I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now? (1975)

Hi, I'm Mark Kermode of the BBC. When not inexplicably getting paid to tell you what I thought about films, I like to trawl through my Mill Creek box sets for undiscovered gems. Today's film is I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now. I'm going to tell you about it now. Also, did you know it takes me five hours to get my quiff looking perfect?This horrifying and intriguing indictment of the exceptional angst arising from modern man's desire for material goods may superficially present itself as a terribly unfunny comedy about a man trying to call off a hit on his wife, but there's so much more going on here. Also, I regularly knock one out to recorded images of myself reviewing films. I'm that good. Take for instance the Caucasian actor who is pretending to be an Indian (like I pretend to know more about films than you do). This is clearly a metaphor for Hollywood's insecurities regarding the rise of the Bollywood film, and paves the way for Fisher Stevens' similar role in Short Circuit. We all know now that the irony was that Fisher himself was a white guy being played by an actual Indian actor (Fishinder Stevdeep), but I'm sure at the time this was a sincere gesture on the screenwriter's part. Like I'm sincere when spouting complete garbage for BBC viewers waiting to see the weather forecast.Also, gaze with somnambulent wonder at the multi-layered humour here. The fat jokes, the midget jokes, the transvestite jokes, all of these are cheeky, yet relevant predictions of the future. We are all now image obsessed, and the scene where the Bela Lugosi guy is trying to transplant an old woman's brain into a young woman's body raises not laughs, but the hairs on the back of one's neck. I keep jars of the drool that comes out of my mouth when appearing on the BBC and smear it on the stars I meet at premieres. For some reason. We are truly in the realm of Andy Kauffman's 'anti-comedy' here. You are not laughing at this film. This film is laughing at you. Like Fellini's Intervista, this is a subtle look at the entertainment industry and shouldn't be missed, just like my new book "You are incapable of having subjective opinions regarding films and therefore must rely of a self-important smug non-entity to tell you what films to like", Yours, Mark Kermode.P.S Does my quiff look stupid enough? I sniffed an old woman's underwear once. I'm Mark Kermode. Only I am qualified to tell you what films you should like. Also, I only have one testicle and it looks like a walnut. I'm Mark Kermode.

Oliver is a man in desperate need of money so he decides to have his rich wife killed off. To this end, he hires a man to assassinate her only to later have a change of heart. It turns out, though, that the murder has been sub-contracted downwards via a chain of men, with the price getting cheaper and cheaper. Oliver, therefore, amasses an ever increasing gang of oddballs and eccentrics in his mission to stop the murder he instigated.This silly screwball comedy stars a man with an impressively silly name, the (surely) one and only Bob Dishy. This is possibly the actual funniest aspect connected to this film though, as despite being a relentless farce, it isn't especially amusing. Its plot ensures that it is quite episodic in nature and this means that it's fairly fast paced which certainly helps a bit. While it isn't exactly a successful comedy, it is strange enough to be worth a viewing. It's sort of like a poor man's Mel Brooks, even if some of Mel Brooks' actual films sometimes seem like poor man's Mel Brooks films themselves. But the sheer daftness on display here is sort of endearing to a certain extent and, on the whole, I sort of didn't mind it all that much.

The mystery is how it could be so bad. The cast is a great collection of comic character actors of the 1970's. The writer has a top-notch resume filled with wonderful comic scripts, including his collaborations with Woody Allen (the early movies, when Woody Allen movies were funny), and the director isn't incompetent. There are even some good lines in the script. (One attempt on Joanna Barnes' life is introduced by a shot of a shark in a swimming pool, with a sign by the pool reading, "Acme Shark Rentals." Bob Dishy's psychiatrist is confined to a straight-jacket; Dishy asks him why, and the psychiatrist replies, "We can't all be fashion-plates.") But the result is a mess. The actors and the director seem to have responded to what they knew was a failing movie with desperation -- "maybe if we play this broader, louder, quirkier, more over-the-top, we can make it funny." They can't, and they don't.So what went wrong? The temptation, this having been a product of Hollywood in the 1970's, is to wonder who was on what drugs. If that isn't the explanation, I'd love to hear what was.

Apparently meant to be zany, this incredibly stupid film relates the predicament of "Oliver" (Bob Dishy) who, after being caught pilfering a quarter of a million from his employer, is given a chance, because his father founded the firm, to recompense that amount within 30 days in order to have charges dropped; however, when his wealthy wife, played by Joanna Barnes, informs him of her intention to obtain a divorce, thereby cutting off his income, Oliver arranges for a two-week, million dollar life insurance policy for his spouse with him as sole beneficiary, intending therefore to have her murdered, in this fashion solving his felonious fiscal problem. He then openly asks virtually anyone whom he sees if a payment of $25000 will purchase the murder of his wife, and finally locates a character named Bobo (Bill Dana) who agrees to take on the assignment, but when Oliver changes his mind he finds that Bobo has sub-contracted the hit to another who does the same and so on and on ad nauseum, while a flock of sub-contractors, in this poorly filmed, edited and acted affair, chase about in search of the final $6.95 assassin at the bottom of the barrel, where belongs this weakly episodic movie that is primarily composed of one-liners and gauche physical comedy that rarely is comic.