Hopp, Hopp

Harried dogwalker in New York City can't seem to get out of his small apartment: the movers keep putting him off and the office receptionist is a flibbertigibbet. Unfunny comedy starring Elliott Gould does have an amusingly absurdist introduction (the city traffic moves around Gould backwards while he walks forwards), which director Stuart Rosenberg then fritters away. Working from a gross, would-be existential screenplay by Stanley Hart and Joel Lieber (via Lieber's novel), Rosenberg tries goosing the action with arty shots (such as filming through lattice work) and fantasy snippets, thus affording Gould the opportunity to "get loose". What Gould really needed was a stronger script and tighter direction. The blooming star made a number of films back-to-back in the early 1970s--most of them pop-crack quickies like "Move"--oversaturating the film market with his anarchic "personality" and causing him to fall out of favor with US audiences. *1/2 from ****