The Busy Body

Since Sid Caesar died a few days ago, I decided to watch one of his movies. "The Busy Body" makes no pretense about being silly. The characters are pretty much what we expect: Caesar is the nervous everyman mixed up in a murder case, Robert Ryan is the slimy exec, Arlene Golonka is the cleavage-flaunting blonde bombshell, and Kay Medford is the overprotective mother. The movie features the first appearance of Richard Pryor but he doesn't have much to do. I figure that an old-school director like William Castle wasn't about to let Pryor play the kind of character for which he eventually became renowned. In the end it's not any kind of comedy classic but funny enough for the brief period that it runs.

I was surprised to see that 'William Castle was the director for The Busy Body that Paramount used. Castle is best known for ow budget horror films with special effects and sometimes cheesy ones at that. This cast of name players was something wasn't used to.

I also note that sSd Caesar was the star. As this is a Paramount this film had the look and feel of a Jerry Lewis film. If Lewis had starred and maybe a Frank Tashlin directed The Busy Body might have been a classic.

Top crime boss Robert Ryan puts his gofer Sid Caesar on the syndicate board and tells him to retrieve a blue suit from a recently deceased board member. Instead Caesar has him buried in it. With a million dollar sewn in the lining of said suit.

One of the big problems is that Robert Ryan just doesn't do comedy. His part would have worked better with a Lionel Stander or a Sheldon Leonard in it.

In a large supporting cast of familiar faces standing out is Kay Medford as Sid's gangster widow mom.

Nice film, funny in spots, but could have been better.

This comedy has all the elements of the type of comedies Don Knotts and Jerry Lewis were performing in during the 1960's. An ordinary man gets involved with murder (I forgot to mention Dick Van Dyke). The comedy was tailored around the talents of Ben Blue and Caesar, with the other comics filling time. It's a pleasant comedy, but don't go out of your way.

This crime comedy is played strictly for laughs. Sid Caesar stars as the impeccably dressed right-hand man of mob leader Robert Ryan. When one of the 'boys' (Bill Dana) is blown up while barbecuing, Caesar helps his grieving widow (Arlene Golonka) select a suit to bury him in; unfortunately it was his 'traveling suit'.-the one that had a secret lining that held a million dollars from his last 'job' for Ryan.

Ryan plays the stone faced, controlling boss without blinking despite the chaos around him. Caesar is ordered to find the suit by whatever means, including digging up Dana, but when Dana isn't in the grave he's supposed to be in, it becomes a frantic search for Caesar to avoid Ryan and mob members Godfrey Cambridge and Marty Ingels, as well as outsiders pulled into the story like Dom DeLuise, Ben Blue, Jan Murray and his wife Anne Baxter.

Caesar also has to deal with his meddling mother, Kay Medford, and the cop that always seems to be tailing him, Richard Pryor. If that seems like a great cast, you are correct. Although there are some lags that keep it from being really good, it's entertaining and a nice little double twist at the end ties everything up nicely (one is easily predicte, the second, not so much). I wasn't wild about the Vic Mizzy score as it seems too Green Acres, but overall an overlooked 60s film.

Still having a years-old bad t aste in my mouth from William Castle's abomidable remake of THE OLD DARK HOUSE(1963), I approached THE BUSY BODY warily. You can't NOT get laughs with that cast,but there's a little TOO much of Sid Caesar and offbeatly-cast Robert Ryan's deadpan mobster boss eventually does the same(as does Kay Medford's nagging Jewish Mom)/ I noticed the movie poster was done by MAD MAGAZINE'S Jack Davis(who also did IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD) and the similarities are too strong to ignore.

Richard Pryor makes his film debut--playing a straight arrow cop!!

Anne Baxter gets to seduce Dustin Hoffman and Sid Caesar in the same year.

Caesar is a mob flunky who accidentally buries one million dollars and is ordered to recover it--but somebody has stolen t he body. "Frantic" is the basic tone of the whole movie--sometimes it works. Jan Murray as a murderer???

A nice gag appearance by George Jessel,who was famous for delivering eulogies at celebrity funerals and spoofs that role here.

A criminally underbilled Arlene Golonka steals the comedy show--hurrah for Bibbo The Boom Boom Girl.