The infamous off-Broadway musical revue tackles the subject of sexuality, with skits by John Lennon, Samuel Beckett, Jules Feiffer and Sam Shepard, where one or more performers in either a state of undress, simulating sex, or both.
Director: Jacques Levy.
Writers: Kenneth Tynan, Robert Benton, Sam Shepard, John Lennon, Jules Feiffer, Dan Greenburg, Jacques Levy, Leonard Melfi, David Newman, Margo Sappington, Clovis Trouille, Kenneth Tynan, Sherman Yellen.
Stars: Raina Barrett, Mark Dempsey, Samantha Harper, Patricia Hawkins, Bill Macy, Mitchell McGuire, Gary Rethmeier, Margo Sappington, Nancy Tribush, George Welbes.
Cinematographers: Frank Biondo, Arnold Giordano, Jerry Sarcone.
I almost always appreciate a little erotica,(especially with something as wonderful as http://rarefilmm.com/2020/01/de-onfatsoenlijke-vrouw-1991/ ) but I have my own take on why this play is infamous. Without knowing why pros consider this a controversial play, I don’t find the nudity or acting the problem, it’s the low quality of the written skits. The audience seems to enjoy it, though, and I did too, to a degree, but I’m glad I never had the chance to buy a ticket for it.
Thanks, Jon. Still try to get through 1972 films. I was looking for this one so Yeah!
Why is this movie not available to watch?
It’s working for me, Gabriel, why you say it’s not available?
Thanks for this upload, Jon. I have fond memories of seeing the Broadway play on a theatre marquee when I lived in NYC,from the mid 1970s to the mid 80s, though I didn’t see the stage show, or the film. I recall that the musical, or play, ran a long time, and I think it was still running in 1978 or 79.
Oh! Calcutta! was part of series of musicals, about free love and spirituality, starting in 1968 with HAIR, the Tribal Rock musical, (the actress Diane Keaton was in the chorus) by James Redo IIRC. Followed by musicals about Jesus from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s pen, Jesus Christ Superstar in 1971, which was made into a film with an inspiring soundtrack. Like West Side Story from Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein, debuting in 1957 and made into a film in 1962, with a recent film revival in 2021, by Steven Spielberg, shortly before Sondheim’s death, all part of the countercultural wave of such Broadway shows. Including Godspell, which had no author but was based on The Book of St John, in the bible.
I also remember when ALW produced Evita in 1979 starring Patty LePone, who revived the role last year with Covid-19 restrictions for the audience. Madonna recreated the role in the 2000s and won a Golden Globe for playing Eva Peron..
BTW, when I visited Russia in 1990, some people I met in Moscow, who put me up, had a reel to reel recording of JC Superstar that was smuggled into the country and copied by them. The original cast recording. Amazing when you think of it. Until the mid-90s there was no state religion or private religious practices allowed under the Soviet system and atheism was the official religion.. Though because of Gorbechev’s Perestroika, religion was making a comeback in the late 1980s. Churches were being re-opened and created. That later wave was under Boris Yeltsin.. By the time of Putin, religion was back in full swing, and when Putin canonised the Romanovs as saints, who were murdered in 1917 by the Bolsheviks, the circle was closed.
Well, Gabriel, you are on a discussion site about Oh! Calcutta!. So, and I know this post is nearly 2 years old, watch it?
I actually went to see this erotic sitcom without really wanting to. A friend got stood up by her date and so I was a good friend and went with her. The best thing about it was seeing ballet superstar Rudolph Nureyev sitting a few seats down. I can’t believe the late actor/director/ playwright Sam Shepard had a hand in writing this. Wow.
I’m like one of the actresses said (but I will paraphrase), “I didn’t mind all the penises and vulvas, but I didn’t care for the language”. I laughed a lot, especially during the skit where Helen was telling about her previous encounters. And of course I enjoyed the nudity the best.
I have watched this again and I was laughing LOTS. I think that this film version of it is way better than what a person would see if he was in the audience. Things would be too far away if one was out in the seats. I would think that a live version would be banned nowadays. I disliked some of the language, but overall the film was absolutely wonderful. I’m so glad to have found it.
My boyfriend and I saw this the other night and watched with our jaws on the floor. At one point one of us said “Literally everything on Broadway right now is better than this.” That probably was an understatement. Literally everything from the last DECADE is better than this.
Every sketch, every dance, every moment dragged on and on far longer than it needed to. Actual pornography is less repetitious and better at getting to the point. There’s also a distasteful aspect that comes from how the POV is 100% straight male, just steeped in opinions about women that haven’t aged at all well (non-straight people don’t exist in the world of this show, of course).
Not very long after Oh, Calcutta, there was an off-broadway show called Let My People Come, and it was everything this show was not. Funny, sexy, insightful, open to different perspectives…the show even had a brief revival a decade or so back and was still sharp. Try playing Oh, Calcutta again and you’ll have 2-3 hours of appalled silence.