What a beautiful movie!

Overrated and overhyped

Admirable film.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

In New York, the housewife Henrietta Robins (Barbra Streisand) and the taxi driver Pete (Michael Sarrazin) have financial difficulties since they got married very young and Pete has not concluded the college education. When Pete receives an inside information from a coworker that the pork bellies will raise their price since the Americans and the Russians are negotiating a great business transaction, Pete needs US$ 3,000.00 to invest in the market. Henrietta decides to help Peter and secretly makes a loan with a mobster. However the price of the pork bellies fall and she is not able to pay the loan. The loan shark promises to kill Pete and Henrietta accepts that her debt be sold to a madame by a higher amount. After many problems, her debt is increased and sold to mobsters and then to a cattle thief. What will happen to Henrietta and Pete?After forty-four years from its release, "For Pete's Sake" is still a very funny comedy. Barbra Streisand shows great talent performing the role of Henrietta Robins, who gets in a sequence of troubles trying to help her beloved husband. There are many hilarious situations and the film has not aged. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Nossa, que Loucura!" ('Wow, What Madness")

For Pete's Sake has Michael Sarrazin and Barbra Streisand as a married couple in Brooklyn trying to make ends meet. They've got their debts and maybe carrying a bit too much. Sarrazin drives a cab and gets a stock tip about pork belly futures from his dispatcher Louis Zorich who's a pretty sleazy sort. I couldn't wrap myself around the concept of taking financial advice from him any more than from that other noted cab dispatcher Louis DiPalma.But Sarrazin believes him and tries to get the money and when he fails Barbra goes to a loan shark. When the great financial coup doesn't go off on schedule she's got to pay. Of course she can't and her debt is passed on to various parties who have her doing all kinds of crazy things, all for her husband Pete's sake.There were some good performances, some funny moments, but the whole thing seemed more silly than funny. Besides the stars the ones to watch out for are Molly Picon as a Jewish Madame, Estelle Parsons as Streisand's sister-in-law, and Richard Ward as the ever helpful building superintendent where she and Sarrazin live.Barbra's fans will like it, but it's far from the best film she ever made.

Yes, I love the Marx Bros. but some of their movies are not top notch. Similarly, this is not one of Barbra's best. It's a Rube Goldberg of a movie: She borrows $3,000 from a loan shark, then $4,000 to pay him off, and her "contract" gets sold twice again so she owes $7,000 to an urban cattle rustler. Confused? Oh course you are! However, many of the situations are funny but should be hilarious. Molly Picon plays "Mother Cherry" the benevolent "Jewish" madam and is terrific. Streisand almost scares one of her "Johns" to death, but, thankfully, she never actually connects with any of them. So "Mother" sells her contract to two greasy, sleazy bomb-makers and she gets chased thru the subway by the smartest German Shepard Dog since Rin-Tin-Tin; after unwittingly delivering a "bomb" to a police undercover man. Several ludicrous comic situations and some pay off better than others. The best one involves stolen cattle. She is supposed to transport them in a Winnebago and of course they stampede out of the truck and end up in Brooklyn traffic and, yes, in a chandelier store. All "For Pete's Sake", so he can buy $3000 in pork belly futures on an inside tip, and make a fortune. Michael Sarrazin plays Pete, her taxi-driving, over-sexed, struggling husband. He and Babs chase each other around the apartment a lot. She appears to be bra-less most of the time. A very lightweight comedy with a good supporting cast. But I think that both the Brahma bull and the dog are funnier than Barbra. The incredibly impossible, unbelievable storyline is fun but not memorable.

There are those that say about this film that it is ridiculous and very forgetable. However, this is what I have to say about For Pete's Sake. The two movies that Barbra made that preceeded this one were The Way We Were and Up The Sandbox. Up The Sandbox, although billed as a comedy, was actually more of a drama-slash-comedy. And I think most of us know that The Way We Were was not a comedy. Therefore, as Barbra has stated, she wanted to just do something light and comical for her next film project. I think then, that she succeeded beautifully. Another thing, too, is that if you are going to start COMPARING this movie with What's Up, Doc?, then I really don't think that's fair. For Pete's Sake and What's Up, Doc are two totally different comedies. It's like this: What's Up, Doc? had an excellent supporting cast and all of the movie's characters centered around the one plotline. This is not so of For Pete's Sake. For Pete's Sake focuses on the story's ONE major character and that one character's plight throughout the movie. The supporting cast of For Pete's Sake is decent, but they do not really have much to do with the story. In What's Up, Doc?, four of the characters had identical suitcases that got mixed up. Not only the owners of the suitcases wanted them back, but so did many of the other characters in the movie! And the film centered around the plight of ALL of the characters and what they had to do with the identical suitcases. In For Pete's Sake, again...the story is about the one character, NOT MANY OF THEM, and that ONE character's plight, and stayed focused on that. So...therefore, I think it worked beautifully as awonderful "light" comedy. I will say this though: I think that the part of the movie that is about when Barbra was dealing with her johns in the callgirl operation she entered into, could have been written to include a lot more plot twists. You know, a lot more "zaniness". But, hey! It is what it is. I did get a great laugh in that scene where one of the johns come over and he's pretending that he's a TV repairman. Barbra does not know this and is already nervous enough as it is. After she lets him in he pulls out a screwdriver, and her eyes pop wide open and she exclaims..."What's that!!?" He explains to her..."It's a screwdriver". She exclaims, puzzled as hell..."For what???!" Her facial expressions are great. Then, I got an even bigger laugh in the scene where Barbra, in order to escape from a police dog that was chasing her, decends down into an open manhole. The next scene shows her with her head slowly creeping out of the manhole and she's all disorientated, her eyes adjusting to the light. She sees two construction workers sitting eating their lunch and shouts..."Hey! Where are we?" They tell her..."Fourth Avenue and Douglas Street". She nods to them thanks and proceeds to start climbing out of the manhole. Now of course, all dirty and messy. Once she's out, she's stumbling and bumbling along and one of the construction workers looks to the other and says, not knowing of course why she came out of a manhole, says..."Boy...what some people wanna do to save a subway fare!" I really thought that was quite hysterical! Again...this movie succeeds exactly as what it was made to be; a "light" slapstick comedy. If you ever get the chance, try to see this movie on DVD. Not only is the color and the sharpness of the picture absolutely incredible, but you can get a wonderful director's commentary from Peter Yates. For Pete's Sake is a great "light" slapstick comedy.