Two friends, an actor and a chef, discover a plot to fix a horse race and try to capitalize on it. But they must also deal with the two men who fixed the race, who are trying to silence them. Then there's the mob boss the two guys work for, who planned the fix, and whose wife is having an affair with the actor. While filming on location at a race track, womanizing bit actor Spencer Holden, who lives life on one scam after another, overhears a couple of inept thugs named Binky and Turnip while they dope a race horse with a supposed undetectable super stimulant. The thugs find out that Spence overheard them and will do anything to catch him so that he won't go to the authorities with the information. Spence enlists the help of his best friend, drive-in carhop and aspiring restaurateur Dennis Powell, to bet on the race with that horse so they can make some guaranteed money. Spence and Dennis end up not only having to outrun the thugs, who manage to put a few bullet holes in Spence's car, but also the police when they find Spence's bullet-riddled car and after the race horse, Sorry Sue, dies from the drugs. Add an antique player-piano Dennis acquires, sympathetic but naïve auction-house employee Ellen Frankenthaler who is attracted to Dennis, and exotically beautiful Claudia Pazzo who is interested in buying the piano and in whom Spence is irresistibly drawn, and Spence and Dennis may be in more trouble than they ever imagined. Two idiots (Ted Danson, Howie Mandel) plan to bet on a horse in a race that's fixed to win. But they have to deal with the Mob and the Mob's head wife who is sleeping around.<br/><br/>Wow–is this BAD! I saw it in a theatre in 1986 and remember hating it and being really amazed at how lousy this was. I figured with Ted Danson in it (who was popular from 'Cheers' at the time) it couldn't be bad. Well, I was wrong! He tries but the material is hopeless. Mandel was just annoying. The rest of the cast are just there.<br/><br/>Purportedly Danson shot nude scenes for this movie but they weren't in the final cut. Also there were sequences shot with Danson and Mandel imitating old Laurel and Hardy routines (hence the title) but THOSE were cut too. I heard the studio was horrified by the final result (no shock there) and just released it very quietly and it died a quick deserved death. Easily one of the worst comedies of its time. Just painful. Avoid. Only at the IMDb can one find multiple positive comments for awful films - doesn't matter how awful, what film, who made it, or who's in it - the film will have its defenders.<br/><br/>Well, I'm sorry to say, this film cannot be defended on any level, and this comes from someone who will pretty much go to the mat to defend Blake Edwards, because I think he's a great director. But, this film comes from his worst period - where he was making one completely unfunny film after another. This, however, is the nadir of his career. There is not one funny gag (and I cannot say the same about any other Edwards film), not one funny performance, not one patented Edwards great comedy shot, just and endless series of terrible gags, all rehashed from better films, until this thing finally limps to its stupid conclusion. One knows one is in trouble the minute the film begins, when one is assaulted by an insipid rock-and-roll (circa 80s) song instead of a witty or tuneful Mancini score. One knows one is in further trouble when there is not one single note of Mancini music in the film, even though he receives credit for Original Music. The only Mancini piece, save for the title song, is source music for a player piano. Otherwise, we get Blake trying to be hip and using rock songs - well, they not only stink, but they kill the comedy.<br/><br/>I think I'm going to look up what are generally considered the worst films ever made, and my guess is that every single one of them will have at least five people saying it's a misunderstood masterpiece. Of course, what one comes to realize are that these "reviews" are written by people who were kids when they saw the films in question - and when that's the scenario, they love everything they saw as kids. No person with any critical faculties could think A Fine Mess is anything but A Fine Mess.
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378 weeks ago