TRASH IN MY EYE No. 206 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux
The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)
Running time: 90 minutes (1 hour, 30 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR: John Landis
WRITERS: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker
PRODUCER: Robert K. Weiss
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Robert E. Collins and Stephen M. Katz (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: George Folsey Jr.
COMEDY
Starring: Marilyn Joi, Saul Kahan, Colin Male, Neil Thompson, George Lazenby, Donald Sutherland, Bill Bixby, Bob Liddle, Evan C. Kim, Master Bong Soo Han, and Tony Dow
The Kentucky Fried Movie is a 1977 American sketch comedy and anthology film from director John Landis. It was the first film written by the film-making team of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (abbreviated as ZAZ). That would be Jim Abrahams and brothers David Zucker and Jerry Zucker. The Kentucky Fried Movie contains a series of sketches that spoof various film genres.
Before they hit it big with Airplane! and The Naked Gun movies (based on the former ABC comedy, “Police Squad!), brothers David and Jerry Zucker and partner and childhood friend, Jim Abrahams, wrote The Kentucky Fried Movie. Directed by John Landis, The Kentucky Friend Movie is a collection of comedy skits; most are very short. All are highly irreverent, and so many are very tasteless.
The skits spoof film and television; most of the TV jokes revolve around television newscasts, commercials, and infomercials. The film features many celebrity cameos including appearances by Donald Sutherland and Bill Bixby, as well as appearances by the filmmakers themselves. The film also features an appearance by Australian actor, George Lazenby, the second actor to portray fictional British secret agent, James Bond, in Eon Productions' James Bond film series. Lazenby played Bond in the 1969 film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
The Kentucky Fried Movie is fondly remembered by those who saw it as teenagers and twenty-somethings, and it was still popular when I first attended college in the mid-1980’s. I have lost track of how many friends and acquaintances have recommended the film to me.
Personally, I find that very little of The Kentucky Fried Movie remains funny or relevant, although the racy bits are still…a bit saucy. The Bruce Lee spoof, “A Fistful of Yen,” and the skit, “Catholic School Girls in Trouble” were well done and quite sharp for its time and remain so. However, the film’s best short may be the closing segment which features a couple engaged in raw, passionate sexual intercourse on a living room sofa while a leering band of TV newscasters watch from the other side of the screen on a television set. That alone is worth the price of admission, but otherwise The Kentucky Fried Movie is uneven and hit or miss.
5 of 10
C+
★★½ out of 4 stars
EDITED: Thursday, November 28, 2024
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