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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

Ronald Radd

as Critic Bentley

Rosalind Knight

as Critic Bentley

Victor Spinetti

as Critic Sharpnose

Julian Orchard

as Red Cardinal

Desmond Walter-Ellis

as Philip Bluster

Bernard Stone

as Icicle Ike

Sally Douglas

as Automation Bunny

Roy Desmond

as The Mask

Joyce Blair

as Oat-O-Rinos Girl

Bruce Boa

as Car Salesman

Berry Cornish

as Fran

Mike Higgins

as The Prompter (uncredited)

Robert Hutton

as Insurance Agent

Laurie Leigh

as Toothpaste Mother

Aleta Morrison

as Harriet

Eve Pearce

as Floor Wax Housewife

Muriel Young

as Liz Harper

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