(Ein Fisch namens Wanda [de])
USA 1988
d: Charles Crichton
MGM Home Entertainment (Region 2 uk)
sc: John Cleese (based on a story by Cleese and Charles Crichton)
c: Alan Hume (Technicolor)
e: John Jympson
pd: Roger Murray-Leach
m: John Du Prez
p: Michael Shamberg (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) / Prominent Features / Star Partners Limited Partnership)
w: John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, Maria Aitken, Tom Georgeson, Patricia Hayes, Geoffrey Palmer, Cynthia Cleese, Mark Elwes, Neville Phillips, Peter Jonfield, Ken Campbell, Al Ashton, Roger Hume
pr: 07 Aug 1988
aw: Academy Awards 1989 Oscar Best Actor in a Supporting Role Kevin Kline • BAFTA Awards 1989 Best Actor John Cleese; Best Actor in a Supporting Role Michael Palin • David di Donatello Awards 1989 David Autore della Migliore Sceneggiatura Straniero • Golden Screen, Germany 1989
rt: 103:34 (+4%PAL= 108) min
dvd-rl: 01 Feb 2000
ar: 1.78:1 (4:3 Letterboxed Widescreen)
sd: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono • German Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono • French Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono • Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono • Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
st: English, English HoH, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, Polish, Portuguese
supp: • Theatrical trailer (1:25 min)
• 8-page booklet featuring trivia, production notes and a revealing look at the making of the movie
A perfectly old-fashioned romantic comedy, big on caper, generous on Ealing, and heavy on the twisted stereotypes. Cleese scripts and stars as London barrister Archie Leach, hired to defend a gem thief, and earning a much-vaunted 'sex symbol' tag with the affections of gangster's moll Wanda Gershwitz (Curtis). It's a plot too jagged to document in full - Where are the gems? Who has the safe-deposit key? Who's betraying whom? Is the London Underground really a political movement? - but the interest lies less in outcome than in character: Palin as a madly stuttering, animal-loving dog-murderer, Kline as a maybe-CIA cruel paranoid pseud who's intermittently Wanda's lover/gay brother, and Cleese and Curtis as the most unlikely rug-tearers since Miller and Monroe. There's nothing deep, nothing ground-breaking, but it's a never-dull, tightly scripted yarn with some very funny gags.
— SGa, Time Out Film Guide
