Pun Salad

I remember enjoying this 1978 movie back in the day. A book I'm reading mentioned the Anders Bodelsen novel on which it was based, so I checked and … yep, it was free-to-me via the streaming service "Kanopy" and my Portsmouth Public Library card.

The violence here was considered pretty nasty back in 1978. Oddly enough, these days the violence seems, well, normal. But there's also considerable female nudity, which seems to have become rare. It's a funny old world.

Elliott Gould plays Miles, a nebbish stuck in a boring role at a boring Canadian bank. He's smitten with co-worker Julie (Susannah York) who's having an affair with the boss (to break out of her boring rut). She dismisses Miles' advances. But all this boredom stops when Miles detects a nefarious plan by "Reikle", a psychotic Mall Santa (Christopher Plummer), to rob the bank at gunpoint. He concocts a scheme of his own to counter the heist, and keep the proceeds.

Seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess. But it turns out to be a lot more complicated, and dangerous, than Miles probably planned. Christopher Plummer's character is about as far away from Captain von Trapp as you can get.

So: some sex and violence, a bit of romantic comedy tossed in. John Candy has a minor role. I enjoyed Miles' cat-and-mouse efforts to outwit Reikle quite a bit. This is the kind of movie they don't seem to make any more.