Customer Reviews

Don't Drink the Water

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What can you say to a forty year old comedy that seem as funny today as it did then. Don't Drink the Water is still a gem of a film. Water's screenplay was written by Woody Allen. It has all the trapping the Allen himself would use in his future screenplays which he would direct. The film is character driven and not action driven, something Allen did in the films in the beginning of his career.

This is the basic plot of the story . The Hollander family's European vacation is interrupted when their plane has to take a forced landing in Bulgaria. The Hollanders (Jackie Gleason in his best role pre-Smokey and the Bandit role and Estelle Parsons) leave the plane to take a few pictures. This results in accusations of The Hollander's and their daughter as spies. On the lam from the Bulgarian soldiers, they take refuge in the American Embassy under the protection of the absent ambassador's hapless son (Ted Bessell).

So, if you want great laughes get this film. I suggest this film over the Don't Drink the Water film with Woody Allen playing the Gleason role and Micheal J Fox playing the Ambassor's son

Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD

Thank you Lion's Gate for acquiring the rights to Avco-Embassy's 'Don't Drink the Water'! I have been waiting for a very long time for this title to come to DVD and this March it finally will! In its original SCOPE widescreen presentation no less!

Two years ago my oldest's high school did this play with him in the role of the Sultan. I remembered liking the movie when I saw it on TV as a kid. So I added it to my netflix list.

What a difference a few decades makes. Although it has some bright moments ("do you think it was a place that sold, guns, guards and barbed wire?") the movie was a completely pedestrian comedy that was a waste of the talent of Jackie Gleason.

There are actually several gems, a portrayal of the cold war with the eastern bloc "spontaneous" protests brings to mind ANSWER today in America. Some of the jokes were rather risque for the time "that's the state department for you". Gleason's confrontation scene with Michael Constantine was pretty good,

But looking at the play with older eyes allows one to see the flaws. The introduction was much too long. The writing is weak and the editing is a bit off, it ruins the timing of some of the better jokes and disrupts the movie's flow. The music is poor, and the colors just look off. Everything about the picture yells cheap.

As for the performances Gleason does his best and Estelle Parsons provides adequate support. Joan Delaney is a lot less attractive than I remembered and her performance is considerably less attractive than she. Her thin resume afterward was apparently no coincidence, however Ted Bessell with a much longer resume manages to be even less interesting and less funny. He is meant to be a likable dunce but only manages the dunce part. Richard Libertini is passable and Michael Constantine is better but the material just doesn't give us reason to enjoy them.

I suppose it might be worth a one day rental, after all there are plenty of movies out there that are worse but after seeing it but it appears that I would have been off skipping the picture and sticking with the fond memories of youth.

Adapted from Woody Allen's 1966 Broadway play and directed by Howard Morris (both men worked in the 1950s on Sid Caesar's TV show), DON'T DRINK THE WATER is the story of an American family who are accused of spying when they leave their plane to take pictures, after it's hijacked and forced to land in mythical "Vulgaria." They flee to the American Embassy, and seek help from the absent Ambassador's clueless son.

This version little resemblance to the original stage show. It's more or less a vehicle for Jackie Gleason's over-the-top humor.


Gleason's best starring role was in PAPA'S DELICATE CONDITION (1963).


Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 imdb viewer poll rating.

(5.6) Don't Drink the Water (1969) - Jackie Gleason/Estelle Parsons/Ted Bessell/Joan Delaney/Michael Constantine/Howard St. John/Danny Meehan/Richard Libertini/Pierre Olaf/Avery Schreiber/Mark Gordon/Phil Leeds (uncredited: Howard Morris)

I have liked this movie since the first time that I was it. I was glad that I was able to find it finally. Jackie Gleason and Ted Bessell was great in it.