Cracking Up (1977)
What would happen if a 9.7 magnitude earthquake were to strike the L.A. area? This is what "Cracking Up" looks at from the lighter side. The movie is composed of individual skits of original material by the actors spun around this hypothetical disaster.
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Reviews
Too much of everything
Overrated
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
Dreadfully unfunny excrement featuring a handful of (later) truly funny folks (Edie McClurg, Fred Willard, Harry Shearer) who somehow survived this unpromising early-career mess. Hard to figure out what is going on here; looks like one of those SNL-inspired zip-budget sketch comedies (Groove Tube,Kentucky Fried Movie) of Seventies goosed up for mini-major studio distribution (American International) with gratuitous added footage (nudity, moronic storyline about post-earthquake LA) that has virtually nothing to do with scatter shot "comedic" skits. (Too bad they didn't edit in some laughs.) Film stock doesn't match and opening credits don't even list performers. Clearly aimed at undiscriminating drive-in crowd but there's not enough beer or weed the in world to make this steaming pile amusing.
What do you get when you combine Ace Trucking Company, half of Firesign Theatre, The Credibility Gap, The Tubes, film and video cameras, and presumably, a lot of drugs? Chaos. The film is a revue of troupe comedy sketches, some of which are brilliant, very loosely strung to the plot of a massive earthquake. My guess is that a large amount of cocaine convinced people that making the film was a good idea. Fred Willard and Harry Shearer are already at the top of their form. Michael McKean and David Lander (Lenny and Squiggy) make their (addled by something) film debuts. It was painful for me to sit though the main story and the many off-key sketches, waiting for the great pieces, although Bergman and Proctor's goofy Walter Concrete and Barbara Halter's characters were occasionally politically relevant enough to be hilarious; and I was not offended by the generous serving of gratuitous nudity.The film is a scavenger hunt for diamonds in the rough.
This is a really bad movie. This is what happens when Americans get influenced by Monty Python's Flying Circus and someone has a rich parent that can sponsor this disaster of a movie. The obvious rip-ofs starting with the animated intro are just annoying for me as a MPFC fan. To add to the disaster they try to add some naked people to make the whole thing funnier and the only thing I can say is "Benny Hill does this better!".
This film opened in Seattle in 1978 as a bottom third of the triple bill in one drive-in (with a mini-ad), so I guess Arkoff at A.I.P knew he had a bomb in his hand. Part of the film is shot on video and transfered into film, so it's grainy looking. The rest of the film is on film, and you know you're in trouble when only 10% of the joke works. The title theme is annoying that it'll never leave your mind after seeing this film. The film is not on video, but it's on video in Japan. Maybe Japanese comedy fans might get 90% of the unfunny jokes. Big disappointment for any TUNNELVISION fans.