A Fish Called Wanda

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A Fish Called Wanda
A Fish Called Wanda movie poster
Directed by	Charles Crichton
Produced by	Michael Shamberg
Written by	John Cleese Charles Crichton
Starring	John Cleese Jamie Lee Curtis Kevin Kline Michael Palin Maria Aitken Tom Georgeson
Music by	John Du Prez
Cinematography	Alan Hume
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Release date(s)	July 7, 1988
Running time	108 min
Language	English
IMDb profile

A Fish Called Wanda is an Academy Award-winning comedy film released in 1988 by MGM. It was written by John Cleese and directed by Charles Crichton, and stars Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin.

1 Plot
2 Reception
3 Trivia
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film is a comedy about a jewel heist, planned by George Thomason (played by Tom Georgeson), and its aftermath. George's right-hand man is Ken Pile (Michael Palin), an animal lover with a bad stutter. They bring in two Americans, sexy con artist Wanda Gershwitz (Jamie Lee Curtis) and dim-witted hitman Otto West (Kevin Kline), who fancies himself an intellectual but, as most of the rest of the cast point out, is really stupid (and moreover, hates to be called stupid). Wanda and Otto are lovers pretending to be siblings so Wanda can work her charms on George and Ken.

The robbery is executed with perfect precision. However after the robbery, Wanda and Otto betray George to the police. They belatedly learn that George has moved the loot to a new hiding spot in a public locker and will not reveal its location. Ken is hiding the key, however, Wanda sees him doing so and takes it. Wanda decides the best way to get the information is by seducing George's lawyer, Archibald Leach (John Cleese), a man stuck in a loveless marriage to a rich shrew of a woman. Otto, in the meantime, deflects Ken's suspicions about Otto and Wanda's true relationship by pretending to be a homosexual attracted to Ken. Ken, however, still doesn't trust him.

Wanda actually manages to seduce Archie, however their first romantic evening is interrupted by Archie's wife Wendy and daughter Portia returning unexpectedly early. Wanda loses her locket in which she had hidden the locker key. Wendy, on finding it, assumes it was a present to her and keeps it. Archie's and Wanda's second meeting is interrupted by the jealous Otto (who then dangles Archie out of the window to get him to apologise for having called him stupid). Wanda persuades Otto to apologise to Archie. Otto drives to Archie's house, where he finds Archie (in disguise) staging a burglary to get the locket back. Not recognising Archie, Otto knocks him out and ties him up. Wendy finds him, but Archie manages to hide the locket from her. A third meeting between Archie and Wanda is interrupted by a family entering the flat where they met, having just leased it. After that, Archie decides to end their relationship, leaving Wanda to realize that she is truly in love with him.

Ken is charged by George to silence a key witness, an old lady named Mrs. Eileen Coady (Patricia Hayes) who owns three Yorkshire Terriers. In his attempts to assassinate her, Ken instead accidentally kills the dogs one by one, to his great dismay. The first is killed when Ken releases an attack dog on Mrs. Coady while she is walking her pets. The second is squashed by Ken's car, when he was trying to hit Mrs Coady. Mrs. Coady has funerals for the Yorkies, at which choirboys sing "miserere Dominus, canis mortuus est," which translated from Latin is "have mercy Lord, the dog is dead." ^[1] Following the death of her last little dog (crushed by a falling Safe), the woman dies of a heart attack.

With Mrs Coady, the only serious evidence against George is gone. In an attempt to keep him in jail, Wanda blows his alibi to smithereens in court, by telling that he left the apartment on the day of the robbery with a sawed-off shotgun. Archie, who was just cross-examining her, accidentally reveals their relationship, calling Wanda "darling". He learns from George, that Ken knows where the loot is hidden and drives to the flat with Wanda.

But Otto has begun torturing Ken, first by putting chips up his nostrils, then by threatening to eat his tropical fish (among which is an angel fish called Wanda). He does so, ignoring Ken's pleas. When only Wanda is left, Ken finally reveals the hide-out of the loot and that off the key. But the key is already in Wanda's possession, so Ken has to watch helplessly as Otto eats Wanda.

When Archie and Wanda arrive at the flat, Otto gets into Archie's car and drives off with Wanda. Archie has a hell of a time trying to get the location of the locker out of Ken, because of his stutter. They finally rush after Otto and Wanda to the airport.

Wanda knocks Otto out, tries to call Archie and gets on the plane with the loot. Archie finds Otto and threatens him with his own gun. However, Otto tricks Archie into putting the gun down; he takes Archie out, forces him to climb into a barrel full of waste oil and is about to shoot him, when Ken arrives driving a steam roller. Otto, not paying attention, actually steps into some fresh cement and finds himself stuck. Ken rolls over him, clearing up his speech impediment out of confidence. Wanda and Archie fly off into the sunset. George is left in jail. Ken is arrested by converging police. Otto appears at the airplane window but is blown off the plane as it takes off.

A Final note explains that each person had a happy ending. Otto became Justice Minister for South Africa; Archie & Wanda had seventeen children and founded a leper colony in Rio, and Ken becomes Master of Ceremonies at the London Aquarium.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Reception

The movie was a major critical and commercial success when it was released and has remained a popular favourite since. Kline received wide acclaim and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work. ^[2] The principal cast reunited in 1997 for Fierce Creatures (dubbed an "equal," rather than a sequel or prequel, by Cleese), playing different roles and meeting less success.

In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted A Fish Called Wanda the 37th greatest comedy film of all time. In 2004 the same magazine named it the 41st greatest British film of all time. In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked the film 21st on its list of the 100 funniest movies ever made. This film is number 27 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". It is also included in the Reader's Digest list of the "100 Funniest Films," which list is not a ranking. A Fish Called Wanda was one of only 24 movies to be named on all three of the A.F.I., Bravo and Readers' Digest "top 100 funniest" lists. ^[3] The movie also garnered an impressive and rare 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

[edit] Trivia

Archibald Leach is the birth name of actor Cary Grant.

The character Portia, Archie Leach's daughter, is played by Cynthia Cleese, daughter of John Cleese by his first wife Connie Booth.

At one point Otto offers to rub out Kevin Delaney, presumably another gangster. Kevin Kline's middle name is Delaney.

Continuing the creative character naming, actor Tom Georgeson plays a character named George Thomason.

During the second assassination attempt, when Michael Palin is disguised as a Rastafarian, the car that he drives has the word sinsemilla painted on its side.

Palin's father had a serious stutter, and he drew from that to create Ken's stutter in the film.

In 1989 Ole Bentzen, a Danish doctor, allegedly died of a heart attack from laughing at a scene in the film.

No animals were hurt during filming. The dogs that were killed by Ken and the fishes eaten by Otto were all fake.

This movie led Cleese to his only Academy Award Nomination

The movie started with two scenes: Cleese wanted a scene where a man with a stutter tries to get some information out and can't and Charlie Crichton, the director, wanted a scene where someone was being run over by a steam roller. Based on these two scenes, Cleese started to write the movie.

The producer, Michael Shamberg, has a cameo as one of the suspects during the identification.

[edit] References

^ "Trivia for A Fish Called Wanda," Internet Movie Database. Retrieved from http://imdb.com/title/tt0095159/trivia on 2007-03-12.
^ "Awards Database," Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved from http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=1173727436268 on 2007-03-12.
^ Sheppard, Lisa (2006-08-31), "A.F.I., Bravo T.V. and Reader's Digests Funniest Movie Lists: Funny is a Matter of Opinion," Associated Content. Retrieved from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/55420/afi_bravo_tv_and_readers_digests_funniest.html?page=2 on 2007-03-12.