BOOTLEG FILES 099: “Skidoo” (Otto Preminger’s 1968 all-star LSD comedy).
LAST SEEN: The film will be screened on October 22 at the Other Cinema in San Francisco.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR DISAPPEARANCE: A disastrous commercial release in 1968.
CHANCES OF SEEING A DVD RELEASE: Limited, but there is nothing legally preventing it from being released.
BOOTLEG OPPORTUNITIES: Very easy to find.
Get the bootleg in part two of THE BOOTLEG FILES: “SKIDOO”>>>
2/11/15
RobGems.ca Wrote:
Harry Nilsson had to pretend he was high in this film? Given his reputation throughout the 1970’s with getting drunk and boorish with pals John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and Micky Dolenz, that’s hard to believe. Nobody was a bigger lush than Harry. Maybe he preferred liquor to acid. Listen to his albums from 1971 on, such as “Son Of Schmillson” and “P***y Cats”, and tell me he didn’t do those albums sober and straight. Oh, and there’s his presence with a very boorish and drunken John Lennon heckling The Smother’s Brothers act and assaulting a waitress in 1974 at the Troubador. Like that incident wouldn’t fit in compared to an outtake of Harry’s on “Skidoo!”
Olive films released a DVD of this film in 2010.
Finally! Someone who gets “Skidoo”! I’d read and heard about it most of my life and, upon seeing that it was going to be shown on TCM a couple of years ago – sadly, not in widescreen -, I went into it with high hopes of high camp….and I was NOT disappointed! Personally, I think that this is one of Preminger’s greatest successes! It’s obviously intended to be surreal, and it works!…..every little bit of it!!! Anytime I get a few drinks in me, I can put on “Skidoo” and have a freakin’ great time! I’ve never shown it to any of my friends who didn’t get a total blast out of it! I’d kick Mother Teresa to get a copy of this in widescreen. Harry Nilsson’s theme is one of the song’s that plays continuously in the back of my head. Just put on “Skidoo” and I’m a happy boy!