Tonight we'll take a look at the second major role in Goldie Hawn's thirty-eight year film career.

There's A Girl In My Soup, 1970

Girl starred the late, great comic genius Peter Sellers, and Goldie's name appeared above the title for the first time. This import was directed by Roy Boulting, a veteran of largely forgettable British movies. Coincidentally, he and Goldie had the same birthday.

On the surface, There's A Girl In My Soup shares essentially the same plot as Cactus Flower. Both are May-December romance / love-triangle comedies based on stage plays. Interestingly, Roy Boulting was involved in a real life May-December romance for eleven years with former child star Haley Mills (The Parent Trap, That Darn Cat!). She was 33 years younger than him.

In Girl, Goldie plays a 19 year old American hippie chick, living in London with a skeevy drummer. She gets tired of being passed around among the drummer's friends like a tray of tea cakes, so she decides to move out after a chance meeting with a 41 year old tv personality, played by Sellers. The tv personality is a self-absorbed and aging Alfie-like swinger, coming to grips with the handfuls of hair he's beginning to find in his brush every morning.

While the movie starts out prominsingly, Goldie's performance was ultimately inconsistent, a sign of weak directing. There is no chemistry between her and Sellers, who mails in the most colorless performance I've seen from him. None of the comic improvisation he was known for is on display here. I think the character was too constricting for him. Here's what Goldie told Larry King about working with Sellers:

HAWN: Peter Sellers was great to work with. A lovely man. A little bit crazy . . . It was sort of balancing a very delicate spirit on a needle. You know, because you never know where he was going.

But I gave him a birthday party once, and he said to me, you know, Goldie, I'll never have a home like this. I'll never have a house like this, and I would like a piece of me in your home. And he sent me a French armoire, and I still have it. That was after he ate his birthday candle, which is a whole other problem.

KING: Was he a genius?

HAWN: Yes, he was. He definitely was. He was completely in his moment, in his truth, at all times there was never a break. He was able to witness how funny he was, and yet not have any control over his ability to -- inability to stop laughing at himself.

We would have to break for lunch sometimes, because we couldn't bring him back. But, you know, you couldn't get a knife in between who he was playing and his comedy and his truth. It was all there together, which is what made him a genius.

Predictably, after a whirlwind tour of the continent, the mis-matched lovers return to London, and reality. The movie ends the same way as Cactus Flower, but in a wholly unsatisfying way. For that reason, I give it two Netflix stars ("didn't like it").

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It's Oscar season, and it's time for the First Annual Annika's Journal Film Festival. This year, we will be taking a look at the career of Goldie Hawn, specifically Goldie Hawn's cute years,* from the late sixties to 1980.

Why Goldie Hawn? Because she's awesome. How many of you realize that Goldie Hawn won an Academy Award for her very first picture? That's a fact. Also, people always tell me I remind them of a young Goldie, which was probably more true when I was 20, but is still a nice compliment.

When you think that Goldie stumbled into acting (she started out wanting to be a dancer), her comic genius is even more impressive. I rank her talent as a comedienne on the same level as Marilyn's. In fact, I think Goldie took the next step in the evolution of the female comedienne. She played the ditzy character as well as Marylin, but embodied a new beauty ideal that was born in the sixties: the waif look.

But where Marylin played the dumb blonde so straight that people still think she was dumb in real life, Goldie always played it with a subtle wink. You get that same wink today from comediennes like Heather Graham and Cameron Diaz. They're too hip to be dumb. Thank Goldie for that.

Cactus Flower, 1969

I just got done seeing this one again. I love this movie. The opening credits promise a lot: directed by Gene Saks (The Odd Couple, Barefoot In The Park), starring Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman, screenplay by I.A.L. Diamond (Some Like It Hot, The Apartment), music by Quincy Jones, and Sarah Vaughan singing the theme song. Wow.

The plot reminds me of a Three's Company episode. It's a bedroom farce, and like all great bedroom farce, begins with a lie. Walter Matthau plays a dentist enjoying the bachelor life. In order to "keep things honest" he lies to his girlfriend, played by Goldie. He tells her he is married so he won't have to commit. But then, in a moment of weakness Matthau promises Goldie he'll divorce his wife and marry her. Hijinx ensue when big-hearted Goldie insists on meeting his wife to make sure she won't be hurt by the divorce. Now Matthau needs a pretend wife, and he picks his dental assistant, played by Ingrid Bergman in the title role. Bergman is a frumpy old maid who, like a cactus, occasionally produces a pretty blossom.

Goldie Hawn's performance is a revelation, as they say. This is the one that got her the Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar. When she's onscreen, I'm afraid to look at anything else in case I miss one of her facial expressions or funny vocal inflections. There's a scene in which she teaches Ingrid Bergman's character to dance, which is hilarious and embarrassing at the same time.

Walter Matthau is an unlikely romantic lead, but if you remember The Odd Couple and even Charley Varrick, he always seems able to pull the chicks. And there is a sweet onscreen chemistry between him and Goldie. You just have to suspend your disbelief a little bit.

I love Goldie's outfits too. The burgundy velvet suit is very mod. She also wore a nice rust suede miniskirt and boots combo with a yellow turtleneck. And my favorite is pictured above: blue mock turtle, extra love beads, batik inspired capris, and mary janes. Extremely cute.

My rating (using the netflix 5-star system) is five stars. A very witty, sweet and enjoyable romantic comedy with that innocent sixties hipness that you can't find in Hollywood anymore.
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* When I say her "cute years" I don't mean to imply that Goldie ever stopped being hot. Did you see her on Larry King recently? I hope I look that good at 60. She looks 40.

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Back in 2004, I paid tribute to the great Don Knotts on the occasion of his birthday. Here's what I wrote:

While a lot of people swear that The Incredible Mr. Limpet is the best Don Knotts movie, i think people who think that are all wet. Knotts excelled at the physical comedy of facial expressions. Limpet was a cartoon, so it by definition cannot be the best DK movie.

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken is a strong contender. Knotts' character is named Luther Heggs, a perfect name for a DK character. i loved the whole scene where he spends the night in the haunted house. Remember the crazy organ music? Knotts was at his shaky best.

i liked The Reluctant Astronaut just a little bit better, partly because i like space movies. This one came out in 1967, at the height of the space race. The premise is typically DK: he gets a job at NASA, tells his family and his girlfriend that he is in astronaut training, when in fact he's just a janitor, hijinks ensue, his family finds out about the charade, they're terribly disappointed, then even though he's Acrophobic, he blunders onto a spaceflight, actually becoming a reluctant astronaut , more hijinks ensue. It's predictable, but still a must see.

i also liked The Apple Dumpling Gang, where DK teams up with Tim Conway as a pair of stereotypically incompetent but loveable bank robbers.

But the funniest Don Knotts movie, in my opinion, is the often overlooked How to Frame a Figg, from 1971. Here's a couple of comments from the IMDB page:

'How to Frame a Figg is a vintage Don Knotts - frenetic, farcical comedy, and features him at the top of his form as the hysterical, cat-on-hot-tin-roof nervous, persecuted civil servant Hollis Figg.'

'If folks were really this stupid I could be the SRW - Supreme Ruler of the World. In this one Knotts plays a dimwitted bean counter for some little jerk water town run by a group of crooked simpletons only slightly brighter than he is. When things appear a bit shaky for the crooks they go for a frame-up of the patsy Figg. Plenty of laughs as Knotts does his usual bumbling, stumbling act. I especially appreciated the extension cord scene; asininity at it's highest level.'

The opening scene with the ambulance is pathetically absurd, but i won't ruin it for you, it's one of my favorite comic scenes ever.

Best Don Knotts movie: How to Frame a Figg. Go rent it tonight and let me know if you agree or disagree.

Update: Don Knotts' career as metaphor for the decline of American culture?

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This Brokeback To The Future trailer is genius!

Hat tip: Crash & Byrne.

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