Another 1964 sex comedy ? After GOODBYE CHARLIE (below), I thought SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL would be amusing again now - I know I saw it back then, when 18, but its never popped up since. In fact I hated it so much I can hardly bring myself to speak of it. Shall we just ignore it and it will go away again ...... well, lets say a few words.
On the plus side: Natalie Wood never looked better than here, it is her great period, and she wears some nifty outfits too (Edith Head). Neal Hefti did the score, and Count Basie also appears. Its another Richard Quine comedy - Quine had a good run in the 50s: his films with Kim Novak, like BELL BOOK AND CANDLE which we like a lot (see Novak label), that musical I was praising recently: MY SISTER EILEEN, melodrama like STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET, and that nice one with Doris and Jack: IT HAPPENED TO JANE in 1959. The Sixties though were different: the limp NOTORIOUS LANDLADY, I never saw PARIS WHEN IT SIZZLES but seems it fizzles. HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE was a hit though.
A womanizing reporter for a sleazy tabloid magazine impersonates his
hen-pecked neighbor in order to get an expose on renowned psychologist
Helen Gurley Brown.
Using the title of the best-seller a script was fashioned by Joseph (CATCH 22) Heller, but it is all so unfunny and dated in the worst way. I liked GOODBYE CHARLIE recently but at least that was from a George Axelrod play, but this one is just laboured and dull as publisher Curtis, on autopilot here, tries to compromise author Dr Brown. Natalie certainly throws herself into it, with lots of long scenes and endless speeches. Left on the sidelines are Henry Fonda and Lauren Bacall as the warring neighbours whose problems Curtis uses to woo Wood. It must have been a difficult time for Bacall - still a working actress but not yet a Broadway legend and a long way from HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE or DESIGNING WOMAN. In fact Curtis, gallant as ever, accused her of being an older star trying to hang out with the younger ones, when in fact she was just one year older than him, but had been in movies earlier. She seems exasperated here while Fonda just looks embarrassed. Theres also Fran Jeffries who gets to sing a bit (as she did in THE PINK PANTHER in '63), Leslie Parrish, Mel Ferrrer, Edward Everett Horton. Larry Storch, Stubby Kaye - all wasted.
As an IMDb reviewer put it: Here is a movie that could have been a 60s classic lampooning tabloid
journalism, skin-deep psychology, proto-feminism, marital problems,
hypocrisy, and sexual freedom. Instead, it is a cartoonish pastiche of
amateurish slapstick, poorly-time jokes, silly contrived situations,
and one of the most idiotic and long car chases in the history of
cinema. The idea of a sleazy editor doing a hatchet job on a 23-year-old virgin
psychologist who has written a bestseller affirming the sexual lives of
single women should certainly have hilarious possibilities - specially
if he is a liar, she cannot handle her own feelings, and they are
sexually attracted to each other. However, the script is ludicrous and
inconsistent often degenerating into total silliness.
It must have been a difficult time for sex comedies as the swinging decade had yet to get underway ... the Rock and Doris comedies were sheer class, COME SEPTEMBER, THE THRILL OF IT ALL, THE PINK PANTHER, WHATS NEW PUSSYCAT? are perennial favourites and even 1964's GOOD NEIGHBOUR SAM had its moments, but SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL is just painfully unfunny and dated now. That scene where they (Tony and Natalie) fall into the water and try to stay afload is not funny at all now. Then they all go zooming off to the airport (cue lots of back projection) in a silly ending. Its certainly one I do not want to re-visit or even think about ever again, and I thought PRUDENCE AND THE PILL was bad ! Super Trash then.
Soon: Tony and Janet in the long-unseen 1958 comedy THE PERFECT FURLOUGH (or STRICTLY FOR PLEASURE), I loved that as a kid, will I still like it now ?
We are looking at some favourites from one of my favourite years: 1954 - when I was 8 and discovered movies (starting with JOHNNY GUITAR and A STAR IS BORN), as per the 1954 label here.
For me this 1954 Fox movie is the '50s in
aspic. Its a fabulously entertaining variation on the '3 girls sharing an
apartment and looking for love' genre that Fox and director Jean Negulesco did
so well (HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE, 3 COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN, THE
BEST OF EVERYTHING, THE PLEASURE SEEKERS) - here the 3 girls are married and visiting New York - cue
great views of '50s Manhattan - as Clifton Webb, the head of a motor company,
has to choose a new general manager so the top 3 candidates and their wives are being vetted too to see
if they are suitable material for company events.
Its one of a dozen or so '50s movies I simply adore - not
classics like EAST OF EDEN, SUNSET BOULEVARD, ALL ABOUT EVE or A
STAR IS BORN (though of course I love them too), but simple splashy, star-studded entertainments where fabulous
gals wear fabulous clothes and live the high life, or the most delirious
costume epics [more on them at Glamour label]. 
Much more brash is Vincente's 1955 KISMET, a gaudy Arabian Nights fantasia, with that score adapted from Borodin, which thankfully provides good roles for Howard Keel and Dolores Gray - while Ann Blyth scores as Keel's daughter and Vic Damone as the Caliph. The convoluted plot features begger/poet Hajj (Keel) wanting a better life for his daughter, meanwhile she and the Caliph meet and fall in love, then Dolores Gray comes as as Lalume and she and Hajj end up together ..... the nice score includes "Stranger in Paradise", "This is my beloved", "Baubles, Bangles and Beads", "Night of my Night" and "Not Since Nineveh" as the wicked Wazir wants the Caliph to marry one of his choices, while the bandit chief is looking for his long lost son who turns ou to be the Wazir, who promptly has his father killed. This is all delirious fun as the various strands come together and the Wazir gets his just deserts. Minnelli makes it all look great too. Dolores Gray shines too as she does in her other MGM mid-50s movies (Dolores Gray label). We also liked Blyth in THE STUDENT PRINCE, 1954 and of course her immortal Veda in MILDRED PIERCE! 
The supporting cast has a nice bevy of old-timers with Monty Wooley, Sebastian Cabot, Jack Elam, Jay C Flippen and Mike Mazurki, This was another Sunday afternoon matinee favourite when I was young, and would b e a delicious double bill with the 1956 JUPITER'S DARLING another MGM extravaganza, with Esther Williams in her last musical, with Keel as Hannibal, with all those elephants ....
We got another selection of old 50s and 60s movie magazines - those quality British ones: "Films & Filming" and "Sight & Sound", and a few "Plays & Players". - I had that 1972 one, on American theatre, with Bacall on the cover, and an interview with Tennessee Williams. I saw that 1980 HAMLET too at the Royal Court, it was a highly praised production at the time, with Jonathan Pryce and Jill Bennett - I must return to that when I get around to all those Hamlets ...
The film ones also have interesting interviews with the likes of Hitchcock, Bergman (Ingmar), Fellini & Antonioni. At least I can scan and preserve them ... I like that cover with Belmondo (THE MAN FROM RIO), and Lee Remick in SANCTUARY, and Coward and Guinness in OUR MAN IN HAVANA, and Julie Christie with gay photographer pal Roland Curram in DARLING. These capture that mid-60s vibe nicely, like those ones with Monica Vitti as MODESTY BLAISE or David Hemmings in BLOW-UP.
Lauren Bacall (1924-2014), aged 89. Bacall often got a bad press as being "difficult" - she was though the woman who knew everyone (Angela Lansbury is merely the woman who worked with everyone) . Bacall popped up everywhere, like lighting up a cigarette next to Judy and Jack Warner at the premiere of A STAR IS BORN. I love that 1959 photo of her, Vivien Leigh and Kay Kendall (who died that year) out having late drinks with their gay best friend Noel Coward - imagine the gossip! - here it is again, below. She positively glared at me when signing books in 
Yes, its Roddy McDowall's home movies (22 in all, all quite short), which are now on YouTube. The links at the side (on YouTube) bring up some more fascinating clips, as we watch Paul Newman, Ben Gazzara, Kirk Douglas, George Cukor, John Frankenheimer, George Axelrod, Domonic Dunne, and others at play. Malibu looks nice and unspoilt then - almost 50 years ago. We knew Roddy was still busy and popular then and knew everybody - like Rock Hudson and Dirk Bogarde they knew everybody and their home movies are a blast. (Above left, Simone Signoret, right - Lee Remick).
This might have been a quiet day at the beach for these co-stars and colleagues, mixing with their own - and the Hollywood gay set - at what seems a private occasion; no internet or cell phone photos or paparazzi then - just Roddy shooting his home movies. But here they are on YouTube almost 50 years later, capturing that perfect mid 60s summer, with so many in their prime. Lee Remick (left) for instance looks marvellous here, pity there's no sound with those lingering closeups. The Malibu beach-house looks nice and informal, but must have cost millions even then - let alone now. (Right: James Fox, with Signoret in background). Its such a contrast to today's shallow celebrity culture where people have to tweet everything they do and post pictures to prove it. 
The campest of all though has to be 1982's EVIL UNDER THE SUN with Dames Maggie Smith and Diana Rigg both at the top of their form. Its marvellous seeing Maggie in her prime here, and Diana's superbitch Arlena is a wow too, particularly when she wows us with Cole Porter's "You're the Top" as she vamps Nicholas Clay, 
who runs around a lot in those swim-trunks .... his mousey wife Jane Birkin makes a stunning transformation for the climax, while Roddy McDowell essays a vicious queen, and its nice to see old-timers James Mason and Sylvia Miles having a paid vacation in the sun. Marvellous Dennis Quilley is also to hand; its a terrific setting in the Med as well - what's not to love? Ustinov and Niven amuse too, though Albert Finney is just all wrong as the ORIENT EXPRESS Hercule. 
THE MIRROR CRACKED in 1980 is the least of them, though generated a lot of publicity at the time, with the teaming of '50s legends Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Novak, both bitching marvellously together. Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis are sadly aged here, and Angela Lansbury is a rather odd Miss Marple ... the English village is nicely depicted, and splendid Margaret Courtenay is ideal as Dolly Bantry, while Elizabeth seems to be chanelling The Queen Mother. These Christies are ideal summer re-views, and are always on show at Christmas and the like. A box of chocolates to hand is also essential for viewing these delirious concoctions. 
