SALT AND PEPPER: Do not pass these condiments!

If swinging London ever existed SALT AND PEPPER hammers the final nails into its coffin.
This 1968 monstrosity presents itself as a hip n' happening crime caper chock full of laughs, hot girls, cool cats and alcohol-fuelled antics, but in reality it's nothing more than a bloated slab of lazy, juvenile and self-indulgent junk.
Acting (but only barely) under the misapprehension that their mere presence will evoke Sinatra-style Rat Pack magic, Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr shuffle through a nonsensical, unfunny, patronising and tedious story about two London nightclub owners tangling with the British Police, Secret Service, military, and Government after inadvertently getting themselves caught up in a very un-British plot to stage a coup.
Despite their prodigious intake of cigarettes and booze the two American imports retain the
athleticism to fight off a seemingly endless stream of presumably well-trained and healthy young soldiers, blithely murdering some of them in the process. Now I understand that such capers are not attempting to recreate documentary-type realism but the complete lack of concern with which Lawford and Davis dispatch these young men and - in one case - a young woman, is disturbing because the troops are at worst innocent pawns in a plot by their superiors to wrest control of the country from the elected government. I've no problem with seeing them knocked cold with a handily placed prop bottle or mallet, but getting run through with a sword is a punishment normally reserved for the chief bad guy and his second in command.
But perhaps I'm taking this too seriously. After all, Lawford and Davis are barely able to rouse any interest in the plot (despite their also producing the project) so why would they concern themselves with how the gratuitous taking of lives might impact negatively on the intended tone of the film?
Everything about SALT AND PEPPER is sloppy, from the characters, storytelling and acting, to the back projection sequences in which Davis pretends to drive a fab and funky Austin Mini Moke down a straight street by constantly twisting the steering wheel from left to right. It's just a small thing, and I know he's not the first actor to over-act the act of driving a car, but it's emblematic of director Richard Donner's complete lack of attention to detail.
If the intention was zany the result is incompetent.