A Fish Called Wanda

Many have noted filmmaker Errol Morris' article in the New York Times on anosognosia. Morris tells the story of David Dunning, a professor of social psychology at Cornell University, reading the newspaper to discover a bizarre story. The article was about a man named McArthur Wheeler who was arrested after attempting to rob two Pittsburgh banks. He attempted to rob the banks in daylight, but what really made the story unique was that Wheeler did not attempt to disguise himself. Wheeler was totally perplexed after he was arrested: "But I wore the juice," he insisted. As Morris writes, "Apparently, he was under the deeply misguided impression that rubbing one's face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to movie cameras."

Wheeler had been told of the phenomenon of smearing lemon juice on one's face to mask it from surveillance cameras. He was at least somewhat cautious, as he conducted a test to verify the results; indeed, the pictures showed no face. Perhaps it was because he had in fact mistakenly turned away from the camera just before it went off.

We have all heard of stupid criminals, but Wheeler takes the cake. Dunning suddenly realized something as he was reading the article. Perhaps Wheeler was not simply too stupid to be a bank robber, but instead was too stupid to realize that he was too stupid to be a bank robber. This is identified by Morris' article as anosognosia, which is when a person suffers from a disability but either is unaware of the condition or is unwilling to admit it exists. In the case of McArthur Wheeler, he was too stupid to realize he was stupid.

Many characters in "A Fish Called Wanda" probably have such a condition.

Written by John Cleese and directed by Charles Crichton, the film opens with three of its main characters: Jamie Lee Curtis as the title character (sort of), Michael Palin (an alumnus of Monty Python with Cleese) as a stuttering animal lover named Ken, and Kevin Kline as a maliciously-witted Otto, not daring to hide any compassion and instead horrifyingly staring at Ken's obvious stutter. "That's quite a stutter you've got there, Ken," he teases, interrupting his sentence with a chuckle. Otto also isn't afraid to mention to Ken that he once had a friend in the CIA who had a stutter which "cost him his life."

Wanda and Otto, with Ken and Wanda's boyfriend George (Tom Georgeson), rob a bank, then double-cross the ring leader while pretending to be brother and sister. They discover though that they too have been betrayed, as the stolen jewels have disappeared. Cleese himself then appears as a lawyer attempting to find some actual satisfaction in his life but instead is taken for granted by his wife and daughter. Cleese, as Archie Leach (Cary Grant's actual name), will be representing George at his trial.

Curtis is perfect at portraying such a seductive and funny character. And while it's reasonable to believe that perhaps Cleese's character would be the smart one of the group, he is the one who dances in the nude (while speaking Russian), only to discover a family walk in on him. Kline in particular is wonderful to watch. He is as animated as Chaplin and as fast as Keaton. Moment after moment, he shines. He is ready to assassinate Ken (regardless of the consequences), he loquaciously speaks Italian as he makes love, and he deeply inhales the leather boot of Wanda in the film's best fetish moment. He likes winning, too, and when he is challenged on the United States losing the Vietnam War, he shouts, "We didn't lose Vietnam! It was a tie!" His jealousy, his hatred of the Brits, his constant need to complicate things are all marvelously done by Kline. But as clumsy as Otto is, there is something deeply troubling him. To tie in the Morris-Dunning-Wheeler aspect, Otto is frequently called stupid, and his voice slows--"Don't ever, ever call me 'stupid,'" he warns. There is complexity here, yet Kline allows hyperbole without losing control, and there is an endless amount of stupidity with his character. For Kline's performance, he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

There is a flaw with a certain scene involving a dog, and I stand with Betty White in the stance that violence against animals is not funny. (May Ms. White forgive me, for I couldn't help but at least smirk at such dark humor.) In a post-Capra era, though, this is one of the finest examples of slapstick humor the movies have seen.