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Skidoo

Director: Otto Preminger Run Time: 98 min. Format: Digital Rating: R Release Year: 1968

Starring: Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Frankie Avalon, Burgess Meredith, Mickey Rooney

Made on a lavish budget by Otto Preminger and featuring an all-star cast that includes Groucho Marx in his last screen appearance, SKIDOO is a comic tale that blends gangster melodrama with the 1960s’ psychedelia.

Tony Banks is a reformed mob hit man who runs an honest car wash with his wife Flo. The first of their many troubles begins when their daughter gets involved with a hippie. Next, ex-mob boss God calls up and says that he wants Tony to ice “Blue Chips” Packard before he testifies in court. The trouble is that Packard is in prison. At first Tony refuses, but when God orders Tony’s best friend shot, he changes his mind and is sent to prison where he is to cozy up to Packard and kill him. But all bets are off after Tony accidentally ingests LSD and goes on a hallucinatory head trip that results in his decision not to kill Packard. Instead, he plans an elaborate escape that lands them into even bigger, more crazy trouble.

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