S.O.B. is a 1981 American satirical black comedy film written and directed by Blake Edwards. It stars Julie Andrews, Richard Mulligan, Robert Preston, Larry Hagman, Robert Vaughn, Robert Webber, Loretta Swit, Shelley Winters, and William Holden in his final film role. The film was produced by Lorimar and was released by Paramount Pictures on July 1, 1981.
Plot
The story is a satire of the film industry and Hollywood society. The main character, Felix Farmer, is a phenomenally successful film producer who has just made the first major flop of his career, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars to his movie studio and his own sanity. Felix attempts suicide four times:
He attempts to die of carbon monoxide poisoning in his car, only to have it accidentally slip into gear and crash through the side of his garage, down a sand dune and into the Pacific Ocean. He then attempts to hang himself from a rafter in an upstairs bedroom, only to fall and crash through the floor, injuring a venomous Hollywood gossip columnist standing in the room below. Subsequently, he tries to gas himself in his kitchen oven, but is prevented from carrying out his intent by two party guests with other things on their mind. Felix spends roughly the first quarter of the film in a catatonic state or heavily sedated, while his friends and hangers-on occupy his Malibu beach house. The occupation leads to a party, which degenerates into an orgy. Finally, he tries to shoot himself with a police officer's gun, but is prevented from doing so by the ministrations of a young woman wearing only a pair of panties. The experience gives him the sudden realization that the reason for his film's failure was its lack of sex.
Felix resolves to save both the film and his reputation. He persuades the studio to sell him the rights to the film and then tries to convince his wife Sally Miles, an Oscar-winning movie star with a squeaky-clean image, to appear in the revised film - a softcore pornographic musical in which she must appear topless. He liquidates most of his financial holdings to buy the existing footage and to finance further production. If he fails, both Sally and he will be impoverished, at least by Hollywood standards.
At first, the studio executives are keen to unload the film onto Felix and recoup their investment, but when Sally goes through with the topless scene and the film seems a likely success, they plot to regain control. Using California's community property laws, they persuade Sally to sign a distribution deal that also gives the studio the right to edit the film. An angry and deranged Felix tries to steal the film negatives from the studio's color lab vault. Armed with his son's water pistol, Felix takes the lab's manager hostage. Hysterical, Felix points the water pistol at police; the police shoot and kill Felix, believing the toy gun to be real.
Felix's tragic death creates a crisis for his cronies Tim Culley, the director of Night Wind; Ben Coogan, Sally's press agent; and Dr. Irving Finegarten, Felix and Sally's physician; the trio plans to save their friend from the lavish but hypocritical Hollywood funeral and give Felix a proper sendoff. They steal his body from the funeral home, substituting the corpse of Burgess Webster, a once popular, but largely forgotten character actor who died on the beach near the Farmer home in the first scene of the film. After toasting their fallen comrade, the three give Felix a Viking funeral in a burning dinghy, while Webster, in Felix's coffin, gets the elaborate Hollywood sendoff many thought he deserved.
The epilogue later reveals that Felix's revamped film was a box-office smash for the studio and Sally won another Academy Award for her performance.
The movie within the movie
Little is seen of the movie that is the focus of the plot, except for an extended dream sequence and a brief shot close to the end. Its 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 plot of Night Wind is kept vague; it involves a frigid businesswoman (played by Sally), whose inability to love a "male chauvinist" rival executive stems from a childhood trauma that led to her sexual detachment.
The climax of Night Wind is the first scene of S.O.B., an elaborate song-and-dance sequence set to "Polly Wolly Doodle", in which Sally wanders through a room full of giant toys (several of which come to life), singing the song while dressed as a tomboy. The implication is that her father's death caused Andrews's character to renounce childhood and become a cold, frigid person.