THE PHYNX (1970)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

THE PHYNX (the name of a four-man musical group created by the U.S. government to function as spies) is one of the weirdest attempts of a producer from an older generation trying to profit from the 60s "youth movement." It just barely qualifies as a metaphenomenal movie, mostly by virtue of one gimmick: the musician-spies briefly use "x-ray specs" that can see through women's clothes but not through their undergarments. 

The plot of this movie-- unreleased by Warner Brothers in its own era, and unavailable until the era of DVDs-- claims that for reasons not revealed until the last half hour- the Communist country of Albania has abducted or lured away about thirty or forty performers, mostly from the 1940s and 1950s. The U.S. is unable to infiltrate Albania, so they induct four ordinary civilians, teach them to be a band, and arrange for that band to play in Albania in order to liberate the prisoners. Perhaps unnecessary to say, but eventually the spy-guys succeed in getting all the American celebrities back to their own country. 

All of this folderol is aggressively unfunny, not to mention slow and lacking in even basic slapstick, and even the various attractive women aren't played for maximum sex-appeal. The architect of this mess seems to be producer Bob Booker, collaborating on the original story with a guy who barely had any IMDB credits, and it seems like they were channeling an old forties cameo-fest like HOLLYWOOD CANTEEN.  It's like Booker and his crew watched a few episodes of THE MONKEES and crossbred that format with CANTEEN, without even figuring out how to give the majority of the old timers anything interesting to say or do. The long list of aging celebrities included such "happening" people as Xavier Cugat, George Jessel, Edgar Bergen (with the inevitable Charlie McCarthy), Rudy Vallee, Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan, the two best-known Bowery Boys, and "The Lone Ranger and Tonto" (John Hart and Jay Silverheels, possibly their only reunion since they worked together on the 1950s LONE RANGER teleseries).

By the way, the flimsy reason they've all been brought together is because the Albanian President's wife is an American (Joan Blondell) wanted to be surrounded by people from her own culture-- including, supposedly, "the original Golddiggers."  But Booker and crew weren't referencing the Golddiggers of Dean Martin's sixties TV show, but ostensibly a bunch of performers from the 1930s "Golddiggers" films. None of these performers were billed, so they were in actuality probably just a bunch of sixty-something ringers, not any real 1930s actresses-- although the script calls attention to the fact that the dictator's wife, played by Joan Blondell, was in one of the original "Golddiggers" movies. (I think she might be in all of them, but I'm not checking.)

Bob Booker was born in 1931, and it would appear that PHYNX was mostly his attempt to enshrine all the cultural icons he'd enjoyed in his youth, with only the most nugatory head-nods toward sixties youth-culture. Strangely, writer-producer Carl Reiner was almost ten years older than Booker, but Reiner's DICK VAN DYKE was pretty damn successful at finding a way to bring together the culture of his formative period-- and maybe many of his writers, though I haven't checked-- and making the older content blend in with sixties touchstones like Beatles, Man from Uncle.

Oh, and there's also a goofy moment where the Phynx and a bunch of other people use electric guitars to shatter a confining Albanian wall, but this feels more like an excursion into cartoon-logic.