Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969)

Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? is a 1969 British musical film directed by and starring Anthony Newley.

Newley played the autobiographical title role of Merkin, an internationally successful singer approaching middle age who retells his life story in a series of production numbers on a seashore in front of his two toddlers (played by Newley's actual children) and aged mother. Merkin focuses on his promiscuous relationships with women, particularly Polyester Poontang (played by Newley's wife Joan Collins) and the adolescent Mercy Humppe (Playboy centerfold Connie Kreski).

Merkin is constantly surrounded by a Satan-like procurer, Goodtime Eddie Filth (Milton Berle), and an angelic 'Presence' (George Jessel) who interrupts Merkin's biography with cryptic Borscht Belt-level jokes to denote births and deaths in Merkin's life. Newley periodically steps out of character to complain about his 'Merkin' role with an unseen director (voiced by Newley), two screenwriters, the film's producers and a trio of blasé movie critics who are turned off by the story's eroticism and lack of plot.

Synopsis

Heironymus Merkin vient d'avoir 40 ans, et est au beau milieu de la préparation du film retraçant sa vie. Il fait son autoportrait en se décrivant comme une marionnette contrôlée par un marionnettiste invisible. Dans sa jeunesse, Merkin sort de l'innocence de l'enfance dans les bras de Goodtime Eddie Filth (qu'on pourrait traduire par Eddie la Saleté Bontemps). Grâce à elle, Merkin se transforme en un coureur de femmes égoïste, cependant il est hanté par son amour perdu, Mercy Humppe.

Actors