Don't Drink the Water

Estelle Parsons and Jackie Gleason are perfect together as a Jewish couple from Newark, New Jersey who are going to travel to Europe together with their adult daughter, Susan. Somehow, the trip is more of a disaster where they are considered by Vulgarians to be American spies or infidels. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite Woody Allen's script, the movie never really flows or develops to it's potential. Despite the premise, you can't help but enjoy the sparring nature of Parsons and Gleason on screen as a middle aged couple. Gleason is a Kosher caterer from New Jersey and she's his housewife. The time spent in Vulgaria is at the American embassy during the cold war in Eastern Europe. Despite some good laughs, the film could have been better with this cast of characters. I enjoyed Parsons and Gleason together.

Gleason shines in this cold-war comedy.Gleason and his family are mistaken for spys in a communist style country and chased into an American embassy.The Laughs are often and the cast excels,especially Gleason,"Krojack" and "Father Drobney".The movie is hardly a masterpiece but if your in the right frame of mind its Hilarious!

It's much better than the later remake with Woody Allen which was harsh,cynical and forced.And produced much less laughs also.

Its just Good Clean Fun!

With this version of Don't Drink The Water, you get Jackie Gleason (who throws 100% of himself into his character), as well as a script that occasionally sparkles with witty Woody Allen one liners. Add Estelle Parsons as the always-calm-in-the-presence-of-a-hysterical-husband wife, and Ted Bessell in his trademarked 1970's bumbler role, and you've got a pretty nice weekend afternoon of entertainment.

I was particularly intrigued by Joan Delaney as the couple's beautiful daughter and Ted Bessell's love interest. She had a very interesting face, nice appearance and style, and did a good job of maintaining her own presence opposite some of the great scene stealers of that era (Gleason, Parsons, Michael Constantine, Avery Schrieber). I've tried to do a little "whatever-happened-to" search on the internet, but Delaney seemed to have disappeared from the acting scene without a trace after the early 1970's. That's a shame.

In any event, I'm a big Jackie Gleason and Woody Allen fan, and this movie seems to be the closest they ever came to teaming up (although there is little evidence that Woody Allen had anything to do with this film beyond having written the script for the Broadway play). Their participation pushed this movie up to the seven-star range for me.

Comedic story of Americans traveling in foreign countries, and the mis-adventures they run into along the way. Unlike most other writers here, I like the 1969 Jackie Gleason version of Don't Drink the Water MUCH better than the later one starring Woody Allen, who WROTE the thing originally. In the original, the irony is that Jackie Gleason is a big and blustery loudmouth ( a real stretch for him) , but up until the end, not much gets accomplished, in spite of all his yelling and storming around. Also stars Estelle Parsons (Bonnie and Clyde) and Ted Bessell (probably best known as the hen-pecked boyfriend on That Girl). When the diplomat leaves the country, his son Axel (Bessel) fills in, and things take turn after turn for the worse. The debate to remake movies or Not to remake movies continues. Directed by Howard Morris, who had directed both live action and animated comedies for years.

Don't Drink the Water (1969) was based upon a play by Woody Allen. I saw this film on the idiot box a few years back. I wasn't that impressed with the movie. Basically it's a Jackie Gleeson movie, you have the honor of watching him mug in front of the camera doing those unamusing eye tricks, blinks and boggles. On the other hand it wasn't dreadful or ghastly. Just your average comedy from that time period. Woody Allen remade the film several years ago for the tiny screen. I never had the chance to watch it. Oh well. It has to be better than the first film adaptation. I recalled an interview with Woody Allen, the interviewer asked him what was his impression of the film. He said something to the effect that at least they paid him. My thoughts exactly.

C