This one brings back a slew ton of memories...strangely, not many of my teenage friends were Nilsson fans, at least not like I was (although some of them thought "You're Breaking My Heart" was a hoot), but many of them had this LP! We all used to goof around and quote its dialogue at odd times. Problem was, when this film came out it had a limited release and never played where we lived, which drove me crazy...I didn't get to actually see it until 1998!
So what we have here, reminiscing aside, is a marvelous album containing some of Harry's top-shelf, a-list songs, along with some film dialogue, and the incredible ping-pong ball track which goes from left speaker to right speaker until it hits the floor and goes bouncing off into the aural distance. And it had a tres cool iron-on t-shirt transfer! Fortunately, I resisted the temptation to put mine on a shirt, so I've still got it...
But the movie itself is a incoherent, cheap-looking disaster which doesn't work either as a comedy or horror film. My love for Harry the musician and man knows no bounds, but he was no actor. Ringo gets by being, well, Ringo...certainly in Keanu Reeves' league at being a non-actor. That being said, it has a couple of things to its credit- it is one of the few times we ever got to see Nilsson perform "live", with an all-star band, and there's a cool scene where Harry Nilsson puts the bite on a nubile young thing to the accompaniment of T. Rex's "Chariot Choogle"...he puts the needle back on the record, and the record sports a T. Rex Wax Co. label, virtually unseen in the USA. That's was a kick for this Bolan fan...
So get the LP if you can, and borrow the movie if you can find it! It's worth watching at least once for any Nilsson fan. But you may not want to watch it twice...
(4.0 / 4.0)