Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?

Hoffman (oddly cast but excellent) as a fabulously successful rock musician driven to a headshrinker by problems of ageing, loneliness, and the mysterious caller who is alienating his harem of women by casting libellous aspersions on his character. Waywardly whimsical in its satire of material success and the analyst's couch, the film suffered a critical clobbering. But it is also strangely moving, peopled by marvellously vivid characters dredged out of the hero's past and lending undertones of real pain and longing to the otherwise formulary comedy as he becomes a minor league Citizen Kane, beleaguered by sad ghosts in his lonely Xanadu (a New York penthouse lined with golden discs and Time magazine covers). Barbara Harris is outstanding as the would-be singer who belatedly shows him what-might-have-been.