Lord Love a Duck

Starring:Roddy McDowall, Tuesday Weld, Lola Albright, Martin West, Ruth Gordon, Harvey Korman, Sarah Marshall, Lynn Carey, Max Showalter, Donald Murphy, Joseph Mell, Dan Frazer, Martine Bartlett, Jo Collins, Judith Loomis, Gay Gordon, Vicki London, David Draper, Phyllis Davis, Jo Anne Loren
Director: George Axelrod
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Product Type: DVD

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The term "cult movie" might have been invented for this little-known satire. Lord Love a Duck was the directing debut of screenwriter George Axelrod, who wrote The Seven Year Itch and adapted Breakfast at Tiffany's. He displays little feel for directing, and the movie's ideas spray out in a dozen directions (academic absurdity, Drive-In Churches, psychoanalysis), yet the thing is so weird it becomes distinctive. Roddy McDowall and Tuesday Weld are the every-which-way nonconformists, and Weld leaves no doubt she was a movie star who understood exactly how silly movie stars were (maybe that's why she never broke through). Weld's character has a scene modeling cashmere sweaters for her father that's one of the loopiest Freudian pranks ever pulled in a movie. It never jells into something solid, but this film deserves a spot between The Loved One and The Knack on the shelf of 1960s pop satire. --Robert Horton

Description

You can't always get what you want unless, of course, you've got Alan "Mollymauk" Musgrave on your side! Featuring outstanding performances by Roddy McDowall, Tuesday Weld and a supporting cast that includes Lola Albright, Ruth Gordon and Harvey Korman, this "hilarious" (Variety) satire on teen excesses is "superbly comic" (Los Angeles Times)! With a special gift for manipulating the outcome of any situation, high-minded high schooler Mollymauk (McDowall) sets out to helpbeautiful new girl on campus Barbara Anne (Weld). Trouble is, Barbara Anne wants everything,and Mollymauk's "help" is making a mess out of everyone's livesincluding hers!

Customer Reviews:

What's It All About?.......2007-01-12

What's it all about? That's a good question. Perhaps the insignificance of our mercenary aspirations as we get older compared to just enjoying life when we are young and innocent is what director and writer George Axelrod had in mind. Roddy McDowall brilliantly plays the man of wisdom way beyond the youthful body that hosts his knowledge of what is truly important in our lives.

Flawed, Highly Recommended.......2005-07-07

Hey-hey-hey! This "crazy" film helped me stay sane. KTLA TV in Los Angeles used to play it on a semi-regular basis in the bleary-eyed hours of the morning. That's when Lord Love a Duck first did its magic and made me see the light. Of course, since then, it's been on VHS and DVD (with a bonus auto-bio on director George Axelrod), so now there's no excuse but to put aside everything and see this movie now.

Just off the top, there's nothing quite as satisfyingly bent as the father & daughter go cashmere sweater shopping sequence. It defies print. For that achievement alone I would give the film 5 stars! Fortunately though, there's lots more to appreciate.

As much as I LOVE "Love a Duck", it does have its flaws. The comic momentum sags a bit in the middle, especially the lead-up and suicide committed by Barbara Anne's mother. That's where the smart and darkly-styled comedy veers into staid drama. And mixed-genres do have way of going afoul (or a-FOWL, in this case). But this was Axelrod's first go as a director and there are way more gains than losses here. His anarchistic approach is, after all, consistent with the theme and persona of lead character Maulymuck, played by McDowall.

When discussing movies, I often recommend that people see this film and they almost never know what I'm talking about. Lord Love a Duck falls undeservedly off the radar. I think this is due to its unique but worthy quirks which seem to broadside people's expectations. How do you place LLAD in term of its' antecedents or influences on other films? --best not to. Its humor is spread subtly and not hung up on a single peg. It's not that easily "branded" -- the most overused buzz-word of the last decade.

The Lord Love a Duck soundtrack by Neil Hefty is a great find too, if you can fish it out of Ebay.

This DUCK Was Better The Second Time Around.......2004-08-02

Just to see Tuesday Weld (never better!), Roddy McDowall (rarely better)and Ruth Gordon (always wonderful, no matter what she's in) romp through this comic mess is worth the price of the DVD, and then some. I saw this film when it came out in the 60s and didn't like it much, but bought the DVD hoping I might find more in it than I did as a teenager. Turns out I really enjoyed it the second time around. It makes fun of a lot of different things and has an edge about it in the process. School, school administrators, authority figures, parents, shrinks, teenagers, consumerism, fame, dating, social snobism---you name it and it's a target. There are several scenes that are laugh-out-loud funny: Tuesday Weld going out with her father (she lives with her divorced mother), first to a drive-in fast food joint and then on a sweater-buying shopping spree; Harvey Korman in all his scenes. (By the way, what I really find interesting about 60s films is how much people smoked and drank, even in comedies. Lola Albright, very good as Weld's cocktail-waitress mother, just pours herself a stiff one when things get tough. It's almost jarring how that type of on-screen behavior has changed over the last 40 years.) In any event, this is an inconsistent but highly enjoyable film from the "crazy" 60s.

Tape was of poor quality.......2004-04-04

Like the title states, the tape was of poor quality and skipped alot, making viewing difficult, and it is to much of a pain and just as costly to ship back.I do not recommend buying from this media distributer.

One of the oddest (yet funny) movies ever made.......2004-02-02

The only way I can imagine this movie got made was that some Hollywood executive who was completely confused and clueless about what would appeal to younger viewers in the sixties agreed to allow this very strange George Axelrod film to be filmed. In a vague way, it seems almost to be an updating of FAUST, with Roddy McDowell as Alan "Mollymauk" Musgrave playing Mephistopheles to Tuesday Weld's Barbara Ann. Through all manner of devious means Mollymauk brings Barbara Ann's every dream come true.

Viewers are either going to love this or hate it. I showed it to my daughter, and she thought it one of the strangest films she had ever seen. And so it is. It is one of those films, like BEING JOHN MALKOVICH or THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T that seems too off-the-wall for anyone to have agree to finance it.

If you are feeling like something different, and completely unlike anything else you have ever seen, you could do worse than give this film a chance.

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