#812. A Fish Called Wanda
- Year: 1988
- Country: USA
- Language: English/Italian/Russian
- Production: MGM, 108m
- Director: Charles Crichton
- Producer: Michael Shamberg
- Screenplay: John Cleese
- Photography: Alan Hume
- Music: John Du Prez
- Cast: John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin
- Oscar Wins: Best Supporting Actor
- Oscar Noms: Best Director, Best Screenplay
- Blog Club Rating: 8.5/10
Abridged Book Description[]
A caper comedy of manners and not so subtle Anglo-American cultural disconnects, the success of Charles Crichton's A Fish Called Wanda lay in its treatment of stereotypical gangster types. First is the absurd motif of the piece that rests on the communication skills of a man with a lifetime stutter. Then there's a psycho killer rendered as an oversensitive nincompoop manipulated by a femme fatale with a debilitating erotic weakness for romance languages. Last is the straight-laced hero, no more than a cloistered man with great passions, but also someone with an almost pathological knack for receiving the butt end of bad situations.