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

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

Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? is a 1969 musical film loosely based on the life of its lead actor Anthony Newley.

Cast

Singing cast

• Anthony Newley - Heironymus Murkin/Director
• Joan Collins - Polyester Poontang
• George Jessel - The Presence
• Bruce Forsyth - Uncle Limelight

Non-singing cast

• Milton Berle - Goodtime Eddie Filth
• Connie Kreski - Mercy Humppe

Plot

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 focuses on his promiscuous relationships with women, 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.

Musical numbers

• "Picadilly Lilly"'- Heironymus and Uncle Limelight
• "Sweet Love Child" - Heironymus
• "If All the World's a Stage" - Heironymus and Chorus
• "Chalk and Cheese" - Polyester
• "When You Gotta Go" - The Presence
• "I'm All I Need" - Heironymus
• "On the Boards" - Uncle Limelight
• "Once Upon a Time" - Heironymus
• "Oh What a Son of a Bitch I Am" - Heironymus