S.O.B. (1981)

S.O.B. is a 1981 American film written and directed by Blake Edwards starring Richard Mulligan and Julie Andrews. Also appearing are Robert Preston, Robert Vaughn, Larry Hagman, Shelley Winters, Loretta Swit, Robert Webber and William Holden (in his last performance).

The story is a satire of the film industry and Hollywood society. The main character, Felix Farmer, is a phenomenally successful producer-director who has just made the first flop of his career, to the dismay of the studio and the loss of his own sanity. Felix attempts suicide several times, the first being when he tries to die of carbon monoxide poisoning in his car, only to have it slip into gear and drive through the side of his beach house. Thereafter he spends most of the time heavily sedated while his friends and hangers-on occupy his beach house. The occupation leads to a party which degenerates into an orgy. Felix steals a gun from a police officer member of the party and tries to shoot himself in the middle of the party, at which point he is embraced (fellatio) by a topless woman and suddenly realizes what was missing from his movie.

Newly energized, Felix resolves to save both the film and his reputation. With great difficulty he persuades the studio and his wife Sally Miles, a movie star with a goody-goody image, to allow him to revise the film into a soft-core pornographic musical in which she must appear topless. He liquidates most of his wealth to buy the existing footage and bankroll further production. If he fails, both he and Sally will be impoverished, at least by Hollywood standards.

At first the studio are keen to unload the film onto Felix and move on, but as it becomes apparent that it will be a success, they plot to regain control. Using California's community property laws, they get the distribution and final-cut rights by persuading Sally to sign them over. Felix then tries to get the movie negatives from a bank vault, armed with a water pistol, and is shot by police who think it is a real pistol.

Felix's untimely and violent death creates yet another crisis, particularly for his cronies Culley, Coogan and Dr. Finegarten, who plan to give him a burial at sea. They kidnap his corpse, substituting the body of a well-known but underrated character actor who died in the first scene of the movie, having a heart attack while jogging on the beach in front of Felix's home. Felix gets a Viking funeral, being sent out to sea in a burning dinghy, while the actor finally gets the Hollywood burial many thought he deserved.

Little is seen of the movie which is the focus of the plot, except for an extended dream sequence and a brief shot taking place close to the end. The title is "Night Wind", which provokes the headline "Critics break Wind" seen on a copy of Variety at the start of S.O.B. after the initial flop. The opening sequence of S.O.B. is the first version of the dream where Julie Andrews wanders through a room full of giant toys, reliving in sublimated form some dark episode from her character's childhood. Several of the toys come to life, including a group of toy soldiers, while the tune of Polly Wolly Doodle plays in the background.

Later Felix, having decided to rewrite the movie as soft-porn, reveals his plan to the studio heads on the set of the toy room, hiding at first while the executives wander around wondering where he is. Then in the re-shoot, the same set is used but the toys, including the soldiers, are dressed in various erotic costumes, and the "dream" features a mysterious man who tries to tempt Andrews' character.

"S.O.B." (in the film) stands for "Standard Operational Bullshit" and refers to misinformation being the norm. The acronym also means "sexually oriented business" (if pertaining to strip clubs) and more generally "son of a bitch" (a ruthless person).

A Spanish dub of the film keeps the acronym S.O.B., claiming that it stands for "Sois hOnrados Bandidos" (You Are Honest Crooks). Notice that the second word begins with a mute H, not with an O. The Argentine title for the movie was changed to Se acabó el mundo (The World is Ended), having no relation to the original title.

Three years later, when Edwards had his name removed from the writing credits of 1984's City Heat, he was billed under the pseudonym Sam O. Brown. (S.O.B.)

When writing the screenplay Edwards drew upon several of his own experiences. The character of Felix Farmer is a person not unlike Edwards, while actress Sally Miles bears certain similarities to Julie Andrews (who plays her), Edwards' wife in real life.

The story of S.O.B. parallels the experiences of Edwards and Andrews in their infamous, but Academy Award-nominated failure, Darling Lili. Intended to reveal Andrews' heretofore unseen wicked and sexy side, that film had a troubled shoot, went significantly over budget, and was subjected to post-production studio interference.

In S.O.B., Andrews's character agrees (with some pharmaceutical persuasion) to "show her boobies" in a scene in the film-within-the-film. For this scene, comedian Johnny Carson thanked Andrews on his The Tonight Show for "showing us that the hills were still alive," alluding to a famous line from The Sound of Music opening sequence.