Gilbert and Sullivan were well-known for poking fun at the celebrities and public officials of their day. They did so in a number of well-crafted operettas (e. g., "HMS Pinafor" and "The Mikado") to the delight of audiences. I've heard that many of those lampooned, satirized, or otherwise pilloried in those works considered it an honour to be treated in that fashion.Regrettably, the movie "S.O.B." is far below that standard. It has all the subtlety of a head-on collision and, worse, is haphazard and unfunny in its presentation.I imagine that it was meant to be some sort of inside joke as it seemed that many of the characters were based on real people, some of which were, presumably, easily recognized by those in Hollywood. Since most of us lead real lives in the real world, just who the targets of the director's barbs actually were is never made clear nor is there any attempt to explain who they are to the audience.The whole movie comes off as a two-hour long temper tantrum by director Blake Edwards. How DARE Hollywood not regard everything he does as pure genius? The fact of the matter is that artistic misfires have happened for centuries. Beethoven, for example, revised his opera "Leonora" three times before he finally had success after making major changes, including renaming it as "Fidelio".But this isn't the first time that Edwards satirized Hollywood. About 15 years earlier, he made the movie "The Party" with Peter Sellers in the lead. Although that film didn't have much of a plot, it was certainly more polished than this clunker of a film.For the most part, the actors drift through their parts, almost as if they knew it was a paycheque movie. The only character that's interesting is the phoney-baloney physician played by Robert Preston, but most of the rest are redundant as they contribute next to nothing to the overall story. Why, for example, was Marisa Berenson's character included? (Why is she even in the movie to begin with as she certainly isn't much of an actress. Watch her in "Barry Lyndon" and you'll know why I made that comment.)In addition, there are details in the movie that are absolutely unimportant and could easily have been deleted. I mean, does the audience really need to know about Robert Vaughn's character's personal habits?Not even the ending is particularly original. The funeral arrangements appear to have been lifted from the movies "The Loved One" and "The Vikings".It pained me to see William Holden in this clunker. It was to be his last movie and his performance was quite disappointing, considering that his finest role was probably that of Pike Bishop in "The Wild Bunch". He certainly didn't look at all well in "S.O.B." and died soon after it was released.I first saw this movie on cable TV about a year after it was in the theatres. I thought it was dreadful back then. I saw it again recently and it hasn't improved with time.Avoid this one and watch "The Party" instead.

I never quite figure out Blake Edwards as a filmmaker. He had a side that was as sophisticated and poignant as it was funny. Think "The Party" or the first Pink Panther, the other side was pure commercialism without any regard for its audience. SOB is a blatant example of that. Here he even uses his characters to badmouth "Last Tango In Paris" - The premise is terrific for a biting Hollywood satire but a premise is just a premise. He has to resort to farting during a sequence that should have been a comedy showstopper. Hey he got his wife to go topless and his wife was Julie Andrews - he must have heard cash registers in his mind like Richard Mulligan's character when he decides to put his wife in a porno=erotic something or other to make zillions of dollars. Richard Mulligan plays his suicidal director like he was in a Mack Sennett routine. Outrageous and I'm tempted to say, unforgivable. I must also confess that made me uncomfortable to see William Holden in the middle of it all. Shelley Winter, Robert Preston, Stuart Margolin, Larry Hagman, Robert Vaughn even a glimpse of the very young Rossana Archette keeps the film going. Loretta Swit - of MASH fame - plays a gossip columnist in such a way that may very well explain why she didn't have much of a film career. So, even if I'm aware I've spent a couple of hours with a bunch of characters I hope I never meet in real life, SOB deserves to be seen if only because it is a piece of film history solidly set on its day.

Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan) is a highly successful producer. He goes crazy when his latest release is a colossal bomb. The star is his wife Sally Miles (Julie Andrews) with a squeaky clean G-rated image. She wants a divorce but her team talks her out of it. Felix snaps out of it and buys Sally's next movie intending to turn it into an erotic musical. Sally is angry at Felix for using all of their money and reluctantly takes the risk of doing a nudie. It becomes a highly sought after property.It's a bit scattered in the beginning following a lot of characters. The heart of this is a dark biting satire. The comedy isn't always the funniest but it takes really sharp jabs at Hollywood. I was starting to really like this movie and then it takes a turn into Weekend at Bernie's territories. I love Blake Edwards taking dark comedic turns on Hollywood but some of it doesn't work.

S.O.B. was director Blake Edwards' own "All that Jazz", a self-indulgent, slightly over-the-top, slightly disguised look at a particularly period in his Hollywood career where he and wife Julie Andrews were treated pretty despicably by the Hollywood big shots who can make or break people in Hollywood with one telephone call. This film is loosely based on the time after Edwards had completed his wife's film STAR! and the studio hated it, wrested control of the film from Edwards, cut like an hour of footage from the film, retitled it "These Were the Happy Times" and then tried to shelve it. After all of this Edwards couldn't get arrested in Hollywood until he hit a bullseye with the 1979 comedy "10." But this 1981 comedy was a reminder to Hollywood bigwigs that Edwards had not forgotten their treatment of him. In S.O.B.(which, BTW, stands for Standard Operational Bull***t), Richard Mulligan plays the manic Hollywood director, Felix Farmer, who is suicidal after his film "Night Wind", starring his wife, Sally Miles (Julie Andrews) bombs miserably. Farmer is practically written off in Hollywood until he gets the inspiration to re-shoot the film as a near pornographic extravaganza and have his wife bare her breasts for the first time on screen. This uncompromising look at the inner workings of Hollywood may seem a little off the wall. These are not pleasant people for the most part and every character in the film, even Andrews, has their own agenda. The merciless screenplay is well executed by a glorious all-star cast backing up Mulligan and Andrews, including William Holden, Robert Vaughn, Robert Preston (hysterical as a doctor who gives out pills like candy), Robert Webber, Loretta Swit, Craig Stevens, Stuart Margolin, Shelley Winters, Marisa Berensen, Rosanna Arquette, Robert Loggia, and Larry Hagman. There are several funny scenes in this film and a lot of interesting things happen that by the time Andrews does bare her breasts, it is somewhat anti-climactic, but there is much to enjoy here for those willing to pay the attention that is required as the story is painted on a broad canvas with a lot of characters, but it is worth the trip and, after I saw it the first time, I wanted to see it again and again and think it is one of the great sleepers of 1980's.