Good Times (film)

Good Times is a 1967 American musical comedy film starring Sonny & Cher. The film marks the feature directorial debut (excluding documentaries) of William Friedkin, who later directed The French Connection and The Exorcist.

Plot
Sonny and Cher appear as themselves in this spoof of various genres, including mysteries, westerns and spy thrillers. The plot revolves around a film contract offered to Sonny by powerful executive Mr. Mordicus, played by George Sanders, who also plays the antagonist in each of Sonny's ideas for the proposed film, which are played out in a number of skits featuring music and dancing by the star duo.

Cast

 * Sonny Bono as Sonny
 * Cher as Cher
 * George Sanders as Mr Mordicus / Knife McBlade / White Hunter / Zarubian
 * Norman Alden as Warren
 * Larry Duran as Smith
 * Kelly Thordsen as Tough Hombre
 * Lennie Weinrib as Leslie Garth
 * Peter Robbins as Brandon
 * Phil Arnold as Solly

Production
Sonny Bono wanted to make a movie starring him and Cher and was introduced to William Friedkin, a young documentary filmmaker who had just moved into drama and who, like Bono, was represented by the William Morris Agency. They got along well and Abe Lastfogel managed to get Steve Broidy to agree to finance a movie.

Bono and Friedkin started reading through scripts and received a letter from a novice screenwriter Nicholas Hyams, who suggested Sonny and Cher make a film about them making a movie. Hyams was hired but Friedkin says the collaboration with him was not easy - "he was condescending to Sonny and disdainful of me." Hyams was fired and Friedkin and Bono wound up writing the script themselves based on Hyams' original idea. Broidy wanted to call the film I Got You Babe but Bono preferred Good Times, based on a song he was writing at the time.

The film was originally meant to be made for $500,000 but the budget came in at $800,000. Broidy then sold the film to Columbia for $1.2 million, ensuring he was in profit before shooting even began.

Reception
Good Times received poor-to-middling reviews as a pastiche of so-so skits, though one critic credited veteran character actor Sanders for making the film "slightly less unbearable."

Friedkin later commented that "I've made better films than Good Times but I've never had so much fun".

Box office
The film earned $600,000 in rentals domestically and $200,000 internationally. After the distribution fee, prints and advertising and the negative cost were deducted, ABC reported a loss of $1,050,000.