What's Up, Doc?
All team (64)
Short description
Howard Bannister is a quiet musicologist who travels to San Francisco with his fiancée for a conference where he hopes to win a research grant. There he meets Judy Maxwell, an energetic and accident-prone young woman who attaches herself to him and even passes herself off as his fiancée. Meanwhile, four identical plaid overnight bags belonging to different guests at the same hotel keep changing hands, and their contents include jewels, secret government papers, personal belongings and rocks. The confusion draws in thieves, spies and police.
Peter Bogdanovich directed and produced the film, working from a screenplay by David Newman, Robert Benton and Buck Henry. It was his third feature, following Targets and The Last Picture Show and preceding Paper Moon, the fourth of twelve films he directed. Barbra Streisand plays Judy and Ryan O'Neal plays Howard, with Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Austin Pendleton and Michael Murphy among the cast; 42 performers and 64 crew members are credited.
Released in March 1972, the film cost about 4 million dollars and returned roughly 66 million worldwide, a large multiple of its budget. On IMDb it holds 7.6 out of 10 from around 30,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.4 from 476 votes, showing broad viewer approval. A critics' rating of 7.4 from 43 reviews places it close to the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- It was the first American film to credit stunt performers and extras in the credits. The first British film to do so was 'Moonraker' (1979) by Lewis Gilbert (1920-2018) about James Bond.
- The car accident caused by Barbra Streisand’s character while crossing the street on her way to the hotel was added to the film at the very last moment. The filmmakers didn’t have any vehicles for stunts on hand, and Peter Bogdanovich instructed one of the crew members to rent a couple of cars, but with collision insurance. He then arranged a car crash for the camera and returned the rented vehicles.
- The final chase scene – a parody of a scene from Peter Yates’ then-recent thriller “Bullitt” (1968) – was also filmed in San Francisco. It cost $1 million (a quarter of the film’s total budget) and took 19 days to shoot, plus the work of 32 stuntmen, for a scene that runs 11 minutes on screen. 4 to 5 days were spent solely on filming the scene with the large window pane. It was filmed in the Richmond district.
- Director Peter Bogdanovich did not receive permission from the city administration to film a high-speed car descent down the stairs in Alta Plaza Park, but he filmed the scene anyway, and the damage is still visible today. As a result, the San Francisco administration now always requires filmmakers to submit a detailed shooting plan.
- When Howard Bannister finds himself in a rooftop cocktail bar that was still under construction, the filming took place not on a set, but on the actual roof of the Hilton Hotel, which was undergoing renovations at the time. It genuinely offered that very view of San Francisco. A piano was specially hoisted up there for the shoot, and Barbra Streisand sang live (the director insisted on this, as he didn't want to use a recording).
- During the filming of the long shot of Barbra Streisand’s character on a bicycle, she was replaced by a male stunt double. He fell and broke his leg on one of the sharp turns.
- In the final scene of the film, Barbra Streisand says to Ryan O'Neal: "Love means never having to say you're sorry." This is a quote from the 1970 film "Love Story," in which Ryan O'Neal played the leading male role.
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