A Fine Madness

An engaging, sharply scripted comedy (Elliott Baker, from his own novel), with Connery oddly but not inaptly cast as a poet driven berserk by the frustrations of wage-earning in New York. Perceptive, persuasive and often very funny, especially in a sequence where Connery, forced to address a staid group of female culture-vultures because he needs the fee, gets drunk and proceeds to relieve his feelings ('Open your corsets and bloom...let the metaphors creep above your knees'). Silly farce takes over latterly as a doctor he has cuckolded vengefully prescribes a pre-frontal lobotomy (which has no effect). Ted McCord's location camerawork, and Woodward's performance as the poet's harassed, embarrassed wife, are outstanding.