A Fine Madness |  | Director: Irvin Kershner
Actors: Sean Connery, Joanne Woodward, Jean Seberg, Patrick O'Neal, Colleen Dewhurst
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $15.23
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Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 51353
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: D75016D
UPC: 012569750166
EAN: 0012569750166
ASIN: B000ERVK3K
Theatrical Release Date: 1966
Release Date: June 20, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Genius poet and carpet cleaner Samson Shillitoe (Sean Connery) has writer's block - and he can't bluster clobber or curse it away. But just watch him take Manhattan by storm trying in this whirlwind comedy! It's a certifiable case of A Fine Madness as nonconformist Samson and his beleaguered wife (Joanne Woodward) plunge into a series of daffy disasters from which he still comes up smiling. That is until he dallies with the lovely wife (Jean Seberg) of a scheming psychiatrist (Patrick O'Neal) who seeks revenge by prescribing "brain surgery." Shillitoe will need the might of Samson to face down his foes but with Connery's full-tilt charisma and Irvin Kershner's buoyant direction it's flinty funny entertainment. Director: Irvin Kershner Starring: Sean Connery Joanne Woodward Jean SebergRunning Time: 104 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 012569750166 Manufacturer No: 75016
Amazon.com
A Fine Madness would never pass muster by today's politically correct standards. The "hero" of this 1966 comedy, a pompous poet named Samson Shillitoe (Sean Connery, doing a Saturday Night Live version of himself), is a classic bad boy--"an exact cross between Dylan Thomas and Mike Tyson," as one reviewer put it, a sexist philanderer who reneges on alimony to his first wife and punches out his second (Joanne Woodward, shrill and tiresome), can't keep a job, and insults, alienates, and abuses anyone who comes within two feet of him. (All of which makes him a total chick magnet, because he's an artist who has no time for quotidian vicissitudes, and also because he's Sean Connery.) Even taking the cultural time warp into account, it's hard to say what Irvin Kershner, who directed Elliott Baker's script from Baker's own novel, had in mind here, other than showing that Connery could do something besides play James Bond (in fact, the film was both preceded and followed by Bond adventures). Samson is an unredeemable jerk, the other characters are mostly unlikable as well, and the story, which involves psychiatrist Patrick O'Neal ordering him to undergo a lobotomy after he seduces the good doc's wife (Jean Seberg), is unconvincingly resolved. The film does a decent job of skewering the psychiatric profession and its pretensions, and Samson is probably meant to embody the whole screw-the-establishment ethos of the '60s, but overall, A Fine Madness is dated and simply not funny enough. One footnote: Kershner went on to bigger and better things with Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back. Ironically, he also directed Never Say Never Again, a 1983 Bond film with none other than Sean Connery as 007. --Sam Graham
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
 So-So Film With a Very Different Connery December 17, 2009
Dr. O'Boogie
I saw this film in the 70s on TV and didn't really think much of it then and still don't today. This was Sean's first major break from the Bond typecast, and although well intentioned, it just doesn't quite work. The film is really not all that funny.
Based on Elliott Baker's novel, Connery plays frustrated New York poet Samson Shillitoe who's is suffering from writer's block. Unfortunately, Samson feels it's his duty to make everybody around him suffer as well. He's a self-centered sexist and arrogant jerk! Women constantly swarm to him even to the point of taking their clothes off in front of him out of nowhere (a scene I'll go into detail later.) So, he's always cheating on his wife Rhoda (Joanne Woodward played to the hilt) as well as threatening to hit her everytime she tries to help him. Furthermore, he gets drunk and insults a women's auxillary group who hires him to read for them and was willing to pay him $200 that he needs for back alimony.
The core plot involves Rhoda's attempts to get professional phsyciatric help to cure Samson's writer's block. Something Samson loathes. The treatments fail even when surgery is induced and Samson is his usual arrogant and violent self. He smashes furniture and punches just about anyone who gets in his way and even throws Rhoda down a flight of stairs! And this is supposed to be played for laughs. Believe me, I'm not one for political correctness but as said before, this all just doesn't work very good.
The only scene that raised my eyebrows and gave me some serious chuckles happens early in the film. Samson, at this point, is working as a carpet cleaner and is assigned to working at an aerospace firm. He is under the charge of the president's secretary Miss Walnicki played by the great character actress Sue Ane Langdon, an actress who can play ditzy bombshells better than anybody else back then. Sexual innuendo is all over the place here. Samson refers to himself to her as "Hank Longfellow", use your imagination. After some of Samson's poetic charm, he manages to woo her into taking off her clothes and she ends up lying naked on her boss's sofa in his arms. The camera then pans over to sounds of lovemaking to the carpet cleaning machine while it oozes bubbly suds. Again, use your imagination. With the suds leaking out into the main office area, the office staff barges in on them with Miss Walnicki screaming in embarrassment as they all gasp. This scene led to Sue Ane doing her only nude photo shoot for the July 1966 issue of Playboy (the film actually had her in just panties, the Playboy pictorial had her fully nude.) From this point on, the film just bogs down into plain silliness with only a few laughs.
The DVD is well presented with very good picture quality, Technicolor is very vibrant here. As for sound, the mono soundtrack is quite solid highlighted by a good jazz score. Not much for extras except for a trailer and a brief original featurette on Connery.
All in all, director Irvin Kershner's (later of Empire Strikes Back fame) first shot and Connery's first ex-Bond shot was a nice try, but again, just doesn't quite work. Close, but no cigar.
Not what I expected April 5, 2007
B. Earley
Made in 1966. The film depicts several aspects of that eras norms. If one considers cheating husband, spousal abuse, unethical psychiatric practices, and labotomy not entertainment then then movie is not for you.
 Highly Original Comedy July 27, 2006
David Baldwin (Philadelphia,PA USA)
At the very least you can say that the makers of "A Fine Madness" attempt something different. That's not to say they hit a bulls-eye,though. Their ambitions are higher than their success rate. They attempt to skewer the artistic mindset and the psychiatric profession but the humor in part is too manic to truly succeed. That said there are enough laughs here to give the film a qualified recommendation. Sean Connery is inspired as the poet disguised as a brawling, boozing, womanizing, blue-collar guy. Or is it vice versa? Joanne Woodward is Connery's match as his supportive long-suffering wife. There are any number of amusing setpieces here: Connery dressing down the ladies' auxiliary, Connery's confrontation's with the process server(John Fiedler, "Mr. Peterson" from the old "Bob Newhart" show), Connery playing the psychiatrist recordings of an unfaithful wife to her unsuspecting husband. A mixed bag, but give this film credit for aiming high and just missing the mark.
 Great fantasy July 6, 2006
Joseph Hart (Visalia, CA United States)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I loved Joanne Woodward and Sean Connery (and everybody else) and I loved this movie. It was the purest of fiction. But it was a delight. Joanne Woodward I had to say was the best of them all with Connery following close behind and everybody else excellent. I didn't like seeing Bibi Osterwald playing a shrew and I thought it was a low blow giving her penultimate billing in the final credits. Did you recognize Clive Revill (sp?), he was the brain surgeon in this and the original Fagan in the Bway production of Oliver. Also the narrator (I guess, I only heard the album) in the Bway production of Irma La Douce. Much more sympathetic characters both. I had a ball watching this flick. And it was full of familiar faces.
 BOR - - - ING! June 22, 2006
sedonaman (Sedona, AZ United States)
0 out of 8 found this review helpful
An unemployed (and unemployable) poet supported by his waitress girlfriend. Need I say more?
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
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