bkoganbing Not even the real Wizard Of Oz movie had so many midgets and dwarfs in its cast as Under The Rainbow. This nicely paced comedy starring Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher has Chase as a secret service agent and Fisher as an agent and handler for the various little people hired to play the Munchkins in The Wizard Of Oz. They're staying at Adam Arkin's hotel or I should say Richard Stahl's hotel where Stahl has left Arkin in charge.Chase is staying at the hotel with Joseph Maher and Eve Arden a pair of displaced nobility from Europe who are in fear of an assassin who keeps trying for them, Chase is their security. In the meantime a German and a Japanese agent are trying to connect with Mako and Billy Barty playing those roles respectively. They're both trying desperately to make contact with each other because who knew a convention of little people would be staying there. Hard especially for Mako to find Barty in that situation.While all the cloak and dagger intrigue is going on, the would be Munchkins have taken over the hotel and have turned it into party central. Where did they think they were, on the Animal House set?Chase and Fisher prove to be valiant troopers in the midst of all the hullabaloo. This one is a real gem, one definitely to lift your spirits. There's a party going somewhere both Over and Under The Rainbow.

udar55 To first hear of UNDER THE RAINBOW is to disbelieve. No, a big studio wouldn't be dumb enough to fund a spy comedy caper set against the backdrop of the filming of THE WIZARD OF OZ with 150 drunken midgets. You're pulling my leg, right? Wrong! It is real and it is terrible. It feels like every exec's 70s drug binge induced dreams were all wrapped up tightly into one project and spat out at audiences in the early 80s.In 1938, Adolf Hitler (yes, that Adolf Hitler) sends his top spy (Billy Barty!) to the US to meet up with Japan's no. 1 spy (Mako!) to deliver a map of American military targets to get the US into WWII. Unbeknownst to Barty, his rendezvous is a hotel (run by Adam Arkin) across the street from a movie lot where 150 Munchkin extras are staying. Also at the hotel are a Duke and Dutchess (Joseph Maher and Eve Arden) who are being guarded by Secret Service man Bruce Thorpe (Chevy Chase) who also has his eye on OZ midget wrangler Annie Clark (Carrie Fisher). You still with me? You shouldn't be.So how bad is this flick? Well, the opening ten minutes have Billy Barty saluting Hitler and hitting him in the crotch. Nothing like Nazi humor in 1981. Perhaps the filmmakers were influenced by the "success" of Spielberg's 1941? And who exactly is this made for? The reliance on slapstick, dogs and midgets would suggest kids. But the midgets are all boozing it up and there is a brief sojourn through a woman's locker room. There are also some weak attempts at humor involving the Japanese. Get this...the Japanese take lots of pictures and mispronounce things! Amazingly, it took 5 writers to make a movie this unfunny (proving that DATE MOVIE isn't just an age thing). Perhaps the film's biggest copout is that, in the end, it is all just a dream of a guy who got knocked on the head a la THE WIZARD OF OZ. To the film's credit, there is one funny gag involving Tony Cox, who has since gone on to become Hollywood's leading little funnyman. Also featuring Zelda Rubenstein and Phil Fondacaro alongside his brother Sal Fondacaro (who is also a little person despite them being born years apart).

moifee This movie is a farce. It's big, broad humor... or little broad humor, to be accurate because most of the actors are little people.The Culver Hotel played host to all of the actors who played munchkins during the filming of The Wizard of Oz. Apparently, it was a debacle. The actors partied, drank, and wreaked havoc on the hotel during a stay that has become legendary in Los Angeles.While the specific events of this film are fictional, most of the movie is indeed based on a true event. Now, of course a great story doesn't always make for a good movie. This is indeed a broad, goofy, slapstick comedy. Whatever your level of offense at ethnic and physical stereotypes, some of the humor is groan-worthy.

alive_still But it was supposed to be a spoof. I could not stop laughing as the movie was so much of a farce I found it to keep me laughing all the time. I would not recommend it for theater view but if you have never seen the movie I would say its worth watching as a rental as the cost of it is so little now. You could rent something much more costly and worse like Dead Calm. I found that all the dumb things that happened such as trying to keep the suicidal dog in the picture just more then my sides could take at times. When that dog jumped out of the window for the ball I lost it. How could you not think something as this movie which I assume was to be as "B" a movie as anyone could possibly make not be funny? I found it much better then the Vacation movies by far. I would say that this review has a spoiler but this movie cant be spoiled as there is no real plot.