I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name (1967)
Grade: 69
Andrew Quint (Oliver Reed) is an advertising executive who is first seen carrying an enormous axe down the street. No one takes any notice of him as he enters his office building, takes the elevator, and goes to his office. He then hacks his desk to pieces, a novel method of quitting one's job. His now former boss is Jonathan (Orson Welles), a schemer and comic relief who still wants Andrew back, to direct a commercial with the purpose of winning some award.
Andrew wants to be a serious writer, so he joins the small staff of a high quality but much ignored journal. There, he meets Georgina (Carol White) whom, along with Josie (Marianne Faithful) and his wife (Wendy Craig), he alternates between as the mood suits him.
Andrew attends a school reunion, where he runs into the bully Maccabee (Harvey Hall). Maccabee tries to steal his girl, and ends up beating Andrew up. The film shows its surrealism as youth and adult versions of Andrew, his girlfriend and Maccabee appear in alternate shots, sometimes even the same shots, sometimes in color and sometimes in black and white. It's a good show, but what does it mean?
Andrew wakes up in Georgina's houseboat. Jonathan pays a social call, and makes faces eating barley flakes. Andrew still refuses to work for Jonathan. Jonathan then buys the magazine Andrew works for and shuts it down.
By this time Andrew is disillusioned with his life and his juggling of wife and girlfriends (all of them near look-alike blondes) and decides to film that commerical for Jonathan "to tell the truth".
Andrew makes several eccentric decisions as the director, which no one questions, although Jonathan is puzzled. When the film is finally screened, it is a riot. It is a commercial for a 1960s version of a camcorder. There are shots interspersed between bikini-clad models presenting the camera, and the "family" films you can shoot with it. These family scenes involve Andrew's various girlfriends shouting angrily at him. There are also splices of Adolf Hitler and atomic explosions. At the end, the models toss their cameras into a dumpster, which is crushed by a truck driven by Andrew. This bizarre film wins wild applause, and Jonathan has won his award.
Maccabee and Andrew have a fight at the ensuing party, ostensibly over Craig. After a bloody row, Andrew is victorious. Jonathan gives him the award, and Andrew later dumps it in the river. He plans on working next for Jonathan's competitor.
http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
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