I suppose I was part of the target audience for "Unidentified Flying Oddball" since I graduated high school in 1979; and it's not a children's movie, then or today. Unlike "Mary Poppins" or other Disney classics of that ilk, the movie contains no children. And since it moves kind of slowly it probably won't interest kids today . . . after all, the "Oddball" (Dennis Dugan) proudly listens to "l-ps" and takes pictures with . . . a camera! For kids today it might as well be a silent picture. And it has a scantily-clad woman on the cover of a girlie mag cleverly called "Playtime" with lettering similar to a similarly titled mag.
I missed this movie the year it came out, but catching it for the first time nearly 40 years later I can report . . . it's not as bad as I feared. Star Dennis Dugan was just coming off his own tv show, "Richie Brockelman, Private Eye" (though he probably is more famous today for playing the same character on "The Rockford Files"). He's just as winsome as he was on television. But he does play a nerdish character who wears big bow ties and loud sports jackets and smiles a lot. This was before Bill Murry and his ilk made jerks heroes. Dugan tries to be more a throwback to the days of Bob Hope and Danny Kaye, and I think Disney was trying for an ambiance like Kaye's "Court Jester."
Disney was pretty much in the dumps at this time. But the Disney name was still able to attract big stars, and "Unidentified Flying Oddball" does not stint on the actors. The story is based (extraordinary loosely) on the Mark Twain novel A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT (so loosely, in fact, I don't know why they bothered with the attribution). King Arthur is played by a truly great actor, Kenneth More, in his big-screen swan song. Arthur's sidekick Gawain is John le Mesurier, a prolific actor whose comic expressions provide some of the movie's few giggles. Also giggle-worthy is Ron Moody (Fagin in "Oliver!") who tries to steal the picture with his expressions, voice modulations, and ridiculous haircut. For fans, the movie is worth watching once just to see Moody's performance. Mordred, the villain of the piece, is played by erstwhile "Carry On" performer Jim Dale (what, was Roddy McDowell unavailable?). While cunning actors More, Mesurier and Moody seem to realize the sort of flick they're in, Dale comes on with a fire-and-brimstone performance like he's in another movie entirely.
Oh, and just as, in 1963, Disney cast in "Doctor Syn" one George Cole, legendary in England and unknown stateside, here legendary Brit Rodney Bewes plays the lowly (but helpful) Clarence. It's always good to see Bewes get work.
I'm not up on the, science but I assume it's rubbish. I have (since graduating high school that year) studied medieval history extensively and I can say for certain the history is rubbish. Let's forget the nonexistence of King Arthur and accept him as given. The castle is six hundred years out of date, the jousting shown here even more so. The armor, weapons and the rest of it are as much out of place in the 500s AD as Clarence's "thees" and "thous." But why nitpick? It's just a silly romantic comedy and no worse, if perhaps more simple-minded, than some of the movies I took dates to in the late 1970s.
Silly fun, and I mean . . . really silly. I mean . . . really, really, really silly. Don't go into this movie with any hopes you're going to see a rival to "Star Wars." I went in with low expectations and a bad head cold (with medication) and that helped a lot.
Review of Unidentified Flying Oddball
