Theme Song: England, the 1800s … obviously lots of violins.
Interesting Dated References: England, 1800s … obviously lots of shitty costumes. And I mean lots of them.
Best Line: “Sarcasm is alright in a man, but it’s unbearable in a woman.”
Social Context: I guess originally there was supposed to be some context about how “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but the overdubbing drowns all that out.
Also, when I was browsing around reading about this movie, I came upon a review by someone on imdb. It reads like total insanity, as do the other reviews by the same person. “Your watermelon’s will be inside out. I like beauty actor Matt Leblanc.” The stuff is really ridiculous.
Summary: The cover of this movie reads: “Original Uncut English Language Version.” Great, so then I look and see it’s 2 hours long. Oh, and get a load of this quote on the back: “You’ll really love this film. It lingers with you, gives you a lot to think about…and will touch you rather deeply.”
Then something sort of happens. Obviously this was a foreign film. I say “was” because this version is terribly overdubbed by over-acting Americans. The whole movie seems to be voiced over by some hammy white guys. As near as I can tell, Dude loves Pretty Chick, Dude gets drafted to war then super hilarious voice dubbing!
They just keep coming…
Okay, so the plot evolves as follows: Dude gets stationed at Army General home, Army General has a crazy and ugly cousin, Ugly Cousin falls in love with Dude.
Aside from looking a little like Klaus Kinski, she’s just a book nerd with epilepsy. The army people start to question why Dude is hanging out with Ugly Cousin. They hold hands under the table at dinner and she professes her love for him. Then Dude goes home to his Pretty Chick on military leave. When he returns he and Ugly Cousin talk about how they should proceed. Some Army people tell Dude she is “dying from her passion for him.” They tell him he has to lie to her and convince her he is in love with her. This is ridiculous. So then he leaves the Pretty Chick, and Army General somehow challenges Dude to a duel because Dude won’t make love to Ugly Cousin. Then for some reason he makes love Ugly Cousin, but still goes to the duel. Dude wins the duel, but somehow inherits the ugly disease Ugly Cousin had. Oh, and Ugly Cousin died “happy” a few days later. The closing scene shows Dude all drunk and disheveled in a bar telling his story.
Poster and Box Art: I don’t know. The Betamax box is terrible. Do I really have to even fill this out for instances like this? <
And here’s the original foreign land poster. This one features the Ugly Cousin though, so it’s a little less appealing.
Availability: Used VHS on Amazon.
That bad overdubbing flew my strawberries to the floor.Fuck.
This movie will wipe your Pampers inside-out and outside-in, it will make you cry out of Romantic joy!
This is the shortest review ever! I like the part about the crazy broken english imdb reviewer, and also the part where you admit that a finger up the ass “sets your strawberries on cream”