Vomit-inducing comedy - should be avoided by everyone Miserable, obnoxious, depressing, lazy, and unbearably filthy excuse for a comedy with ne'er a laugh in it. In many ways, it resembles a bad dream.
Everything in this picture is aesthetically and conceptually hideous - even the characters' names ("Felix Farmer") - and though Edwards presumably intended S.O.B. as a grand slam against mainstream Hollywood, his sense of humor here is so off that the film immediately becomes physically repellent - it turns one's stomach... again, and again, and again.
Richard Mulligan has been quite enjoyable on the small screen (in 'Empty Nest,' and in his brief appearances on 'The Golden Girls') but his performance here is wretched. It stands comparison with his somnambulism in another lousy film, 'Scavenger Hunt,' from two years prior.
But the worst aspect of S.O.B. is undoubtedly its complete implausibility. The film within the film, 'Night Wind,' is so ridiculous that it seems impossible - and insults the audience. Are bad films made in Hollywood? Every day. But never one this terrible.
Just how unfunny is S.O.B.? I laughed more at 'Ironweed.' I can't think of any director in history, American or otherwise, who is as uneven as Blake Edwards. Hard to believe that the same individual responsible for such classics as 'The Days of Wine and Roses,' 'A Shot in the Dark,' 'Experiment in Terror,' 'Darling Lili,' 'Micki and Maude,' and 'That's Life' could churn out crap on par with this and 'The Trail of the Pink Panther.'