According to the opening montage, Manhattan in the mid-1960s was a place festering with anger and ceaseless movement and filth. In the East Village a bunch of "educated artists," or more precisely, college dropouts, are living together in a dilapidated loft apartment. For the record, they're supposed to be hippies but they seem much more like old school beatniks, especially Liz (Mary Tyler Moore), whom we first see dressed in black, playing a guitar and singing a dirge about how miserable life is. She and her scuzzy bearded boyfriend Pete (George Peppard), who used to be an advertising man, lie listlessly around with their friends hating the world. Meanwhile, a Greek merchant ship pulls into dock and all the sailors are joyful and dancing, the opposite of how they usually are. It's determined that a colorful toucan on the ship is spreading a happiness virus, and before it can be caught, it flies off into the city where it lands in the hippie apartment window. Pete catches it first; he shaves his beard, gets his old job back, and deliberately tries to pass the virus on to Liz. Soon all the hippies have it; they get cleaned up and they clean up the apartment. As it begins spreading across the city, the mayor (John McMartin) is worried that the feelings of euphoria will lead people to stop drinking and smoking (cutting back on sales taxes) and even voting, so he leads an effort to stop the virus spreading by giving the public masks (very Covid-lockdown-era looking) and by trying to catch the bird. Government advisor Monroe (Dom DeLuise), who comes to town wearing a space helmet as protection, is sure it's a Commie plot. When the bird is caught, an antidote is formulated and pumped into the already polluted sky. Pete and Liz, knowing the bird will be killed for study, plot to help it escape, leading to a slapstick sequence in which she hides the bird under the wedding gown she's wearing, getting mistaken for a pregnant bride.
This is a cute fantasy comedy satire, though its satirical bite is practically non-existent. If it's trying to target hippies, these folks, as I noted, are not hippies, and despite what the filmmakers might have thought, beatniks were not the same as hippies. Still, their portrayal in the opening scenes is fun, and their number includes the unrecognizable Nathaniel Frey, Don Stroud and Susan St. James. The pokes at government bureaucrats are funnier; McMartin is nicely befuddled as the mayor, and the funniest performance comes from DeLuise who provides plenty of laughs in every scene he's in, sometimes abetted by George Furth as his kowtowing underling. Individually, I liked Peppard and Moore, but they have little chemistry. I didn't care a bit about their relationship story, and if there is blame to be placed, it's probably with Peppard who is working at half power, though his sex appeal makes up a bit for the flaccid performance—I found him quite appealing with and without the fuzzy scuzzy style. Moore is at least trying, and it's a shame her big screen comedy career never got very far. The ad men are mocked lightly in a scene in which they are working a campaign for a pill called Ultra that they want to claim can do practically everything but in reality, does nothing. Thelma Ritter, in her last screen role, has a cameo; it's not much, but Ritter is always welcome. The mask situation and its similarity to the Covid-era maskings is downright spooky. Despite its many problems, it's hard to dislike this movie; it'd be like disliking a puppy, or perhaps, the toucan. Pictured at top left are Moore and Peppard; at right is Peppard, scuzzy-style. [DVD]
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