Candy

Terry Southern's 1958 novel Candy (co-written with Mason Hoffenberg) reworked Voltaire's classic satire Candide into a pre-counterculture comedy. Scripted by Buck Henry and directed by French actor-turned-director Christian Marquand, this 1968 adaptation is less of a sly satire than a clumsy, intermittently witty romp through a European idea of American decadence. Ewa Aulin, a diminutive, curvy beauty and former Miss Teen Sweden, plays the titular innocent Candide figure here, resembling a wide-eyed kewpie doll of a naïve American high school girl (with an unshakable Swedish accent) who is coaxed out of her mini-dress and into the sack by a succession of dirty old men. The all-star cast of seducers includes Ringo Starr as an embarrassing stereotype of a Mexican gardener, John Astin as Candy's lecherous uncle, Richard Burton as a drunken sex-mad Welsh poet, Walter Matthau as a crazy general, and Marlon Brando as a phony horny guru. Also featuring John Huston, James Coburn, Anita Pallenberg, and Sugar Ray Robinson, the acting here is big and broad, played as lampoon rather than satire, and the direction is scattershot, while the comedy is all over the map. Originally rated “X, ” the film is a bewildering curiosity that hasn't aged well, but it does stand out as the most star-studded sex farce ever made. Extras include new interviews with screenwriter Henry and film critic Kim Morgan. Not a necessary purchase. (S. Axmaker)