A Fish Called Wanda
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| A Fish Called Wanda | |
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 A Fish Called Wanda movie poster |
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| Directed by | Charles Crichton |
| Produced by | Michael Shamberg |
| Written by | John Cleese Charles Crichton |
| Starring | John Cleese Jamie Lee Curtis Kevin Kline Michael Palin Maria Aitken Tom Georgeson |
| Music by | John Du Prez |
| Cinematography | Alan Hume |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) |
| Release date(s) | July 15, 1988 |
| Running time | 108 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
A Fish Called Wanda is an acclaimed comedy film released in 1988 by MGM. It was written by John Cleese and Charles Crichton and directed by Charles Crichton, and stars Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin.
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[edit] Plot
The film is a comedy about a jewel heist, planned by George Thomason (played by Tom Georgeson), and its aftermath. George's right-hand man is Ken Pile (Michael Palin), an animal lover with a bad stutter. They bring in two Americans, an alluring con artist, Wanda Gershwitz (Jamie Lee Curtis) and a "weapons man", Otto West (Kevin Kline), who fancies himself an intellectual but, as most of the other characters keep pointing out, is "just stupid" (even though he hates being called stupid). Wanda and Otto are lovers pretending to be siblings so that Wanda can work her charms on George and Ken.
The robbery is executed with perfect precision. After the robbery, however, Wanda and Otto betray George to the police. They belatedly learn that George has moved the loot to a new hiding spot in a public locker and will not reveal its location. Ken is hiding the key, but Wanda sees him doing so and takes it. Wanda decides that the best way to get the information is by seducing George's lawyer, Archie Leach (the legal name of Cary Grant) (John Cleese), a man stuck in a loveless marriage to a rich shrew of a woman (Maria Aitken). Otto, in the meantime, deflects Ken's suspicions about Otto and Wanda's true relationship by pretending to be a homosexual attracted to Ken, who still doesn't trust him.
Wanda almost manages to seduce Archie, but their first romantic evening is interrupted by Archie's wife Wendy and daughter Portia returning unexpectedly early. Wanda loses her locket in which she had hidden the locker key. Wendy, on finding it, assumes it is a present to her and keeps it. Archie's second meeting with Wanda is interrupted by the jealous Otto, who then dangles Archie out of the window to get him to apologise for having called him stupid. Wanda persuades Otto to apologise to Archie. Otto drives to Archie's house, where he finds Archie (in disguise) staging a burglary to get the locket back. Not recognising Archie, Otto knocks him out and ties him up. Wendy finds him, but Archie manages to hide the locket from her. A third meeting between Archie and Wanda is interrupted by a family entering the flat where they meet, having just leased it. After that, Archie decides to end their relationship, leaving Wanda to realize that she is truly in love with him.
Meanwhile, Ken is charged by George to silence a key witness, an old lady named Mrs. Eileen Coady (Patricia Hayes) who owns three Yorkshire Terriers. In his attempts to assassinate her, Ken instead accidentally kills the dogs one by one, to his great dismay. The first is killed when Ken releases a Doberman Pinscher attack dog on Mrs. Coady while she is walking her pets. The second is squashed by Ken's car, when he was trying to hit Mrs Coady. Mrs. Coady has funerals for the Yorkies, at which choirboys sing "miserere domine, canis mortuus est," which is Latin for "Lord have mercy, the dog is dead.". Following the death of her last little dog (crushed by a falling concrete block in Ken's most outlandish and cartoon-like assassination attempt), the woman dies of a heart attack.
Without Mrs. Coady, the only serious evidence against George is gone. In an attempt to keep him in jail, Wanda blows his alibi to smithereens in court, by revealing that he left the apartment on the day of the robbery with a sawn-off shotgun. Archie, who is cross-examining her, accidentally reveals their relationship by calling Wanda "darling". He learns from George that Ken knows where the loot is hidden and drives to the flat with Wanda.
But Otto has begun torturing Ken, first by putting chips doused in ketchup up his nostrils, and then gagging him with a pear, finally threatening to eat alive his tropical fish (among which is an angel fish called Wanda). He does so, ignoring Ken's pleas. When only Wanda is left, Ken finally reveals the hide-out of the loot and that of the key. But the key is already in Wanda (the woman)'s possession, so Ken has to watch helplessly as Otto eats Wanda (the fish).
When Archie and Wanda arrive at the flat, Otto gets into Archie's car and drives off with Wanda. Archie has a hard time trying to get the location of the locker out of Ken, because of his stutter. They finally rush after Otto and Wanda to the airport.
Wanda knocks Otto out, tries to call Archie, and gets on the plane with the loot. Archie finds Otto and threatens him with his own gun. However, Otto tricks Archie into putting the gun down. He takes Archie outside the terminal, forces him to climb into a barrel full of waste oil and is about to shoot him, when Ken arrives driving a steamroller. Otto, not paying attention, actually steps into some fresh cement and finds himself stuck. Ken rolls over him, clearing up his speech impediment out of the rush of confidence at having disposed of his enemy. Wanda and Archie fly off into the sunset. George is left in jail. Ken is arrested by converging police. Otto appears at the airplane window but is blown off the plane as it takes off.
A final note explains that each person had a happy ending. Otto became Justice Minister for South Africa (when it was still an international pariah due to apartheid and enforced the death penalty); Archie and Wanda married, had seventeen children and founded a leper colony in Rio; and Ken happened to become Master of Ceremonies at the London Aquarium.
[edit] Reception
The film was a major critical and commercial success when it was released and has remained a popular favourite since.[citation needed] Kline received wide acclaim and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work.[1] Cleese and Crichton received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted A Fish Called Wanda the 37th greatest comedy film of all time. In 2004 the same magazine named it the 41st greatest British film of all time. In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked the film 21st on its list of the 100 funniest movies ever made. This film is number 27 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". It is also included in the Reader's Digest list of the "100 Funniest Films" (a list rather than a ranking). A Fish Called Wanda was one of only 24 movies to be named on all three of the A.F.I., Bravo and Readers' Digest "top 100 funniest" lists.[citation needed] The movie also garnered an impressive and rare 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
[edit] Followup
The principal cast reunited in 1997 for Fierce Creatures (dubbed an "equal," rather than a sequel or prequel, by Cleese), playing different roles and meeting less success.
[edit] References
- ^ "Awards Database," Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved from http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=1173727436268 on 2007-03-12.
[edit] External links
