Dan Rowan and Dick Martin were the best of both worlds when it came to comedy in the '60s. On "Laugh-In," the snappily-dressed jokesters gave vaudevillian timing to routines that covered modern subject matter, rattling off ribald zingers and timely pop culture references with the poise of Borscht Belt greats. The combo struck a chord with viewers, and with their popularity on the rise, the duo saw the door to opportunity swing wide open before them. Naturally, Rowan and Martin eventually made their way into movies, but what's shocking is how safe, boring, and out-of-touch their first big vehicle feels in comparison to the material that made them famous. To be sure, 1969's The Maltese Bippy has its unconventional side, but so rarely is it expressed, you'd think that the picture wasn't tailored for the team as much as it was cobbled together from Hope and Crosby's moldy table scraps. Bookended by great off-the-wall gags, the film's midsection is a massive dead zone, leaving the actors struggling to get laughs.

In this take-off on old dark house mysteries, Rowan and Martin play Sam and Ernie, purveyors of the world's schlockiest nudie flicks. After their operation goes bust, the guys retreat to Ernie's mansion, where several spooky shenanigans are afoot. The boarders are strangely secretive, the Hungarian neighbors seem to be out of their skulls, and a body was found horribly mutilated in a nearby cemetery. But that's not all, for lately, Ernie's been overcome with the compulsion to howl and run about on all fours -- which, combined with the aforementioned grisly killing, points to him being a real life werewolf. As Ernie comes to terms with his supernatural affliction, Sam is all set to put his pal on the stage and make a couple of bucks out of the deal. But little do the fellas know that there may be another reason behind all of these unearthly goings-on, that other forces are conspiring to put the fright into the two in order to steal a priceless treasure from under their noses.

The Maltese Bippy's premise appears as creaky as the ancient doors of Ernie's gothic pad. It's firmly in the tradition of The Cat and the Canary, 1941's The Black Cat, and other vintage mystery-comedies involving houses full of folks being scared by what may or may not be a supernatural threat. Certain scenarios write themselves (I'm pretty sure not using wacky double takes in films like this is punishable by public flogging), but where The Maltese Bippy falters is in failing to put its personal stamp on the story. The first few scenes raise one's hopes quite effectively, as they cut away from a completely unrelated picture to have Rowan and Martin break the fourth wall and address viewers while the opening credits roll. It whets our appetites for a hip, meta, cliche-lampooning ride, and that's what the movie is...for about five minutes at the end. In the hour plus that it takes The Maltese Bippy to reach a conclusion where we get multiple endings and one character condemning the movie for being too violent, the audience is beseiged by a barrage of tired jokes and a plot that takes the lamest avenues possible to deliver them. The film isn't being counterculture so much as it's slacking off, excusing its unimaginative lumbering from story point to story point and inexplicable shifts in character behavior as being part of the humor to useless effect.

Anarchic, "anything goes" comedy is extremely hard to pull off well, and as much as Rowan and Martin were pros on the air, The Maltese Bippy often leaves the duo floundering. The flick likes to surround them with kooky supporting characters and depends a great deal on them generating laughs, a gamble that backfires on an embarrassing scale. Seeing the likes of Julie Newmar (as a daffy European vixen) and Mildred Natwick (as a housekeeper the film can't decide if she's on Ernie's side or not) overacting in this piddling screenplay is an outright pity. The actors try hard, but nothing about the people they play seems endearing or amusing in the slightest. Pretty much the only ones who make it out of The Maltese Bippy with their dignity intact and a couple of well-earned giggles to their credit are Rowan and Martin. Their rapport stays on point, and individually, the guys effectively embody the classic archetypes they've been given. Rowan was born to play a shyster like Sam (whose list of adult movie credits is seemingly without end), and Martin does a fine job as a cowardly pushover who may or may not be going full Lon Chaney Jr. each night. Neither had the most enduring cinematic career -- Martin had a few roles throughout the years, but he stuck mostly to television -- but they had definite screen presence, and with better writers in tow, who knows what waves they might've made in the genre.

The Maltese Bippy may not be a flop of legendary proportions, but it's a crummy picture that works as a cult curiosity at best. Between its forced zaniness and its creative streak only emerging on a few occasions, the movie can't even manage to muster enough ironic chuckles to be called charmingly lame. Sadly, The Maltese Bippy ends up as a surprisingly weak production, especially considering the talented crew that mounted it.

(The Maltese Bippy is available on DVD from the Warner Archive Collection.)