Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Jay Raskin Sean Connery did make about half a dozen excellent non-James Bond Films. This is not one of them. They include "The Man Who Would Be King," "Robin and Mariam," "The Name of the Rose," "The Untouchables," "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." He is 80 years old now, and it would be nice if the Motion Picture Academy honored him with a lifetime achievement award (as the American Film Institute did in 2006).Here's the positive side. There are some pretty shots of New York City circa 1966, giving the film a bit of a Neil Simon-Woody Allen look. The first half hour is fine. We get a good introduction of the characters. Connery messing up a Lady's Club invitation to read his poetry is not as funny as it should have been, but is the funniest scene in the film.Unfortunately the film goes nowhere after that. There's no character development and almost every comedy bit and scene falls flat. Many scenes are punctuated and underscored by loud, energetic music. This seems to be done on purpose to distract the audience from thinking, "What? Why is that supposed to be funny?" The name of Connery's character is Samson Shillitoe. I assume that the name has something to do with the famous writer Stirling Silliphant. I'm not sure if the character had anything to do with the man.I do think Sean Connery and Joanne Woodward deserve some credit for developing their characters as much as they do. They are working hard, one might say frantically, to make something out of the script. Everybody else, including Jean Seberg, Patrick O'Neil, Coleen Dewhurst and Zohra Lampert are wasted in non-roles that should have been played by less talented actors.Altogether, not an enjoyable film, but possibly worth a look as an example of a bad New York City mid-60's comedy. It'll make you appreciate "Barefoot in the Park" that much more.

rowmorg Female actors have to look back on their roles from days of yore and shake their heads. Things have certainly changed since the advent of The Pill. In this "wacky" comedy, Joanne Woodward plays a role that today would be unplayable, probably unwritable even by a hack like Elliott Baker Cohen. She is Rhoda, the long-suffering partner of mad poet Samson Shillitoe. I have met Shillitoes, and they all dream of owning a Rhoda, but today such a creature has to be ordered by mail from the Philippines, because they ain't makin' em any more round here. Rhoda runs after Shillitoe, shouting, then she runs after a shrink, shouting, then she runs after Shillitoe, shouting, some more. Finally, she tells him she's pregnant and he socks her in the head. In between, he beds several susceptible females who yearn for his life-force. Shillitoe never really exists, he's just Life Force write large, and Sean Connery blunders through the part just adequately. Rhoda is a fantasy, and Joanne Woodward --- well, I bet Joanne never pulls this movie off her shelf. The lovely Jean Seberg is totally wasted and delivers nothing except a rather titivating gusset-shot when her husband's friend tries to rape her. At least this movie pays lip-service to literature, but the sexism is too much to take.

bkoganbing A Fine Madness marks Sean Connery's venture into screen comedy and while the man has had many funny moments in his film, comedy was not his strong suit. Ironically he's cast opposite Joanne Woodward who as we know was married to someone who many critics also said was not at his best in comedy.Whatever else is wrong with A Fine Madness I have always loved Connery's character name, Samson Shillitoe. One of the best screen names ever invented and so right for a would be poet.Samson for Connery is a peculiar combination of James Bond and Ralph Kramden with Joanne Woodward as his long suffering Alice. This lout is also a chick magnet in the James Bond tradition, though God knows why. He's suffering writer's block and can't seem to finish this epic poem he's trying to write. He also has a process server in John Fiedler chasing him down for back alimony to a former wife.Woodward puts him in the hands of psychiatrist Patrick O'Neal who claims he can cure creative people of their hangups so they can do their thing. Connery proves an interesting case however to O'Neal's colleagues, Colleen Dewhurst, Jon Lormer, Werner Peters, and especially Clive Revill who's developed a modified lobotomy that can really cure anti-social behavior. You'll find few screen characters as anti-social as Samson Shillitoe. He's also of interest to O'Neal's wife Jean Seberg who just plain ain't getting any lately.There are some funny moments in A Fine Madness, but ultimately I found it unsatisfying. When all's said and done, though Ralph Kramden threatened many times to bang/zoom Alice to the moon, he never really did. Connery has battered Woodward and quite frankly she's a battered spouse. Why she puts up with him is beyond me completely.And I'm surprised that this script didn't offend Joanne Woodward's feminist soul. She did the thing though to an unsatisfactory conclusion.

Pem-3 This nicely done adaptation of Eliot Baker's comedic novel (screenplay by the author himself) displays Sean Connery at his versatile finest. In the midst of his "Bond" persona (two years after "Goldfinger") Connery gives a brilliant, anti-typical performance as Samson, a poet to whom art is everything, and the polite fictions and civilities of society nothing. As a man, he is rude, crude, sexist and insensitive to the feelings of everyone, including himself. He is a monster in the mode of Gully Jimson [ "A Horse's Mouth" (1958)] or the real-life Dylan Thomas. A genius whose talent is little recognized, the poet reacts violently to the humdrum restraints of a culture that considers genius anti-social. That underlying tension, and his penchant for enjoying every attractive woman who happens to be in the vicinity, get him classified as a psychotic and put on the fast-track schedule for a pre-frontal lobotomy. Connery's talent and charm save this very funny movie from the somewhat offensive obnoxiousness of its hero, and clinch its optimistic argument about the ultimate triumph of artistic greatness. Also, don't miss the lovely performance by Coleen Dewhurst as a psychiatrist-seductress.