At Long Last Love (1975)

John Barbour, Los Angeles, said it all: "If this Peter Bogdanovich fiasco were any more of a dog, it would shed."

Even Burt Reynolds, star of this musical (You heard me! Burt in a Musical!!), said, "I think we bombed!!"

Here's the plot in a nutshell (sigh):

Michael Oliver Pritchard III (Reynolds) playfully hangs from the door of his Rolls Royce. Car stops. Pritchard falls off and lands on Broadway singer-commedienne Kitty O'Kelley (Madeline Kahn). They fall in love.

Johnny Spanish (famous singer Duilio Del Prete... Don't ask... don't know him, either) is an Italian card shark (named 'Spanish'!??) who and sing on key and is obsessed with Little Orphan Annie and meets Brooke Carter (Cybill Shepherd), a spoiled heiress, at a racetrack and gives her a ride home. (Whew! Get all that?) She can't sing on key either, so they fall in love.

Kitty (Madeline Kahn) and Brooke (Shepherd... remember?) went to school together and run into each other at one of Kitty's performances. Everyone meets everyone else and they decide to have a party at Prichard's mansion where Brooke's maid (Eileen Brennan) meets Prichard's chauffeur-butler (John Hillerman). They fall in love.

Prichard likes Brooke more than Kelley. They fall in love.

Kelley likes Johnny more than Prichard. They fall in love.

The End.

Peter Bogdanovich was the man who brought us such exquisite and delightful movies as Paper Moon, The Last Picture Show, and What's Up Doc?. He was well-known in Hollywood as being the master of deliberate imitation, capturing the old styles and formats of films gone by. One sadly-neglected film format (not done since 1932) was to record all the musical numbers 'live'. With 16 Cole Porter songs and plenty of dancing (including a raucous number by Shepherd, Kahn and Brennan in a ladies' 'powder room'), Bogdanovich worked closely with the cast and technicians to make it all work. In post production, he over-saw the editing and supervised the orchestral dubbings. Time well wasted!

Written, produced and directed by Bogdanovich, we are regaled with such cinematic gems as this:

PRICHARD: What time is it, Rod?
RODNEY: Six, sir.
PRICHARD: Six?
RODNEY: Six.
PRICHARD: Ummmm. I'm sick of six.
RODNEY: Sir?
PRICHARD: Why isn't it seven? Or even eight?
RODNEY: Well, it was just five recently, sir, and six comes before seven. And eight.
PRICHARD: Oh, yes. I suppose there's a logic to that somewhere. But it's too tiring to think about.

Let's hope that it's another 43 years before anyone else tries this stunt!