MOVIE: What's Up Doc?

Time for an unlikely blast from the past. Now, I feel that in the spirit of honesty I need to state that right off the bat that Barbra Streisand is in the movie. Pleasedon'trunawaysheonlysingsonceandthesceneisnotthatimportantsoyoucanskipitifyouwant!

Still there? Good.

The 1972 film, What's Up, Doc?, is slapstick comedy at it's most intelligent. The genre is pretty much dead, and for good reason, but with this movie, we see why it had its charm.

Directed by Peter Bogdanovich and also starring Ryan O'Neal as a nervous and awkward "musicologist," Dr. Howard Bannister, with a bag full of his precious igneous rocks, the story becomes a who knows what, has what, heard who say what to whom, switcheroo. Streisand's Judy, who looks surprisingly like a young Jennifer Aniston, plays a woman who has been in and out of many colleges for short attempts at many degrees.

One mishap turns in to another which rolls into a third until the entire cast is wrapped up in one messy ball of wax. A scene at musicologist's banquet in which Judy, against Howard's wishes, posses as his fiance in an attempt to win him a $20,000 grant is especially humorous. A turn of events that results in a fire in a hotel room will also cause you to laugh out loud.

With all it's got going against it - Streisand, slap-stick, 70's chic styling - this movie is bound to become a favorite...if you can find it.

Sergio del Limonar