This scene from What’s Up, Doc? recently came up on Facebook and, delightfully, everyone started filling up the comments section with quotes only from this scene. The whole movie is quotable (I should know, I know it by heart), but this scene is a particular slam-dunk.
“Is that clear?”
“No, but it’s consistent!”
“Don’t touch me, I’m a doctor.”
“Of what?”
“Music.”
“Can you fix a hi-fi?”
“No, sir.”
“Then SHADDUP.”
his face while taking his blue pill -saying “I don’t know, they’re afraid to tell me…” is priceless
I love it when he goes, totally defeated, “I think I want to skip over this part, too.”
Nooo! I’ve been reading your blog for a few months, since stumbling on it quite by accident. I’m amazed by the depth of your insights, and their easy personalization, but more so by the fact that it’s DAILY. Impressive. The other day, though, I winced a little when you called the scene you posted from My Man Godfrey (an obviously great movie) one of the funniest scenes ever put on film, or some such. Fun scene, absolutely… but funniest? I let it go. Then I see this post, and my faith is officially shaken. I saw the movie recently and was less than overwhelmed by it, but forgave it for at least attempting to recall the greatness of its forebears. But wouldn’t you know, it was this very scene that I felt like brought the proceedings to a neck-stiffening halt. Everything about it: the flat shooting, the blunt editing, the broad performances and jokes (broader even than the rest of the movie), all fell super flat. I got the feeling that the movie might’ve met a Wellesian fate — that somebody other than PB came in to shoot the end. It was that shoehorned in to me.
I know… to each his own. And to each his definition of what is funny. For me, this wasn’t it. I still love your blog, but methinks we diverge on comedies.
Don’t let your “faith be shaken” in someone because their opinion differs from yours in matters of art.
I have been laughing about the courtroom scene, almost non-stop, since I first saw it when I was 10 years old and my parents let me and my brother stay up late to see What’s Up Doc. I roar throughout the entire movie, but that judge, that portrayal of that judge … is one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life, and it has tickled my funny bone for decades now.
“They tried to molest me,” says Eunice.
“That’s ……. unbelievable,” replies the Judge.
Carlo becoming a gorilla as the whole family goes batshit crazy in My Man Godfrey hits my funny bone at just the sweetest spot possible – and it does so in a way that never ever gets old. It actually gets funnier with repetition, very rare indeed. To me, that is why it is one of the funniest scenes ever filmed. Because, hell, it makes ME howl every time I see it. Good enough for me!
I don’t relate to other people’s opinions in that way, I guess. I suppose if someone said “I think Stalin was a really cool dude,” THEN my “faith might be shaken”, but if someone I like, whose writing I like, suddenly comes out and says they love a movie I don’t like – or declares that they adore a writer I don’t admire, I find it INTERESTING, rather than disorienting or faith-shaking. I would find it weird if you suddenly didn’t “love my blog” because I thought What’s Up Doc was funny.
But that’s just me.
If I had to be on a desert island and could only bring 5 movies, What’s Up Doc would be one of them. I can recite the entire thing by heart, and that still doesn’t matter. It brings me deep pleasure every time I watch it. Maybe you would pick different movies for your desert island list, and I guess I find that interesting rather than odd or faith-shaking.
“My faith is officially shaken”: perhaps a Buck Henry-ish irony? Never meant that to be taken literally. And oh yes! I have movies that no one can understand why I like them, whether comedy or drama. It’s one of the things that makes being a film lover an endless source of conversation. Of course, I’ll continue to read your blog, though your WUD love will probably remain… interesting… to me.
By the way, your recent post on “Who Am I This Time?” caught my eye — as a Vonnegut fan. Didn’t know that production existed. Your enthusiasm alone was enough to make me instant view it on the spot. Not an actor, but I know several, and it was right on the money. Great, quiet, true.
hahaha It’s like me thinking Manhattan Murder Mystery is one of Woody Allen’s best. I remain staunch in my opinion because that movie just PLEASES me on a deep level, and always has … but many people are like, “Huh??”
Comedy is such a weird thing. What is it that hits one person one way and doesn’t hit another? I never get sick of pies-in-the-face, for example. I don’t care how many times I see it, even if it’s on a Brady Bunch episode, I laugh out loud. It appears to be genetic.
Oh, Who Am I This Time … what a magical production!! So glad you got to see it. I have never read the Vonnegut story, have you?
I had only read the story a few weeks before your post, so it was a bit of kismet there. I’d say the PBS production does it better than justice.
I’ve been defending Woody Allen movies my whole life. And slapstick. Pies in the face: not the most obvious art, but when done right, something primal is scratched. Puns, pratfalls, your various and sundry schticks — I’m a sucker for ’em. (All this makes me think I should give WUD a second chance…)
Total kismet – that is so bizarre about the Vonnegut timing!
What’s Up Doc, for me, is so wrapped up in childhood that I have zero distance with it. There are, I believe, three pies in the face in What’s Up Doc – and they ALL hit Kenneth Mars in a 25 second period. Hysterical!!
This is literally one of the funniest scenes, certainly in 1970s cinema, and anyone who claims otherwise isn’t worth knowing.