Review of Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) by Liv G — 04 Nov 2008

Bouncy and funny, this is a musical where people sing in their heads, with the kind of quirky direction you can expect from George Roy Hill. Julie Andrews is Millie, a stenog out to marry her boss, whoever he may be, who gets involved in a white slavery plot and a mixed up romantic life. Andrews' singing is brilliant, and she's great at all the comedy too.

But the plot can be too insane, or too sidetracked. The whole love/deception side of the plot is quite irritating because characters Jimmy (James Fox), Miss Dorothy (Mary Tyler Moore) and Muzzy (Carol Channing) vary from weird to annoying to downright unbearably awful (that last one is for the ghastly Channing). And like several 60s films, it's all interspersed with random dance scenes that go on for far too long when they don't need to exist at all. All this mess means that the prostitution plot doesn't really get going for an hour and a half.

When it's good, it really is breathlessly fun, but all that is buried under the rubbish, which is a shame, because with a lot of cutting and a few new scenes, this would have been a classic.