Another Nice Mess

Bob Einstein – 1972 – USA

Painfully dreadful “comedy” written and directed by the normally hilarious Bob Einstein, the central premise of which – Nixon and Agnew as a modern-day Laurel and Hardy – could barely sustain a late-night TV sketch, let alone a full-length movie.  Made a year before the Watergate scandal became a major story, it seems even more frivolous than it intends to be by being so flagrantly non-topical.  It’s more of a routine portrayal of politicians as buffoons with nothing especially relevant to the Nixon administration at all.  Knowing what scheming crooks they really were, the film is a missed opportunity to be one of the first satiric critiques of Nixon instead of the trite fluff it is.  One of the most baffling things about the movie is the decision to have master impressionist Rich Little play Nixon not as Nixon but as Oliver Hardy!  This colossal blunder must have become apparent as the film was being edited because a handful of close-ups of Little actually doing Nixon are inserted periodically to suggest that the real Nixon is watching the film in a screening room and commenting on it.  The whole concept is troubled because it’s predicated on contemporary audiences being familiar enough with Laurel & Hardy to recognize their routines.  It’s lazy too, because aside from Little being made up to resemble Nixon, there are no other impersonations in the entire movie, and Vice President Spiro Agnew is the only other real-life person represented.  It’s obvious that Einstein couldn’t be bothered with a little research that might have resulted in some of the major players in Nixon’s White House being lampooned for their known quirks and personalities, instead of assuming that Agnew was at Nixon’s elbow night and day.  Where’s Kissinger or Haldeman, for example?  The last thing that’s pretty evident is that there was considerable marijuana usage going on during the writing, shooting and editing of the film.  The entire project is infused with that special arrogance cultivated by pot-heads that assures them that every single thing they think of is not only amusing but brilliant.