Heist movies, rom-coms, screwball comedies and even noirs. There is all this and more in A fish named Wandasensational 1988 comedy directed by Charles Crichton and born from the happy marriage between the acute irony of the former Monty Python John Cleese e Michael Palin and the exuberant comedy of Jamie Lee Curtis e Kevin Kline, undoubtedly among the best exponents of British and American cinema at the time. A triumph of the absurd and the politically incorrect, supported by the desire to put the vices and contradictions of the Americans and the British in the pillory and rightly recognized with 3 Oscar nominations and a statuette, won by Kline for best supporting actor.
After the previous appointment with our film section The hidden thread dedicated to Classmates, we therefore remain in 1988 for a comedy with a completely different style and content, but equally able to dig into the most recondite recesses of the human soul with humorous ends. A critical and public success that the same cast tried in vain to replicate 9 years later with Wild creaturesa kind of spiritual sequel of A fish named Wanda however, devoid of the magic of the original, and soon ended up in oblivion.
A fish named Wanda: the triumph of political incorrectness in a jewel of Anglo-American comedy
The criminal gang composed of boss George Thomason (Tom Georgeson), stutterer Ken Pile (Michael Palin), and lovers posing as siblings Wanda Gershwitz, and Otto West (Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline) gets his hands on a hefty haul of jewelery in London. However, due to the greed of the group members, things start to get complicated. George ends up in prison, where he receives legal assistance from Archie Leach (John Cleese), who is seduced by the femme fatale Wanda, who intends to find out where the jewels are. This arouses the wrath of Otto, who is fond of Nietzsche and extremely distrustful of the English. Thus begins a hilarious ménage à trois, dotted with constant cheating. Meanwhile, Ken tries to physically eliminate an old lady who witnesses his crimes, but despite his love for animals, he ends up killing her dogs every time.
Cinema is also a fusion of cultures, contamination of genres and the intertwining of different and divergent experiences. A fish named Wanda is the perfect example of this: a comedy conceived and refined over time by Monty Python John Cleese, placed in the hands of an elderly British comedy director now retired as Charles Crichton and fortified by two young Hollywood rampants. A mix of influences and nuances that finds its perfect completion in the desire to offer the general public a comedy far from the canons of the time, fueled by sharp writing and refined humor, poised between grotesque and parody. A comic miracle that is difficult to repeat, which is mainly based on the encounter and clash between different cultures.
The characters of A Fish Called Wanda
The three main characters of A fish named Wanda they represent as many deformations of Americans and British. Kevin Kline’s Otto West exemplifies the gullibility of a large part of the American population: law beyond Good and Evil without understanding it in the slightest, he obsessively asks not to be called “stupid”, his culture is based on prejudices and approximation and struggles to conceal the imperialism typical of his homeland (his “even” assessment regarding the Vietnam War is hilarious) .
Archie Leach is at his antipodes: he experiences the typical frustration of those who in life find themselves continually repressing their aspirations in the name of an often illusory social climb, and is the protagonist of an unhappy marriage with a woman whose style, thoughts and attitudes resemble Margaret Thatcher; however, he is suddenly reborn before our eyes when he meets Wanda, who on the contrary has a clear head of traditions and superstructures, just like her namesake swimming in Ken’s aquarium. The generalities of the man themselves are not accidental: Archibald Alexander Leach was in fact the first name of Cary Grant, idol of John Cleese, who is actually a law graduate. The fact that Grant was a British naturalized US is yet another short circuit between these nations within A fish named Wanda.
The character of Jamie Lee Curtis embodies another side of the American people: she is irresistibly attracted by other languages (memorable the moments in which Kevin Kline whispers stereotypes in Italian to her, making her inexorably excited), but at the same time she is a skilled manipulator , and is willing to do anything to achieve their dream of wealth and success.
A laugh will bury us
However, the contribution a should not be underestimated A fish named Wanda of the other Monty Python Michael Palin, who carries on the characteristics of the comedy of the famous British group. His Ken Pile lives almost another film within the film: he shows fragility with his stammer (from which Palin’s real father suffered) and tenderness with his passion for animals, which however also becomes the cause of greater suffering for he; as a convinced animal rights activist, in a repeated gag bordering on the insane he involuntarily kills the dogs of an elderly lady, ending up crying at their funeral while the choir sings “Canis mortuus est”. Knowing the corrosive humor of Monty Python, the hypothesis that behind this sketch there is a criticism of the same animal rights movements, often protagonists of contradictions such as to hinder the same just causes they carry forward, is not far-fetched.
It is precisely to Michael Palin that we owe the most macabre anecdote related to A fish of name Wanda. At the time of the film’s theatrical release, the news of the death of the Danish audiologist caused a sensation Ole Bentzen during the screening, caused by the sudden and excessive increase in his heart rate due to laughter due to the scene in which Ken Pile ends up being the victim of Otto, who repeatedly stuffs chips up his nose. Apparently, years earlier the man had inserted small pieces of cauliflower into his nose and those of his relatives during a dinner, sparking general hilarity. The memory of this amusing episode resulting from the sequence of A fish named Wanda it was unfortunately fatal to man.
Again, the reality was however late on the Monty Python, which in their sketch The funniest joke in the world they had already made the British win the war by literally killing the Germans with laughter.
You find them directorial
Among the many dazzling jokes and continuous moments of irresistible physical comedy, notable directing cues also emerge from Charles Crichton. One of these is definitely the camera reversal that shows us Archie hanging upside down during one of his fights with Otto. John Cleese himself is then the protagonist of an unexpected strip tease, proposed by Jamie Lee Curtis and concluded with an irreverent covering of the genitals through a painting depicting the same woman who catches Archie in the act. But the striking comparison between the sexuality of the English characters and that of the American protagonists is no less, made through an alternating montage between the exuberance of Wanda and Otto and the distressing physical and emotional detachment between Archie and his wife.
The irony of A fish named Wanda it not only acts on cultures and customs, but also on politics. Since the film was released at the end of the Thatcher era in Great Britain and at the end of the Reagan cycle in the United States, it is easy to associate the actions of the protagonists with the models of life and society proposed by the respective governments: Reaganomics and the Thatcherism, with their praise of hedonism and individualism, are the invisible protagonists of this intelligent comedy, in which the two openly contrasting nations find themselves ultimately closer than they are willing to admit, as underlined by the sublime final confrontation between Otto and Archie.
The Legacy of A Fish Called Wanda
With his corrosive satire, his uncontrollable humor and his desire to undermine genres, A fish of name Wanda it is a work incapable of aging, and therefore still fully enjoyable today, especially in the original language. An imperishable example of sagacious and inventive comedy, which by taking the risk of offending anyone manages to entertain and satisfy a large part of the spectators. The exact opposite of what unfortunately happens today, in an audiovisual panorama in which the policy of circle botting too often generates bloodless and impalpable products.
“Now, let me clarify a couple of things, okay? Know that Aristotle was not Belgian, and that the essence of the message of Buddhism is not “every man thinks for himself”, and the London Underground is not a revolutionary movement! These are all errors, I have informed myself!»
The hidden thread was born with the intention of retracing the history of cinema in the freest and simplest way possible. Every week a different film of any genre, era and nationality, linked to the previous one by a detail. Themes, year of release, director, protagonist, setting: the only limit is the imagination, the beacon that guides us is the love of cinema. Films talk to each other, we listen to their dialogues.