The Phynx (pronounced like “The Finks,” as in stool pigeons) is a mind-bending 1970 comedy about a Monkees-like prefab rock group, who are also trained as spies. The Phynx are sent undercover to communist Albania in order to spring political prisoners who you might mistake for aging showbiz folks found in a Hollywood unemployment line of the era. It’s a jaw-dropping, eye-popping camp spectacle as you watch one paycheck collecting Hollywood has-been after another shuffle before you in an unfunny film that can probably only be compared to or categorized alongside of Otto Preminger’s Skidoo, with its star-studded cast and general “counter culture as seen by Hollywood” tone.
The Phynx plays like a substandard (but big budget) Get Smart episode meets (a low budget) Around the World in 80 Days with a succession of (once) famous faces like Dorothy Lamour, Georgie Jessel, Kentucky Fried Chicken magnate Colonel Harlan Sanders, Butterfly McQueen, Xavier Cugat (sans Charo, who you’d expect to see in a film like this), Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, an Andrews Sister, Johnny “Tarzan” Weissmuller, Maureen O’Sullivan (who played “Jane”), Busby Berkeley, Ruby Keeler, Rudy Vallée, Louis Hayward, Guy Lombardo, Andy Devine, Clint Walker, Cass Daley, Pat McCormick, boxer Joe Louis, Pat O’Brien (who quips about how if he’d played his cards differently, it would have been Ronald Reagan in this thing and not him), the Bowery Boys’ Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall (grandfather of DM’s own Oliver Hall), out lesbian actress Patsy Kelly, Larry Hankin (playing “Philbaby” a barely fictionalized version of Phil Spector, who declined to participate), Trini Lopez, Sally Struthers, Susan Bernard (from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!), Martha Raye, gossip columnist Rona Barrett, George Tobias (henpecked Abner Kravitz from Bewitched), Joan Blondell and even the fucking Lone Ranger and Tonto.
Human punch lines? Oh, The Phynx has got ‘em. It practically invented the concept!
And did I mention that Richard Pryor (as the band’s sort of “soul consultant”) and James Brown (as the ambassador from the reord industry) do their thangs in The Phynx? I didn’t? Well they do! And the dude who played “Oddjob” in Goldfinger is in there, too. And Dick Clark and Ed Sullivan play themselves. Rich Little (who else) plays Richard Nixon. Warhol superstar Ultra Violet is present, too.
A picture is starting to emerge here, is it not? Even if this movie is shit—which it basically is—how can you possibly go wrong with a cast like this one? (You have to give them credit, though, they tried...)
The Phynx is unique. So much so that it’s never really been that easy to see. The studio knew they had a bomb on their hands. I don’t think it was ever properly released in theaters, at least not in America. Until a few years ago, when Warner Brothers finally put it out via their Warner Archive bespoke DVD service (for movies so unknown and culty that producing even a small batch of them is probably more than the public is willing to absorb) it had never come out before on home video either and the bootlegs you could find on eBay were always super crappy.
Below you can see the trailer for The Phynx that was made by Cinefamily when a 35mm print of the film was screened for the first time in decades during 2013’s Everything Is Festival (and hosted by Patton Oswalt):
More after the jump…
