If you are a happy bachelor who wakes up married to a hot Italian woman after a drunken evening, what do you do?
1. Divorce her
2. Tell her that you aren't married (she doesn't know English, so it might work)
3. Decide you don't need a life of carefree parties, women and your faithful butler, and enjoy married life.
4. Kill her.
Well, with a title like this, you would think option #4 is the way to go. But don't jump to conclusions.
Stanley Ford (Jack Lemmon) is a successful cartoonist with his own column and a happening bachelor life. Then in a drunken moment of confusion, he offers a diamond ring to the girl popping out of his friend's bachelor party cake. Also present were a judge and notary and plenty of witnesses. Fast forward 8 hours and his hangover includes a spouse.
He immediately wants out, but his lawyer refuses to give him an annulment until he has given the marriage a chance. So he is forced into awkward social situations including spilling a tureen of soup onto himself in front of his boss.
Of course his cartoon strip changes angles and suddenly he has a new audience. Everyone that sees him on the street comments about how their wife/mother/in-law read the strip and thought it was hilarious. Meanwhile his new wife is planning to move her mother in, redecorating, and buying pets. Stanley doesn't know what to do. He misses being a bachelor. His life, his home, and his work have all changed.
Then he comes up with a solution. He can 'kill' his wife. He talks to several experts and makes a plan. Unfortunately after the comic strip is published with him murdering his wife, she disappears. Suddenly, Stanley is facing murder charges.
My Take
I liked this movie. It was comedic, but the jokes were still funny to a 2009 audience. It even has a good message about marriage...and its not that you should try to murder your spouse. This movie will leave you with lots of laughs.
Holy cow, two posts a week apart. The crazy part is that neither one was scheduled. The whole 'old' rule might be modified since we now have a toddler in the house and its either something that's flashy and has lots of music or after bedtime (which means we don't want to read subtitles). Its too bad though, there are some really good foreign films out there.
Anyway back to the movie...
Plot
This is a movie where Lucille Ball and Bob Hope play young people. Its a stretch. I mean, come on, Lucy was in her late 30s when this film was released in 1950; she was born in 1911. This is also one of the movies she made before she got her own show. Don't ask me how they thought she deserved her own show from this.
Regardless, the story is about the Floud family a neuvo riche family that made it big in the frontier in Butte, Montana in its pre-statehood days. They go to England to find a man for their daughter {though at this point she would have totally been a spinster}. One guy fancies her and decides to invite them to his country home to meet his family. Small problem, he has neither a country home nor family. No worries, his friend has a country home and he knows an acting troop he can hire to play his family for the weekend.
Enter Humphrey (Hope) the hired actor playing the butler. Humphrey is nowhere near conventional, but Ma Floud believes he can fix her husband so he can act like a true gentleman. She sends atelegram announcing that she was bringing home a "gentleman's gentleman." The entire town assumes a Lord or Duke or some such is coming back to marry Agatha (Ball). This is where the real problems begin.
Suddenly Humphrey has to act the Lord to the townpeople, but still be a butler at the manor all while actually being an actor.
My thoughts
Well, I don't feel enriched or even necessarialy entertained by watching the movie. The best part is that Bob Hope looks incredibly like Kelsey Grammer best known for his role as Dr. Fraiser Crane. Aside from that the humor was almost exclusively physical comedy. If you LOVE those funniest home video shows, you will probably enjoy this movie. If you can't stand them you wonder when there will be humor. I mean Bob Hope was known for his jokes. Lucille Ball was known for more physical comedy, but this physical comedy was just not funny.
Also, why didn't Humphrey have an English accent? EVER? He would throw a few horridly pronounced words in something that sort of resembled a British accent, but it was not consistant and it was not good.
Bottom line, it was an ok movie but its not worth your time. The whole "romantic comedy" concept is brief and it made me wonder how in the world Lucy ever got her own TV show. Trust me, this film does no one justice.
If you think of watching this show because you enjoyed I Love Lucy
This 1961 film seemed to have everything going for it. Doris Day, Rock Hudson, and Tony Randel. Its gotta be great right?
Wrong.
Its a lesser known film because its just dumb. Please note I will have a spoiler alert, cause I hated the movie, so I don't care if you see it or not, but in case you want to, be warned.
Plot Summary
Carol Templeton (Doris Day) is the worker bee of the advertising world, working with integrity and doing rather well at the same time. Still, she just keeps barely losing accounts to Jerry Webster (Rock Hudson) at the rival agency . After hearing about losing yet another account to the sly Jerry Webster, Carol puts him on trial by Advertising Agency. Mr Webster sends his go to sex kitten with an entire speech rehearsed about the amazing and upstanding Jerry Webster. Rebel (said kitten) also shows the board a was medal Jerry gave her to wear around her neck. After the 'trophies' work, Doris has to think of a new way to win.
She may seem antiquated to a modern woman of 2009, but she is no fool. She is afterall the lead advertiser in her agency. She hears that Jerry has this new account he is working on lining up called Vip. VIP is a sham, but no one knows that except Jerry. Unfortunately Pete Ramset (Tony Randal) sends Jerry on vacation, finds out about the commercial footage and starts the advertising campaign for a product that doesn't exsist. When he gets back Pete and Kerry decide to hire a chemist to make them anything that can be passed as Vip. Vip changed my life. It made my who I am. I owe everything to Vip.
Carol meanwhile hires a private detective and finds out about the chemist, and goes to try and get an advertising contract. Naturally, she had never met Jerry Webster (he didn't show up to the trial) so when she finds a man at the chemist's lab she assumes its Dr. Tyler and not her nemesis.
The courtship of company and product begins. Errr, well its sort of just a series of strange dating things where Jerry gets her to buy him a new wardrobe, teach him gulf and swimming as well as how to kiss. Yeah thats right, this woman suddenly becomes typical and sucked into this infatuation based on LIES.
Eventually she finds out Linus is actually Jerry Webster, and VIP doesn't exsist. Trial #2 with the ad council and some rather odd turn of events. As well as the end(spoiled ending in The Bad)
The Good
Doris Day plays a professional. Not a secretary or a nurse, but an advertising agent.
Rock Hudson is good looking.
Doris' character won't sleep around. (I admit it was strange to see this pride in virginity, its very different than today's movies)
The Bad
Doris Day's character is a total blockhead.
The ending sucks. SPOILER ALERT! Doris and Rock in a case of drunken lust get married. She gets the marriage annulled, but surprise, that one night of drunken passion = honeymoon baby. So Rock finds out and she just married him so the baby has a father? Ummm, ok. Also, she was like totally only 5 months pregnant going into the hospital. So not true to life. END SPOILER
The Random
There are totally some good random quotes from the movie. Also, Doris Day sings the opening song as well as an internal monologue song. Random!
Overall?
It was fine. Definately not exactly a strong sexy woman. In fact Daniel's reaction to Doris Day was that she seemed really old. It was that horrible early 60s hair. Poor gal. She looked like a wrinkless 50 year old.
There are some laughs, but the ending is horrid, makes no sense to me, and enough to make me dislike the film.
Three starsm because the 3 main people are famous. (It was a mediocre film.)
This is a story about a down on thier luck and moralless family the Carltons. The Sahib (Roland Young) has touted himself as the famous Colonel Carlton a famous stage persona in order to get the family into parties of the rich and famous to cheat at cards and in an attempt for thier gchildren to marry up and have carefree lives. At the very beginning the French Police kick them out of France for cheating at cards and scamming on the rich, so the exiled Carltons begin a long train ride in second class to England.
On the train there is a run in between daughter George-Anne Carlton (Janet Gaynor) and her former fiance Duncan McCrae (a breakout role for Richard Carlson) who turned out to not be wealthy at all. Once his poverty was discovered George-Anne broke it off. She also runs into a old lady Miss Fortune (Minnie Dupree). After an over the top tale of disaster and illness plighting her family, Miss Fortune invites George-Anne and the family to ride in her private room. The train wrecks and the Carlton family saves Miss Fortune from the wreckage. Miss Fortune invites the family to stay with her until they are back on thier feet in her huge mansion.
The idea becomes that the family will get in the old lady's good graces so they can get inthe will, and be set for life. The only problem is that they need to make the appearance of getting back on thier feet.
Long story short, after being forced into getting jobs, the Carlton men discover they both enjoy working. The son starts falling for his boss, who isn't rich but does own the company. They also begin caring for Miss Fortune. On Miss Fortune's birthday they have a big party and she collapses. They wait all day and night hoping that she will be fine, not because they want the money but because they hope she will be ok.
In traditional American style there is a cheesy happy ending. It made me feel good, and sometimes you want to watch a movie that just makes you feel good. I think this is a family film, though it might be less exciting for younger kids as the Carlton children are probably in thier 30s. The film does have a moral, and the moral is if you act kind, you will become kind.
Also, for all you WIzard of Oz fans, Marmy is played by Billie Burke who played Glenda the Good Witch. Billie Burke had quite a long film career, so I look forward to seeing more of her movies.
Four really good stars!
This is a quality independant film...and its from China. Yet another subtitled masterpeice. Well, mostly a masterpiece. The thing is, if you love half naken old Asian men, you will LOVE this film.
The opening scene has really nothing to do with most of the movie, but its really fun. You know how they have sleeping pods in Japan, I could believe they have showers that are similar in China. Pretty much, you purchase how long you would like your shower to be. Your clothes are steamed while you shower, and just like the classic car wash machines, you stand there and are cleaned in the shower. looks like it cold be a comedy right?
Then the movie actually begins. A son returns home (a traditional bathhouse) to visit his father and younger brother. This scene cracked me up so hard. I told Daniel that he must watch it, memorize it, and do the same thing to his brother when we see them in Florida. It consists of the younger brother walking up to the older, caressing his face, leaning against his shoulder, then running away. Beautiful. Hilarious. So ackward. Its in the imdb trailer here.
A few minutes later I realized the younger brother is handicapped. Instant guilt for laughing at him. Then I remebered, its a movie. There is no way the actor is really handicapped. Sweet, freedom to laugh.
In a conversation between the two brothers we discover the real reason why the older son came home. He got a post card. And not just any post card. On the post card was a drawing of a sad person sitting on the edge of a bed with another person in it. Older brother asks, "Why did you send this?" "Its me and dad. He is sleeping." Just when you think your father has died.
Ah another quality moment.
There is a time when a patron comes in because his wife has beaten him up. That character has a nice subplot, an intriguing story as to why him and his wife have so many issues, and a heartwarming "awwwww" moment with a happy ending.
Aside from the the silly parts, the film is clearly a drama. The bath is in an old section of Bejing, and there has been talk of the whole district getting torn down for a new shopping mall. *SPOILER ALERT, SKIP TO NEXT Paragraph* There is also family drama: First the older son loses the younger one in the city, then the funny foreshadowing post card comes true. I know, its a lot less funny when its true.
Overall, a good film. I would watch it again. Daniel didn't really get into it, and wanted to skip forward a few chapters, and then didn't watch the end. He missed out. Its even a short film, just over an hour and a half.
Its really is a good film, especially if you have gotten close to any developmentally disabled people. It takes on the idea of institutionalization, and acceptance. And hey, there is even some great Italian Opera singing, afterall its a shower. There has to be singing.
The film is pretty well loved in all the independant film leagues as well. It was the World Cinema Selection at Sundance in 2000, as well as getting awards in Toronto Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, Rotterdam Film FEstival, the San Sebastian Film festical, and being moted as an official selection by the museum of modern art. Don't ask me why the cover art says its a comedy. Its not really. There are comedic moments, but its really not a comedy.
Oh and its reated PG-13. Mostly for the nudity. There is a point when there are two young boys (under 10) frolicking naked in the bathhouse. Supposedly there is also some language, but I don't remember it. Maybe its for the cricket fights? Those are pretty intense. ;-D
So in our, we have library cards and live close enough to walk, and we need something to do together, we rented library movies. Our library has a HUGE foreign film section (especially compared to some of the other sections) so we ended up with two 1960s Italian foreign films and James Bond Die Another Day. Good mix right? Well after watching the films Daniel said we should consider reviewing these in a blog. So the creation started.
This little gem is about a man that has been married for a dozen or so years, has no kids, is wealthy, and a bit of an incestuous pedophile. Yes thats right, a pervy old man. Well, thats not how he is portrayed, but in America, thats how he would have been.
Ferdinando (played by Marcello Mastroianni) is married to a smothering woman who tends to his every need. Lets just say, this woman needs a kid, a pet, or a hobby to distract her attention, but since they have none of those, she dotes constantly over her husband. Also note that the wife (Daniela Rocca) was actually a beauty queen and her big break was putting on the ugly in this little diddy. Thats right, the woman had a matronly hairstyle, unibrow, and mustasche. Nothing says home like a hairy wife.
Nothing, but a first cousin who lives in the other wing of the mansion. She also sleeps in a -scandalous for its time - negligee with her windows open. That means Ferdinando AND his father can both get their peeping Tom on. Needless to say, Ferdinando is blinded by the childlike beauty of his cousin and wishes he were married to her. Alas, divorce is illegal. What to do?
The newspaper solves that with a story of a woman that killed her husband when she caught him in bed with a lover. The law books say if the courts deem it a "honor" killing, you only get 4-7 years. Lets see 7 years plus 15...eek the cousin would be 23 and far too old to still be desirable, but 4 is doable. And Ferdianand sets out on a mission. A mission to find a man that will attract his wife so she can cheat and he can kill her and get the girl.
This movie is so messed up, and hilarious. You may think foreign comedies aren't all that funny, but this one has some great situational comedy, as well as random absurdity. We recommend it to everyone that doesn't mind subtitles, and wants a look at what a man will do in order to get that hot young 15 year old that lives down the hall. Yeah its like that. We like it so much, we have considered planning a little movie night, just to make others watch it. Good clean Italian fun.