S.O.B.

Released in 1981 between the two defining hits of his late career—the sex comedy 10 and the sophisticated farce Victor/Victoria—writer-director Blake Edwards's S.O.B. is a much more cynical film, a curdled black comedy about one producer's struggle between commercial desperation and artistic integrity in the cutthroat culture of modern Hollywood. Richard Mulligan is wonderfully mad as Felix Farmer, who takes a gamble to turn his flop of a family musical into a racy adult film by having his wholesome star, Sally Miles (Julie Andrews, skewering her reputation with feverish energy), bare herself onscreen. While executives scheme behind the scenes, director Tim Culley (William Holden) watches over it all like a removed figure from the old world. Seemingly unleashing every grudge of his long career into a poison pen letter, Edwards lurches from slapstick to satire to gallows humor and back without much grace, but there's real energy here and a kind of tenderness and sympathy behind the caricatures. While short of a masterpiece, S.O.B. remains one of the most savagely funny critiques of the film industry and one of the last blasts of unhinged comic creativity from Edwards. Featuring Andrews's now-infamous topless scene, the out-of-print S.O.B. returns as an extra-less manufacture-on-demand DVD-R as part of the Warner Archive collection. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)[Blu-ray Review—Mar. 21, 2017—Warner, 121 min., R, Blu-ray: $21.99—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 1981's S.O.B. sports a fine transfer and a DTS-HD 2.0 soundtrack, but no extras. Bottom line: this infamous black comedy makes a welcome debut on Blu-ray.]