A Fish Called Wanda movie storyline. One of the cleverest, quirkiest and wittiest madcap caper comedies ever made, that included members of the original anarchic Monty Python troupe with American stars – in a subversive and raucous tale that combined both British and American humor. The film recalls the British Ealing Studio comedies (such as Crichton’s own The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955)) and Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve (1941).
As the tagline stated, the unexpected hit was “a tale of murder, lust, greed, revenge, and seafood,” in which three eccentric thieves (Curtis, Kline, and Palin) battle the authorities and each other to recover a valuable cache of stolen diamonds.
All actors are perfect in their roles, especially the self-absorbed, not-too-bright (“Don’t you ever call me stupid”) Buddha-misquoting Anglophobe Otto West (Kline) and the stuttering, animal-loving hitman Ken (Palin).
Features such bits as Ken’s attempts at murdering an old woman that results in the deaths of her dogs (to his horror), Otto’s constant tormenting of Ken (“Look! It’s K-k-ken coming to k-k-kill me!”) and conservative, uptight barrister Archie Leach (Cleese), Wanda Gerschwitz’s (Curtis) use of sex to dominate the men in her life and her total arousal to foreign languages like Italian and Russian. The leads would team up again in the comedy Fierce Creatures (1997), in lieu of a sequel.
A Fish Called Wanda is a 1988 British-American heist comedy film directed by Charles Crichton (his final film) and written by John Cleese. It stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin as a gang of diamond thieves who double-cross one another to find stolen diamonds hidden by the gang leader. His barrister (Cleese) becomes a central figure as femme fatale Wanda (Curtis) uses him to locate the loot.
The film was released to positive reviews and was nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, winning Best Supporting Actor for Kline. Cleese and Palin won BAFTA Awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for their performances. A spiritual sequel, Fierce Creatures, was released in 1997. The British Film Institute ranked A Fish Called Wanda the 39th-greatest British film of the 20th century.
About the Story
London-based gangster George Thomason and his right-hand man, Ken Pile, an animal lover with a stutter, plan a jewel heist. They bring in two Americans: con artist Wanda Gershwitz and weapons expert Otto West, a mean-spirited anglophobe. Wanda and Otto are lovers, but they hide this from George and Ken, pretending to be siblings, so Wanda can work her charms on them.
The heist is successful, and the gang escapes with a large sum in diamonds. They hide them in a safe in an old workshop. Soon after, Wanda and Otto betray George to the police and he is arrested. They return to collect the diamonds, with Wanda planning to double-cross Otto, as well, but find that George has moved them. In Ken’s fish tank, Wanda discovers the key to the safe deposit box containing the diamonds and hides it in her pendant.
Wanda decides to seduce George’s barrister, Archie Leach, so he can persuade George to plead guilty and give up the location of the diamonds. Archie is in a loveless marriage and quickly falls for Wanda. Otto is jealous, and his interference causes Wanda and Archie’s liaisons to go disastrously wrong. Wanda accidentally leaves her pendant at Archie’s house, which Archie’s wife, Wendy, mistakes for a gift for her. At Wanda’s insistence, Archie recovers the pendant by staging a burglary. Eventually, Archie, feeling guilty, ends the affair.
George asks Ken to kill Mrs Coady, the Crown’s only eyewitness. Though Ken accidentally kills off her three dogs, causing him great distress, he is successful when the last surviving dog’s death gives her a fatal heart attack. Wanda and Otto want George to remain in jail, but with no witness, he now seems set to get off. At his trial, defence witness Wanda unexpectedly gives evidence against him.
When Archie, stunned, flubs his cross-examination and inadvertently calls her “darling”, Wendy realises that Archie has had an affair and decides to divorce him. Otto tries to force Ken to reveal the location of the diamonds by eating his pet fish, leaving Ken’s favourite, named Wanda, until last. Ken reveals that the diamonds are at a hotel near Heathrow Airport.
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Directed by: Charles Crichton, John Cleese
Starring: John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, Maria Aitken, Tom Georgeson, Cynthia Cleese, Patricia Hayes, Neville Phillips
Screenplay by: John Cleese, Charles Crichton
Production Design by: Roger Murray-Leach
Cinematography by: Alan Hume
Film Editing by: John Jympson
Costume Design by: Hazel Pethig
Set Decoration by: Stephenie McMillan
Art Direction by: John Wood
Music by: John Du Prez
Distributed by: Metro Goldwyn Mayer, United Artists, United International Pictures
Release Date: July 15, 1988 (United States / Canada), October 14, 1988 (United Kingdom)
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