A Fish Called Wanda

Year of Release:  1988

Director:  Charles Crichton

Screenplay:  John Cleese, from a story by John Cleese and Charles Crichton

Starring:  John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, Tom Georgeson, Maria Aitken

Running Time:  108 minutes

Genre:  Comedy

In London, a gang of thieves led by George (Georgeson), with his American lover Wanda (Curtis), her mercurial "brother" Otto (Kline) and stuttering animal lover Ken (Palin), successfully steal a fortune in diamonds.  However Wanda and Otto, who are actually lovers, betray George to the police, in order to take the diamonds for themselves.  However George has played his own trick and the diamonds have been hidden.  With the loyal Ken intent on assassinating the only witness who can identify George: a dotty old lady (Patricia Hayes) with three little dogs, Wanda and Otto set their sights on George's barrister: the straight laced Archie Leach (Cleese), who Wanda plans to seduce and persuade to reveal the location of the diamonds.  What follows is a hilarious string of doubles-crosses, slapstick and seduction.

Directed by Ealing Comedy veteran Charles Crichton, this is a delightful crime comedy in which the laughs come thick and fast throughout.  The script, by John Cleese from a story by him and Crichton allows Cleese plenty of scope for his manic comic energy, and he is always best at those roles in which he has to go from uptight authority figure to raving maniac.  Kevin Kline is very funny as the brutal thug who is both pretentious and pretty thick.  Cleese's fellow Monty Python alumni Michael Palin as the eccentric animal lover Ken (who owns the fish of the title) has the most Pythonesque story line as his repeated attempts to assassinate this one old woman go constantly awry (fair warning for dog lovers, her three prize pooches do come to pretty bad ends).  Jamie Lee Curtis anchors the film as the seductive femme fatale who sets the happily married Cleese's stiff upper lip quivering.  This is one of those constantly entertaining films, the convoluted plot really being an excuse to string a succession of gags and slapstick set pieces together, and for the most part it works really well.  Fans of British comedy will recognise a few familiar faces in small roles, such as Geoffrey Palmer as a judge, and Stephen Fry as an unlucky man in an airport.  The main cast reunited for a follow up film, Fierce Creatures, which was released in 1997.

Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Palin, Kevin Kline and Tom Georgeson in A Fish Called Wanda