听 "Bedazzled" is a biting, mischievous and witty satire of the highest order.
Stanley Moon (Moore) is a short-order chef, hopelessly in love with his waitress, Margaret Spencer (Bron). But he just can't pluck up the courage to tell her.
In a moment of desperation, he tries to hang himself but he can't even do that right. Enter Peter Cook as the polite and charming Devil, aka George Spiggot, proprietor of a seedy club staffed by embodiments of the seven deadly sins. The fallen angel soon persuades the hapless Stanley to give him his soul in exchange for seven wishes, which will help him win Margaret's heart.
If you wish to be a powerful millionaire and married to the partner of your dreams, you might wonder what can go wrong, but with the Devil's cheeky sense of fun, nothing turns out as Stanley would hope. He injects wicked twists into what, on the surface, seem to be perfectly straightforward fantasies. And as if to rub it in, the Devil himself pops up as a character in each scenario.
What stops "Bedazzled" becoming little more than a series of sketches is Cook's relentless craving for mischief, filling the gaps between wishes with understated asides such as ripping the last page out of books and flicking parking meters to 'expired'. Much of it could almost be branded childish, but in the context, it's impeccably timed comic genius.
The imagination of Cook the writer runs wild in this devilishly wicked and funny film. The humour is frequently so surreal it takes you completely by surprise, but it also bears a sharply satirical criticism of modern life. OK, so it was made in 1967, but there's not a word that doesn't still apply, so we can enjoy it every bit as much now as some of our parents did more than 30 years ago.
Read a review of the re-make.
Very clever and entertaining.
