bkoganbing Around the time that Peter Lawford was officially declared persona non grata by Frank Sinatra from the famous Rat Pack, Sammy Davis, Jr. defied the chairman of the board and teamed with Lawford to do this spy spoof Salt And Pepper. And Davis lived to tell the tale.Salt And Pepper casts Davis and Lawford as a pair of club owners in the swinging Soho section of London in the Sixties. As cool a pair of hip dudes you'd ever want to meet. A working girl is killed in their club which brings the wrath of constipated police inspector Michael Bates down on them. Bates doesn't like them on general principles, I wouldn't with all the nasty cracks made about him being so uptight. But Bates is the least of their problems because the girl was an enemy agent and that gets Davis and Lawford involved in a plot to bring down the British government the details of which I won't reveal because they are truly to bizarre.The Sixties made London the hip capital of the world and at the same time Ian Fleming and his James Bond novels brought to the screen by Sean Connery put a new twist on the spy novel. Salt And Pepper combines both trends with Davis and Lawford constantly rolling witty dialog off their tongues. The film is fast paced and breezy with nary a bow to any reality.I did mention Michael Bates before who looks through the entire film like he needs a stiff shot of prune juice. His performance is a tribute to James Finlayson, the perpetually uptight foe of Laurel and Hardy in dozens of films. Bates gets quite a few laughs of his own.Salt And Pepper holds up well and was popular enough for a sequel One More Time to be made. You'll probably want to check that one out as well.

loserfilmnerd I found Salt and Pepper to be a hysterically funny, well paced, beautifully sixties spy spoof. I'm gonna start doing reviews in a different style than I usually do, where I'm just gonna list the things I like and things I disliked. I know I'm not the only one on here that does this.Things I liked:-The two leads were hilarious and had great chemistry and interesting characters.-Very cool jazz score.-Very witty dialogue and some great lines. There was also some great slapstick gags mixed in there.-Amusing action sequences. They may have not been the most exciting action scenes in the history of cinema, but they were certainly entertaining and well staged.-The police inspector character was pretty hilarious.-The sets and costumes were very awesomely sixties.Things I disliked:-Some people may find this movie to be sexist, since the two leads sometimes treat women as sex objects. There was also a couple of mildly racist jokes thrown in. But, the fact that the movie stars an interracial friendship should make up for all that.Overall, I'd recommend this movie to anybody that enjoys action-comedies, especially ones that came from the sixties.

Woodyanders After discovering the body of a murdered female agent in their trendy Soho, London nightclub, groovy owners Charles Salt (the divinely hip Sammy Davis, Jr.) and Christopher Pepper (smooth Peter Lawford) partake in a fumbling investigation and uncover an evil plot to overthrow the government. Can our cool, yet inept duo stop the bad guys in time? Director Robert Donner (who later went on to helm such major hits as "The Omen," "Superman," and the "Lethal Weapon" pictures), working from a blithely silly script by Michael Pertwee, relates the cheerfully asinine story at a steady pace and maintains a suitably wacky tone throughout. Naturally, we get the inevitable slapstick car chase and plenty of cartoonish explosions, plus a few endearingly crummy racial and homosexual puns in the dialogue. Davis, Jr. and Lawford easily carry the picture with their breezy and engaging on-screen chemistry. Whether he's singing a rousing song on stage while surrounded by hot dancing chicks or ineffectively attempting to use martial arts on the villains, Davis, Jr. is nothing short of a total gas to watch (he even sings the great ending credits theme song). The tip-top supporting cast have a ball with their colorfully broad roles, with stand-out contributions by Michael Bates as the uptight, blundering Inspector Crabbe, John Le Mesurier as the sinister, one-eyed Colonel Woodstock, Ilona Rodgers as the fetching Marianne Renaud, and Ernest Clark as the stern Colonel Balsom. John Dankworth's jazzy and spirited score really hits the swingin' spot. Kenneth Higgins' vibrant color cinematography likewise does the trick. Moreover, the ladies are sexy and attractive and there's a certain animated funky'n'zany 60's go-go vibe to the whole movie that's impossible to either resist or dislike. An enjoyable piece of fluffy nonsense.

hillari An attempt to bring back the glory days of the Rat Pack. Both Davis and Lawford were middle aged men at that time. That's a little long in the tooth to play swinging cats in England. The plot is something about the men fighting off false charges after their hip night club is closed down. Full of jokes that probably would have worked better on Laugh-In, but then, maybe not.