Very hit-or-miss string of surreal vignettes about a sexy teenage girl who
comes from space and ends up messing with a whole bunch of dudes. That might
sound like the plot to a porno, but unfortunately CANDY is very tame.
There's not even any nudity!
A wiggly light comes down from outer space and lands in the desert. It takes the
form of an attractive teenage girl. Then bam! She's in high school. A
great poet (Richard Burton) shows up and before long she's half naked on the
pool table in her basement kissing Ringo Starr while Burton gets busy with a
mannequin on the floor. Suddenly Gomez Addams walks in! And that's just
the first few minutes of the movie! It only gets weirder,
much weirder, from there on. Everything
but the kitchen sink is thrown in and somehow it actually works for the most
part, especially the final few minutes which, I thought, were pretty awesome.
Some people might complain that it's bewilderingly incoherent mess and they
would be 100% correct, but looking at it from a historical viewpoint, CANDY is a
remarkable look into whatever kind of weird counter-cultural bullshit was going
on back in 1968. If you are at all curious about the stranger, more psychedelic
corners of 60's cinema then you should check it out. Also, Richard
Burton's crazy hair looks a lot like Bill Murray's crazy hair at the end of
KINGPIN.
