Samson Shillitoe (Sean Connery) is a frustrated poet and a ladies' man in NYC. He's hounded for alimony payments and threatened with jail. His live-in supportive waitress girlfriend Rhoda (Joanne Woodward) gets him a poetry reading gig at a high-class ladies group and it goes badly. She sends him to psychiatrist Dr. West to fix his writer's block. Samson wants his money back but West directs him to a sanitarium for some peace and quiet. Dr. Menken wants to perform a lobotomy on him.

Samson is bitter and angry. It's very unBondlike. In other ways, he's very Bond. He's not likable either way. The movie has a couple of slapstick scenes that border on comedy. It's a strange little film showing Connery in a different light.

"A Fine Madness" is a film that I'd never heard of before I found it on Netflix and it's certainly NOT among the more familiar films of Sean Connery or Joanne Woodward. And, after watching it, I could easily see why.

Samson Shillitoe (Connery) is a poet...or at least he was once. But he's written nothing in years and cannot hold down even menial jobs. He runs from responsibility and is, in many ways, a very self-absorbed and childish man...as well as being physically abusive. His paramour (at least when he's not out on the make for other women) is a very loud, brash and obnoxious lady (Joanne Woodward). Together they seem like an ad for a divorce attorney! There is more to the film, including the lady getting Samson into psychoanalysis, but by this point I just didn't care.

The film is bad to say the least. Both Connery's and Woodward's characters are a chore to watch...both being loud, unsubtle and really annoying. Normally, to keep a person watching a film you will need to make at least some of the characters likable (there are a few exceptions, such as "The Downfall" which is about Hitler's final days)...and the script doesn't even try. As a result, I had a hard time caring about them or the film. Overall, a HUGE misfire....and a really difficult movie to even finish.

A Fine Madness marks Sean Connery's venture into screen comedy and while the man has had many funny moments in his film, comedy was not his strong suit. Ironically he's cast opposite Joanne Woodward who as we know was married to someone who many critics also said was not at his best in comedy.

Whatever else is wrong with A Fine Madness I have always loved Connery's character name, Samson Shillitoe. One of the best screen names ever invented and so right for a would be poet.

Samson for Connery is a peculiar combination of James Bond and Ralph Kramden with Joanne Woodward as his long suffering Alice. This lout is also a chick magnet in the James Bond tradition, though God knows why. He's suffering writer's block and can't seem to finish this epic poem he's trying to write. He also has a process server in John Fiedler chasing him down for back alimony to a former wife.

Woodward puts him in the hands of psychiatrist Patrick O'Neal who claims he can cure creative people of their hangups so they can do their thing. Connery proves an interesting case however to O'Neal's colleagues, Colleen Dewhurst, Jon Lormer, Werner Peters, and especially Clive Revill who's developed a modified lobotomy that can really cure anti-social behavior. You'll find few screen characters as anti-social as Samson Shillitoe. He's also of interest to O'Neal's wife Jean Seberg who just plain ain't getting any lately.

There are some funny moments in A Fine Madness, but ultimately I found it unsatisfying. When all's said and done, though Ralph Kramden threatened many times to bang/zoom Alice to the moon, he never really did. Connery has battered Woodward and quite frankly she's a battered spouse. Why she puts up with him is beyond me completely.

And I'm surprised that this script didn't offend Joanne Woodward's feminist soul. She did the thing though to an unsatisfactory conclusion.