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Lucky Lady (1975) More at IMDb Pro »

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18 comments in total

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Rookie moonshiners run afoul of the government and other criminals, 6 February 2004

Author: helpless_dancer from Broken Bow, Oklahoma

Interesting little comedy featuring 3 down on their luck folks who, during the depression, formed a coalition to run booze past the coast guard. Turns out the CG is the least of their woes as a psychotic rumrunner decides to take over the entire area and rub out any who stand in his path. Good shootout as a finale with a multitude of boats gunning it out in a Pacific cove. Good one.

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Grade A Hollywood dud, 20 July 2002

Author: jrs-8 from Chicago

Sometimes you just have to scratch your head. All the ingredients are in place for a great movie. In this case you have a cast headed by Burt Reynolds, Gene Hackman, and Liza Minnelli, and a top director in Stanley Donen who made the classic "Singing in the Rain." So what went wrong?

In a word it's the script. When ideas run out an action sequence is implanted to try and throw the viewer off. Nice try fellas but it didn't work.

Even the main story is just brushed over. An often intimated threesome with the main leads is just a tease. It's never explored and only serves to wet our appetite for something that might liven this mess up. Alas, it never comes.

Released at Christmas in 1975 "Lucky Lady" proved to be a major box office flop. It's easy to see why. I'm sure no one connected with the film is too pleased to be reminded of it.

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Better than its reputation, 20 November 2001

Author: Chuck O'Leary from Pittsburgh, PA

Much maligned when released, "Lucky Lady" isn't nearly as bad as its reputation, and it's much better than Burt Reynolds' other 1975 flop, "At Long Last Love." Directed by veteran Stanley Donen ("Charade," "Movie, Movie"), "Lucky Lady" is a mildly amusing comedy that gets by on sheer star power alone. There's nothing of substance here, but Gene Hackman, Liza Minnelli and especially Reynolds are fun to watch as Depression-era bootleggers who also form an awkward love triangle. Back in the mid-1970s, when movies were judged by higher standards, "Lucky Lady" took a beating from most critics. But by today's dumbed-down standards, it's highly watchable. 20th Century Fox and director Donen should get together and produce a long overdue DVD special edition which features the other, unused endings that were shot. Rating: 7 out of 10

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
At long Last...DVD?, 23 September 2004
Author: ptb-8 from Australia

Released in Sydney in 1976 in the beautiful lost Plaza cinerama-screen theatre LL was crazily blown up to 70mm for release here and suffered horrible cropping to make it a rectangle 2.2 ratio pic when it seemed to be shot 1.66-1. Heads were cut off, or in one famous scene with Liza in a chair with Hackman and Reynolds standing behind her (the famous "fish fart" line) all we saw was her eyes on the stage and the men's chins at the top. I saw it again in proper ratio and it was far better, so whoever's idea to blow it up literally only added to the maligned 'bomb' status of this very expensive ($13m) 1975 film. Yes, the washed out image also looks weird, and makes you yearn for better access into the antics on screen. We had one of the 3 reported endings: the silly happy one where they all surface in the water after being blown up. The Butch Cassidy ending where the guys die and she is left would have been much better. Amazing that this film cost $4m more than STAR WARS filmed the next year. I saw a terrific 'making of' featurette at a nearby cinema at the same time which was in focus and offered a witty and attractive lead to the film, so there is plenty for the DVD if we get it. Reynolds other films of the time AT LONG LAST LOVE and NICKELODEON deserve favourable DVD releases too; all 3 are funny and enjoyable and compared to new multiplex releases from the USA, are masterpieces. LL is almost a musical and Reynolds is a hoot. The John Held artwork on the credits will make you rush to buy a book of his delicious 1920s cartoons.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Slapstick and violence making strange bedfellows..., 23 December 2007

Author: moonspinner55 from redlands, ca

Liza Minnelli plays such a shrewish harpy in "Lucky Lady" that it's easy to see why this film won her no new admirers. Fans of 1972's "Cabaret" were already softened to love Minnelli no matter what, but here director Stanley Donen seems intent on making Liza's character Claire as brittle and abrasive as possible. The bumpy plot, about a trio of rum-runners in the 1930s who fall into an oddly casual three-way love affair, isn't worked out cohesively in terms of the narrative (and the overlapping scenes of caustic comedy and mobster melodrama eventually cause impatience and resentment). At first it's a bit shocking to see Liza in bed between Gene Hackman and Burt Reynolds, however the movie isn't about after-hours fun under-the-sheets; Donen turns the second-half into a violent extravaganza (with a slapstick bent), including boats blowing up, guns going off and dead bodies everywhere. The picture walks a shaky line between nostalgia and bloodshed (with echoes of "Bonnie & Clyde"'s tone), and little of it jells, though the attempt is certainly a curious one. 20th Century Fox wrote the film off as a failure--though people did go to see it--and the studio has yet to release the picture in any format to the home-viewing market. **1/2 from ****

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
The Bootleg, 31 March 2006

Author: The_Rook from Burke, VA

After the popularity of "The Sting" a few other movies surfaced with period themes and involving gangsters. I have to say to me "Lucky Lady" was one of the more entertaining. Acting from Gene Hackman, Burt Reynolds, and Liza Minnelli was certainly more than competent and decent from the rest the cast. The costumes, sets, and music were quite good. Overall just a fun movie to watch. Take a group of privateers during Prohibition (law passed making drinking liquor against the law in U.S.) that wants to make a little fast money selling liquor smuggled in from Canada with the mob and the law hot on their heels and you get the theme of the movie. Considering the star power here and the fact that this is certainly much better to watch than a lot of trash out on DVD it surprises me this has never been released on DVD and if it ever was on VHS it is long since OOP. I sure hope some smart studio gets this our on DVD. I can guarantee they will do much better with it than many others they might try to market.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Underrated and unusual, 22 September 1999

Author: Capboy from NYC

I've always had a soft spot for this overly maligned production, the "Ishtar" of its day. It's an oft-kilter mix, to be sure, with some great low comedy bits jarringly interrupted by graphic violence. But it's always fun, and the star trio (especially Reynolds, in a very overlooked performance) seem to be having a ball. Liza Minnelli's production number, "Get While The Gettin' Is Good", is absolutely terrific; she is at her wittiest. Stanley Donen just a few years ago proclaimed he was proud of "Lucky Lady", and I'm hoping eventually this movie will find some type of audience other than Liza Minnelli completists. Hey, Fox, put it on video!

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Thoughts on reviewing 25 years later, 27 July 2000
Author: mission-5 from USA

Might be called "Sally Bowles Comes Home And Runs Liquor." Her character is almost a parody of her "Cabaret" role. Hackman is Buck Barrow with a comedy twist and Reynolds is perfecting that moron-suave character that he took to such heights in "At Long Last Love."

The film has the distinction of having had, if memory serves, three different endings. I saw the first in previews. A real curve ball in which the male leads get killed and Minelli is left bereft. They went back to the drawing board and the movie premiered with a tacked on scene shot much later which involved the three stars, with the tackiest of make-up jobs, rolling around in a bed in their "elderly" years. From what I can tell by watching it recently, they dropped that entirely and simply cut together some outtakes which they ran under the credits which give us the impression that everybody ended up okay.

There was also this mid-70's technique of film "flashing" which involved pre-exposing the stock to give the film a lighter, airier look. Taken to ridiculous extremes here, it almost looks as if someone just scratched up the lens faces with a Brillo pad.

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Lucky Lady, 6 October 2007

Author: Anthony-Groves-1 from United Kingdom

I saw this many movie years ago on British TV and thought it was brilliant. Since then I have been trying to get hold of a copy. VHS came and went but never found a copy, now DVD is here, does any-one know where I can get a copy on Region 2? I have tried ebay and Amazon. I saw this many movie years ago on British TV and thought it was brilliant. Since then I have been trying to get hold of a copy. VHS came and went but never found a copy, now DVD is here, does any-one know where I can get a copy on Region 2? I have tried ebay and Amazon. I saw this many movie years ago on British TV and thought it was brilliant. Since then I have been trying to get hold of a copy. VHS came and went but never found a copy, now DVD is here, does any-one know where I can get a copy on Region 2? I have tried ebay and Amazon. I saw this many movie years ago on British TV and thought it was brilliant. Since then I have been trying to get hold of a copy. VHS came and went but never found a copy, now DVD is here, does any-one know where I can get a copy on Region 2? I have tried ebay and Amazon.

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Lucky Lady. . .who decides?, 3 October 2007
Author: bluesbear8 from United States

Hey, this is a fun, light weight movie and, of course, i liked it. There are barrels full of the crummiest movies one could ever want to watch that are readily available on DVD. Other movies unavailable on DVD, apparently for a similar reason, like Cannary Row, Yellow Beard and The Last of the Dogmen, do have demand. This is indicated by how much the VHS tapes are now being sold for. The decision maker was probably a movie critic at some point in time and we all know where their heads are at. Movie collectors do not always want the greatest classics, i.e.(Lawrence of Arabia). (They also may be related to the folks who require ten lines of text in a comment format} Have a nice day.

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