TxMike I found this one on Netflix streaming movies. I've seen the 2000 re-make with Brendan Fraser, but was unaware of this, the original, until two days ago. Naturally a movie made in 1967, coincidentally the year I graduated from college, will have a totally different look and sensibility. Plus this one was set and made in England, using pretty typical British humor, while the re-make is set and made in the USA.Dudley Moore, who also did the music and co-wrote the script, is Stanley Moon, lowly short order cook in a London dive. He longs for the waitress, but as a small, shy person can only wish from afar.Fret not, along comes Peter Cook as George Spiggott, aka The Devil. He is a rather pleasant chap, but after all these thousands of years wants to get back into God's good graces, and to do so needs to recruit souls. He bargains for Stanley's. Eleanor Bron plays the waitress Margaret . Sex symbol Raquel Welch plays Lust (Lilian Lust). Other actors play characters such as Vanity, Anger, Envy, Gluttony, Avarice, and Sloth , the seven deadly sins.Both the original and the re-remake use the same general approach, the dEVIL will grant 7 wishes, so that he can get the girl, but each situation isn't exactly a good result. The two versions of the movie use totally different circumstances. An entertaining movie, and a nice blast from the past. It was good to see Moore in an early role.

fedor8 A rather subversive little (slightly black) comedy, but not because of its support for hippies, but due to its demolishing of what constitutes the essence of Christian belief. The movie is at its best not during the materialization of Dudley's seven (well, six) wishes but during all the segments in-between. The dialogue between Dudley and Satan in these scenes is what won me over, and it's during these bits that Christianity, and religious belief in general perhaps, is taken apart with obvious joy by the writer. The mockery might be too subtle for the dimmer viewers, hence a believer of lower intelligence could enjoy "Bedazzled" without getting annoyed or upset. Although, a remark such as the one about a priest being "on our side" (Satan) might be a little too direct, and might reveal the film-makers' intentions even to the very unobservant viewer. Either way, I can imagine that the movie must have upset quite a few people back in the day.The great irony, of course, is that this movie's portrayal and description of God is very accurate, i.e. quite in accordance with how He comes off in the Great Book. A point, however, that will be totally lost on (the more fanatical) believers.Dudley refers to hippies as "those wonderful flower people" right after Satan targets them with a prank. What can one say to that? This was 1967, after all, an extremely naive and (comparatively) innocent period in the history of Western civilization. For all intents and purposes - at least to the lazier and more optimistic minds living at that time - hippies might have appeared to be that which they hypocritically tried to make everyone believe they were. If the movie had been intellectually fool-proof, which it isn't unfortunately but predictably (very few are), instead of glorifying hippies it would have placed them firmly on Satan's side, due to their abundantly obvious (perhaps with a little hindsight) penchant for indulging in at least half of the Seven Deadly Sins: lust, vanity, and sloth. (Hey, nothing wrong with lust; I am merely using the movie's religious-based logic.) Speaking of which, Raquel Welch has a bit part as Devil's servant Lust. She seemed to be rather confused about the accent she was supposed to use. I could have sworn she started off with an English accent but then somehow managed to slip into a light Southern twang. The director Donen probably didn't even try to correct her; he must have figured there was no use, not in a million takes. Or perhaps he'd given up AFTER the million takes. When Dudley's head is shoved onto her ample bossom, that might have been the first ever film sequence with a man resting his head on a pair of fake breasts. Just a thought.There are nice little touches of insanity, such as the notion that the Devil had lost his touch somewhat, being reduced to performing minor acts of "sabotage" such as corrupting pidgens into crapping onto people's heads or performing trivial acts of fraud against little old ladies. Although the in-between segments are the funniest, there is much hilarity in some of the wish-segments too, the funniest being when Satan cons Dudley into becoming a lesbian nun. That entire monastery bit is the film's absolute highlight.What really makes this comedy work most, apart from a meticulously prepared script, is without a doubt Dudley's excellent, totally spot-on nailing of the character. He plays him perfectly. The way he looks at people, the way he talks, plus his mannerisms and body language, all these are ideal for the portrayal of this fairly dimwitted Joe Shmoe loser. Occasionally Dudley says something a little too intelligent for his character, but that's forgivable in a comedy, i.e. plot-devices that advance a joke or gag are acceptable even if they stray from the established logic somewhat.I haven't seen a comedy this funny in years (apart from "Borat" and "Bruno"), but I am not too surprised given that Stanley Donen directed it. He had actually managed to turn a MUSICAL into a funny movie years earlier with "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers", so if he could do that he could do a lot more.

Neil Welch Peter Cook and Dudley Moore worked together in a variety of media for a long time. Their double act was extremely successful on stage and TV (and also on long playing record) where the sketch format was used: this format suited them. Their movie work was far less successful, and I suspect that a large part of this was because what worked in sketches was much more difficult to sustain for a whole movie.The first joy of Bedazzled is that, like Monty Python's Holy Grail, it pulls off the trick of hanging a series of sketches in a linking narrative so that the fact that it is, essentially, a feature length sketch show is cleverly disguised.The second joy is that the linking narrative - an updating of Faust, whereby Dudley Moore's loser griddle cook is put through the mincer by Peter Cook's amiable but merciless devil - works perfectly, as do most of the episodes illustrating Moore's wishes.Although this is very much a product of the era in which it was made, it is still a very good film, and repays the time spent in watching it.

Jackson Booth-Millard I had seen the Brendan Fraser/Elizabeth Hurley version long before this original from director Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain) and written by the two leading actors. It is exactly the same premise, a guy - Stanley Moon (Dudley Moore) - wants to be with a girl - Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron) - and along comes The Devil, aka George Spiggott (Peter Cook), and the guy signs a contract for seven wishes in exchange for his soul. Throughout the film Stanley becomes articulate intellectual, a wealthy industrialist, a brief rock star, has an affair, a fly on the wall and a nun, oh, and gets an ice lolly. In the end though, instead of the Devil demanding he makes a final wish and it isn't for himself, Stanley uses them all, and the Devil simply turns nice to get God to take him back into Heaven. Also starring a pretty brief Raquel Welch as Lilian Lust, Alba as Vanity, Robert Russell as Anger; Barry Humphries, aka Dame Edna Everage as Envy, Parnell McGarry as Gluttony, Danièle Noël as Avarice, Howard Goorney as Sloth, Michael Bates as Insp. Reg Clarke, Bernard Spear as Irving Moses, Robin Hawdon as Randolph, Michael Trubshawe as Lord Dowdy, Evelyn Moore as Mrs. Wisby, Charles Lloyd Pack as Vicar and Lockwood West as St. Peter. In my opinion, this isn't as good as the much more lively and modern remake, this just feels too 60's, it seems much more chatty, and there was not much to laugh at. Cook is not as fun as the sexy interpretation by Hurley, Moore is not as concerned as Fraser, I think Welch would been a very seductive Devil, probably more so than Hurley, but if you like old fashioned comedy, this is worth seeing, at least once. Okay!