A Sellers Market
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, it’s Peter Sellers time, so the wine pairings had better be dry.
From 1968, I Love You Alice B Toklas was a rom-com aimed at a young audience. Sellers plays a straight arrow who discovers the hippie lifestyle after unwittingly eating some brownies laced with marijuana. I ate a pot brownie at a party in my younger days. After about 20 minutes, I didn’t feel high. So I ate another. So much for not feeling high.
At least one critic thought Alice would have been much better had the trappings of hippiedom not been so stereotypical. In the search for his true self, Harold Fine leaves the straight life, drives a psychedelic station wagon, takes up with his brother’s girlfriend, hires a guru, and bails out on two weddings. I suspect writers Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker gave Harold the last name of one of The Three Stooges as an inside joke, but I’ve been wrong before.
Harold’s separation from the rat race leaves him just as disenchanted as the rat race itself did. As he leaves Canter’s, walking out onto Fairfax, he screams to the world “there’s got to be something beautiful out there.” I hope there is. Maybe just one more brownie.
Alice also starred Joyce Van Patten and Jo Van Fleet, in what could be the only time two actresses with the middle name of “Van” were in the same cast. That is a middle name, right?
Stolpman Vineyards of Los Olivas has a cute pairing for a cute rom-com. Their Love You Bunches rosé runs about $20 at Whole Foods. It’s also on the wine list at the Alice B restaurant in Palm Springs.
The Party is also a product of 1968, co-written and directed by Blake Edwards. The movie showcases Sellers’ prodigious physical comedy chops as an actor from India who gets wrapped up in havoc everywhere he goes. These days, however, a white guy pretending to be South Asian doesn’t play as well as it once did. Sellers was so white they had to paint him brown.
Pairing Blake Edwards with Peter Sellers sounds like a romp from the git-go, and The Party delivers. Sellers’ character is mistakenly invited to a swingin’ Hollywood soirée, which is the backdrop for the comedy. The slapstick is ladled on as if they thought they’d never run out of it. The fish-out-of-water bumbling was borrowed by Edwards and Sellers later in The Pink Panther film series.
Sula Vineyards is from Nashik, known as India’s wine capital. Their Chenin Blanc is a full varietal wine, and it’s fully Indian. $18.
https://sulavineyards.com/sula-classics/chenin-blanc.php
In The Magic Christian, from 1969, Sellers plays the world’s richest man, Sir Guy Grand, who adopts one of the world’s poorest men. Ringo Starr plays the uncouth unhoused person in his signature deadpan way.
Grand wants to prove that people will do anything for money, no matter how disgusting or humiliating. Today, of course, that high concept is the basis for countless reality shows on TV. Reality is a misnomer, as there is nothing real about any of the programs. Except the fact that people will do anything for money.
A bonus for this movie is the music of Badfinger. Magic Christian Music features a handful of songs that are in the movie. Though it’s not a proper soundtrack album, it still stands as a favorite of mine.
Heaven’s Hill Estate in Agoura, CA has a bottle they call Sinner Syrah. Christian or not, magic or not, they say it’s worth the $50.
https://www.heavenshillestate.com/shopourwines
Randy Fuller
NowAnd Zin Wine – www.nowandzin.com
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