BOOTLEG FILES 892: “Chu Chu and the Philly Flash” (1981 comedy feature starring Alan Arkin and Carol Burnett).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: Only available on VHS.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Nope.
While viewing this 1981 comedy film, a nagging thought kept cycling through my mind: Did anyone during the creation of this work genuinely believe they were making a funny movie? Granted, there is a surplus number of unfunny comedy films – but “Chu Chu and the Philly Flash” is such an astonishing misfire that it could inspire an academic consideration of how not to make a comedy film.
Chu Chu is a third-rate San Francisco dance teacher who is late on her rent. She scratches out the meagerest of living doing a Carmen Miranda-style act on the street, and she spends the film going through multiple outlandish wigs and outfits. The character is played by Carol Burnett, who brought along her TV variety show designer Bob Mackie to create the wild costumes she wears.
And the Philly Flash is a homeless recovering alcoholic who was once an up-and-coming baseball pitcher. He tries to scratch out a living by cleaning windshields and selling stolen watches. This character is played by Alan Arkin in a bad wig and a dirty raincoat.
This unlikely pair meets when Philly Flash tries selling watches to passersby while Chu Chu is doing her Carmen Miranda act. But they really bond when a briefcase containing secret government documents falls from a window. The duo conspires to return the briefcase for $50, but their silly attempt at extortion results in their being chased around San Francisco by various bad guys who want the suitcase’s contents.
“Chu Chu and the Philly Flash” wants to present the title characters as lovable losers, but there is nothing lovable in the actors’ performances. Arkin goes through the film in a grouchy, monotonous single-note manner while Burnett horribly overplays each scene – whether she is tasked with zany behavior or tiresome melodrama, she tries too hard and always falls flat. The actors are dull on their own and their lack of chemistry makes their pairing a bore.
The only distractions in “Chu Chu and the Philly Flash” are the travelogue-worthy scenes on the San Francisco streets and the considerable supporting cast. Jack Warden tries hard invent a passable villain as The Commander, a Fagin-type leader of a band of homeless people who are too cute for their own good. The homeless are played by Adam Arkin (the star’s son), a then-unknown Danny Glover, Vincent Schiavelli, Sid Haig and Ruth Buzzi. Also on hand is Lou Jacobi as Chu Chu’s nagging landlord, Vito Scotti as a streetcorner hot dog vendor who keeps his cart in his apartment when he’s not working, and Danny Aiello as one of the bad guys trying to retrieve the briefcase.
Arkin’s then-wife Barbara Dana wrote the screenplay, which is generously stuffed with illogical situations and plot development clichés, including the inevitable slapstick chase finale. David Lowell Rich, whose diverse directing credits include the Three Stooges romp “Have Rocket, Will Travel” and the Lana Turner melodrama “Madame X,” deserves blame for the shoddy and enervated direction.
“Chu Chu and the Philly Flash” was one of the great box office bombs of the 1980s – made for $7 million and released by 20th Century Fox, it took in roughly $221,000 at the box office. The film had a brief VHS video release in 1982 on the Magnetic Video label but never resurfaced in any other home entertainment format.
But for those with a masochistic penchant for bad comedies, “Chu Chu and the Philly Flash” lives on via an unauthorized YouTube posting. Trust me, it helps if you view this film with glasses – whether you fill your glasses with gin, whiskey or vodka is up to you.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
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