Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)

“Moscow in flames. Missiles heading towards New York . . . . Film at eleven”

The feature film debut of the ‘Kentucky Fried Theater’ – better known as Jim Abrahams and brothers David and Jerry Zucker – laid the groundwork for the trio’s subsequent more refined efforts like Airplane and Amazon Women on The Moon.

A “see what sticks” approach produces a mixture of groaners and comedy gold, but the sketches – mostly television-inspired – change so quickly that the bits which fall flat are soon forgotten.

Highlights include ‘The Argon corporation’; Dino the impotent gorilla trashing the TV studio; Big Jim Slade (“and the capital of Nebraska is Lincoln”); an advertisement for the JFK assassination game (“22 material witnesses die of unnatural causes!”); Blaxploitation spoof Cleopatra Schwartz, dealing with the love of an Amazon-sized black superwoman and a timid Hasidic rabbi (he reads the Torah while feeding a bullet belt into her machine gun); the cinema where movies are screened in “Feel-Around”; and a trailer for the Samuel L Bronkowitz production of Catholic High School Girls In Trouble – a slice of brilliant social satire, fraught with profound significance – and lots and lots of titties!

The longest sketch is the ‘feature-length’ Enter The Dragon spoof, A Fistful of Yen. Comic actor Evan Kim gives a simultaneously charming and ridiculous performance as the Bruce Lee-styled lead character, delivering all of his lines with a lisp and an absurdly racist accent: “What was thaaat? . . . This is not a chawade! We are building a fighting force of extraordinary magnitude”.

“The popcorn you are eating has been pissed in . . . . Film at eleven”

Cleopatra Schwartz
Marilyn Joi
Schwartz 
Saul Kahan
Grunwald/Man/Technician
David Zucker
Housewife
Marcy Goldman
Paul Burmaster
Joseph G. Medalis
Claude LaMont
Barry Dennen
Argon Spokesman 
Colin Male
Danger Seekers Host 
Ed Griffith
Rex Kramer
Robert Starr
Eyewitness News Newscaster 
Neil Thompson
Eyewitness News Technician 
Jim Abrahams
Eyewitness News Technician 
Jerry Zucker
Mother
Anne Crawford
Father
Bob Harland
Son
Michael Harland
Daughter
Mary Harland
Box Office Girl
Julia Embree
Ticket Taker
Bruce Bonnheim
Candy Counter Girl
Tracy Landis
Usher 
Michael Alaimo
Architect 
George Lazenby
Nurse
Victoria Carroll
Governor
Jack Roberts
Governor’s Aide
Jesse Emmett
Clumsy Waiter
Donald Sutherland
Firechief 
Newell Alexander
Fireman
Armand Cerami
Mrs Hefsteder
Roberta Kent
Johnny
Christopher Hanks
Bill Bixby
Himself
Barbara Duncan
Janice Kent
Frank Bowman
Michael Laurence
Tom Leclair
Larry Curran
Ron Butler
Mike Hanks
John Fitzsimmons
William Tregoe
Sheila Hamilton
Eloise Hardt
Astrologer
Mallory Sandler
Judy Morton
Ellen Regan
Dino
Rick Baker
Linda Chambers
Lenka Novak
Nancy Reems
Betsy Genson
Susan Joyce
Nancy Mann
Charming Guy
Stephen Bishop
Mrs Burke
Gwen Van Dam
Mistaken Boy
Charles Dougherty
Woman in Shower
Uschi Digard
Man in Shower
Michael Kearns
Crazed Clown
Felix Silla
Boy Going Blind
Mark L. Levine
Rita Filagree
Boni Enten
Taylor
Dick Yarmy
Hornung
Michael McManus
Judge
Ross Durfee
Stenographer
Stephen Stucker
Wally
Tony Dow
Bailiff
Bob Liddle
Big Jim Slade
Manny Perry
Asquith
Eric Micklewood
Pennington
Derek Murcott
Loo
Evan C. Kim
Ming Chow
Agneta Eckemyr
Dr Klahn
Bong Soo Han
Ada Gronick
Ingrid Wang
Bulkus
Nathan Jung

Director
John Landis

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