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

4.6 107 mins Comedy   Music   1969
Universal Pictures   J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors  
Director(s): Anthony Newley

Heironymus Merkin is 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 and aged mother. Merkin's promiscuous relationships with women are explored, particularly Polyester Poontang and the adolescent Mercy Humppe. Merkin is constantly surrounded by a Satan-like procurer, Goodtime Eddie Filth, and an angelic 'Presence' 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, 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.

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

Anthony Newley

as Heironymous Merkin

Joan Collins

as Polyester Poontang

Bruce Forsyth

as Uncle Limelight

Milton Berle

as Goodtime Eddie Filth

Stubby Kaye

as Fat Writer

George Jessel

as The Presence

Connie Kreski

as Mercy Humppe

Alexander Newley

as Thaxted

Tara Newley

as Thumbelina

Patricia Hayes

as Grandma

Ronald Rubin

as Skinny Writer

Louis Negin

as Producer Peter

Tom Stern

as Producer Ron

Judy Cornwell

as Filigree Fondle

Margaret Nolan

as Little Assistance

Yolanda

as Trampolena Whambang

Lynda Baron

as Salesgirl

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