Otto Preminger's Skidoo (1968)

 Despite the impulse toward disintegration so apparent in much of the film, Preminger's visual control is fully evident throughout Skidoo.

-- Chris Fujiwara, The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger (Faber and Faber 2008)

What an interesting cast Skidoo has -- Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Mickey Rooney, Doro Merande, Groucho Marx; members of Preminger's stock company:  Arnold Stang, Burgess Meredith, Peter Lawford; the youth contingent:  John Phillip Law, Alexandra Hay, Austin Pendleton, Luna; also Geroge Raft, Slim Pickens, Cesar Romero and Frank Gorshin -- in Preminger's attempt to reconcile the hippies of 1968 with the Mafia and the old fogeys based on his own experience of LSD under the tutelage of Timoth Leary.  He effectively uses the music of Nilsson (who even sings the credits at the end, down to the last assistant director) and the vivid cinematography of Leon Shamroy (who photographed Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It in 1956, another intensesly colorful film in  a widescreen ratio).

I found the movie quite funny in its exploration of the relationship between hippies and adults, with Preminger showing an understanding for the reasons behind each group's behavior.  But whether one finds this film amusing (Preminger's only previous comedy was the droll The Moon is Blue in 1953) or not is to me irrelevant, since even the best comedies are not necessarily funny in their examinations of the absurdity of life and how people behave.  Skidoo is certainly a product of its time but also looks optimistically ahead toward reconciliation, with the last shot showing Austin Pendleton (in his first movie) as a draft dodger and Groucho Marx (in his last film) as  a Mafia boss escaping turmoil and peacefully sharing a boat and a joint.