as soon as they get home they start sparring verbally and going through wild mood swings,fighting, making up, being passive-aggressive, loving, then yelling at each other again.

Martha neglected to tell George she invited Nick (George Segal) and Honey (Sandy Dennis). He's a much younger professor who was also at the party and she's his wife. They see the fighting and don't really want to be there, but now George insists they stay for drinks and some games.

Honey goes upstairs to the bathroom to freshen up and Martha joins her, leaving the men alone. Nick talks about his job as a biology professor, and George keeps forgetting whether the subject is biology or history. When Honey and Martha come down, Honey asks about the son Martha mentioned while they were gone, which George says he doesn't want to talk about. The subject of their son keeps coming up again. George disappears into the garage, gets out a rifle, shoots at them all and scares them, but it turns out to be a joke gun and an umbrella comes out, then they all laugh. The younger couple also get drunk, Honey can't handle her liquor, and throws up.

They all decide to call it a night. George and Martha drive them home, but they stop at a bar because the women want to go dancing. Honey dances but suddenly doesn't like the music and sits down. Nick and Martha dance together. They all drink and fight some more with Martha belittling George for being a failed author.

Martha takes off abandoning George by the side of the road, returns home to find Honey asleep in the car, and suspects Martha and Nick have gone off together. Martha is just belittling Nick, making him do chores, calling him “houseboy”, and he just wants to leave.

Martha brings up their son again, who she says is coming home from boarding school to celebrate his birthday, but George tells her he died in a car accident and that he ate the telegram that informed them. It's revealed that the son never existed and the “games” they were playing were about who could humiliate each other the most in front of the guests. George had to kill the son off to punish Martha for letting out their secret, and the son was made up to keep their marriage together. Nick and Honey decide it's finally time to leave.

Benny Hill did a parody of the movie.

MOVIE SPOOF
Sick #51, March 1967
w: Bill Majeski

WHO IS HARRY KELLERMAN AND WHY IS HE SAYING THOSE TERRIBLE THINGS ABOUT ME?

WHO IS HARRY KELLERMAN AND WHY IS HE SAYING THOSE TERRIBLE THINGS ABOUT ME? (1971)
dir: Ulu Grosbard
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The last of the movies with long names that started with Dr, Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, then continued with Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad and Can Hieronymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?.

SICK MOVIE REVIEW
Sick #89, March 1972
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)

EAST SIDE STORY

WEST SIDE STORY (1961)
dir: Robert Wise

The Broadway musical that became a movie (and remade a couple years ago) was parodied a few times. The premise, based on Romeo and Juliet, about members of two rival gangs falling in love, lent itself to the issues of other then-current rivalries.

EAST SIDE STORY
MAD #78, April 1963
w: Frank Jacobs
a: Mort Drucker

When Mort Drucker died a few years ago, this was cited as one of the pieces he was the most proud of. Instead of the Sharks and the Jets in a pre-gentrified Upper West Side, the backdrop is the newly-founded United Nations and the leaders of the Western World versus leaders of Eastern bloc countries. Here we have Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia, Wladyslaw Gomolka of Poland, and Fidel Castro of Cuba among other communist nations representing a gang led by Nikita Kruschev. A lot of the world leaders aren't likenesses of anyone in partocular.

The Western nations are a gang led by JFK that included Charles DeGaulle of France and Harold MacMillan of the United Kingdom,

Barry Goldwater is in the Western gang as well.

WEST COAST STORY
MAD #142, April 1971
w: Frank Jacobs
a: Jack Davis

With campus protests in the news just this week, this article is another example of history repeating itself.

CURLYLOCKS AND THE THREE HOODS
Sick #12, March 1962

BEST SIDE STORY
Not Brand Ecch #6, February 1968
w: Gary Friedrich
a: Tom Sutton

This takes on the rivalry between Marvel and DC (or “Distinguished Competition” as Marvel called them). Dr. Strange and Wonder Woman fall in love.

Leonard Bernstein composed the music for West Side Story.