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

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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...read more

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 Tara and Alexander) 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.

Original Release

01/01/1968

US Release

01/01/1968

Cast

(see additional cast & crew)

Directors

Richard Williams, Anthony Newley

Writers

Anthony Newley, Herman Raucher

Cast

Producers

Editors

Bernard Gribble

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