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.

This late-period William Castle film is one of his pallid attempts at comedy. It's amiable, yet mediocre in its delivery. Sid Caesar (during one of the lesser parts of his career) plays the scapegoat for Robert Ryan's gang of hoods. Looking at the cast of this film, as well as the original publicity material, it's obvious that Castle was trying to make his own version of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". In addition to Caesar, there is also Dom Deluise, Kay Medford, Godfrey Cambridge, Marty Ingels, and Richard Pryor in his first film. Arlene Golonka is also present as the ditzy young dancer in the ridiculous feather get-ups.

The main problem with this film, is that the two main actors are totally unlikable. Ryan is unnecessarily mean to Caesar, and Caesar in turn, is too much of a wuss. The other actors all seem so oblivious to what's happening...like they are all doing their own stand-up routines instead of furthering the story. The script is OK, I think Castle just didn't know how to direct comedy.

On the plus side, though, this film has a very catchy theme song, composed by Vic Mizzy, and a funny sequence where a woman tries talking to a mannequin at a bus stop. It's a slight step up from Castle's "The Spirit is Willing", but that's not saying very much.

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.

With Sid Caesar recently departed and this movie finally available to order from Netflix, I finally got this a few days ago. I watched it with Mom just now and she wasn't too crazy for it. I wasn't either though I was highly amused by Caesar much of the time I was watching whenever he had scenes with Dom DeLuise, Ben Blue, or Richard Pryor whose movie debut this was. His highlights, however, was when he took a dummy (don't ask) to a bus bench where he spoke Russian gibberish to a woman from there and when he encountered Arlene Golonka when she was in her stripper costume and he reacts to her moves. Director William Castle, who usually made gimmicky horror movies, doesn't seem to have much of a comedy flair but the players do the best with what's given them. So on that note, The Busy Body is worth a look. P.S. It was a nice surprise to see the Chicago landmarks since it was made at the time my parents were living there and when I was the first-born of the family. And to find out Ms. Golonka was also born there.

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.