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Skidoo (film)

Skidoo
Skidooposter.jpg
theatrical release poster
Directed by Otto Preminger
Produced by Otto Preminger
Written by Doran William Cannon
Rob Reiner (uncredited)
Starring Jackie Gleason
Carol Channing
Frankie Avalon
Fred Clark
Michael Constantine
Frank Gorshin
John Phillip Law
Peter Lawford
Burgess Meredith
George Raft
Cesar Romero
Mickey Rooney
Groucho Marx
Music by Nilsson
Cinematography Leon Shamroy
Edited by George Rohrs
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date
  • December 19, 1968 (1968-12-19) (US)
Running time
97 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Skidoo is an American comedy film directed by Otto Preminger, starring Jackie Gleason and Carol Channing, written by Doran William Cannon and released by Paramount Pictures on December 19, 1968. The screenplay satirizes late 1960s counterculture lifestyle and its , technology, anti-technology, hippies, free love and then-prevalent use of the mind-altering drug LSD.

Along with top-billed Gleason and Channing, Skidoo also stars Frankie Avalon, Fred Clark (who died on December 5, two weeks before the film's release), Michael Constantine, Frank Gorshin, John Phillip Law, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, George Raft, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney and Groucho Marx playing "God" (making, at age 77, his final film appearance). Singer-songwriter Nilsson, who wrote the score and receives credit as a member of the cast, appears in a few brief scenes with Fred Clark, as both portray prison tower guards swaying to Nilsson's music while under the influence of LSD.

As a cartoon character dressed in prison stripes (and holding a peace-logo flower which turns into a tiny parasol and then a helicopter blade) executes a few dance steps to the music of Nilsson's Skidoo theme, the words "Otto Preminger" appear below him. Additional words "presents SKIDOO starring" can also be seen as the camera pulls back to reveal that this image is on a TV screen, while Carol Channing's voice is heard exclaiming, "No, Harry, not that. No, I don't wanna see that", with the channel suddenly switching to show a US Senate hearing conducted by (fictional) Senator Hummel, portrayed by Peter Lawford, who asks a series of organized crime figures various questions to which they invariably reply, "I refuse to answer on the grounds it may tend to incriminate me".


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