Comedy – Page 2 – The Magnificent 60s

Roofman (2025) **

This sounds like one of those scams you’re always reading about. Too-good-to-be-true handsome hunk Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum) arrives in the life of struggling single mom Leigh (Kirsten Dunst). Only difference is he’s not ripping her off for cash, but demolishing her emotions and the faith in goodness of her two innocent kids, Jade (Kirana Kulic) and Joselyn (Gabriella Cila).

Another movie glorifying some dude you’ve never heard of, just because, at least in the movie version, he’s cute to the point of goofyness and for some reason has been left behind by society. And like Smashing Machine (2025), there’s virtually no narrative to hang onto or even that makes sense, beyond the delusion inflicted on the God-fearing family who can’t see past the armloads of gifts and fall too easily for the notion that’s he’s some kind of undercover government agent.

Maybe you can live for six months on peanut M&Ms, great piece of promotion for M&Ms should that be the case, and maybe the manager, Mitch (Peter Dinklage), of the Toys’R’Us store you’re hiding out in is so dumb he doesn’t realize boxes and boxes of the stuff is leaving the store without registering on his till. Or that his store is also being looted of all its computer game inventory.

And it’s true that Jeffrey has an unusual set of skills, and that if he stopped stealing for a moment and found an ordinary job anywhere someone would soon cotton on the fact that he’s a walking encyclopedia of observation and surely it wouldn’t be long before he could bring added-value to any business simply by pointing out such facts.

You could start off with the fact that he’s found a weak spot in the security of most businesses. Most stores have ample security at the front, but nobody’s given a thought to how accessible they might be from the roof for a guy armed with little more than a hammer.

But, wait, Jeffrey isn’t a bad guy’s bad guy, he’d be rejected by the likes of Martin Scorsese, he’s only turning to crime because he can’t afford to buy a bike for his kid. So bringing those observation skills to the fore, he works out that McDonalds is relatively easy prey and before he’s caught he’s collected tens of thousands of dollars in his own version of Happy Meals.

In prison he turns once more to his specific set of skills and in the only interesting scene in the entire picture escapes through an ingenious method, then holes up in a Toys’R’Us where he constructs a little hidey-hole, switches off the security alarms (another set of skills), and comes out to play every night when the store is closed.

Mitch is a hardass and makes life hard for that nice single mom Leigh so Jeffrey intervenes and amends her work schedule to better suit her domestic life. And when Mitch refuses to pony up with a donation for the toy charity event she’s hosting at the local church, Jeffrey steps in.

You wouldn’t know it but these little churches are packed full of single moms just gagging for it. No sooner has Leigh coaxed our hero out on a date than she’s having first-date sex and then, armed with armfuls of gifts, he’s pretty much invading the home, younger daughter delighted with his attention, older daughter a tougher nut to crack.

Are you still interested? I wasn’t. I sat there like a member of the famed Disgruntled Audience, wondering what made anyone imagine this no-story story was worth a good two hours of my time.

So criminals are actually ordinary guys at heart, wanting a home life like the rest of us, and not all going around abusing their wives or beating up on their kids of sitting home stoned?

That’s about as much insight as we’re going to get as long as we (the audience) go in for the delusion that it’s somehow going to have a happy ending.

I’m reminded of the Richard Pryor character in one of the Superman pictures who, despite some genius, was so dumb he was always going to get caught and couldn’t think of a single way outside of criminality to find a home for his set of special skills.

Sure, Channing Tatum (Blink Twice, 2024) is watchable but soon wears out his welcome in a tale that doesn’t go anywhere fast and Kirsten Dunst’s (Civil War, 2024) character has some surprising aspects. But really?

Derek Cianfrance has a decent track record for interesting drama – Blue Valentine (2010), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) and The Light Between Oceans (2026) – but this is a serious miscalculation of audience endurance. Kirt Gunn (Lovely By Surprise, 2007) wrote it.

Dud.

Doctor in Trouble (1970) **

Limp ending to a fine series. Torpedoed by too many oddities. Leslie Philips returns in the top-billed role, but he’s not playing the suave Dr Gaston Grimsdyke of the previous iteration, but instead a more hapless version of Dr Paul Burke, the character he played a decade before in Doctor in Love (1960).

Confused? You will be. It’s clearly set up for James Robertson Justice to play two characters, a la Sinners (2025), his usual Sir Lancelot Spratt and his presumably identical brother, ship’s captain George Spratt. But Justice fell ill and the naval part was taken by Robert Morley, of similar bombastic ilk, but in diction more long-winded and fluffy and lacking the bite of the surgeon.

In the last two episodes I’d seen there had been an obnoxious salt-of-the-earth character who turned out to be surprisingly artistic. Here, we have to settle for the nouveau riche Pools-winner (a gambling game of the era) who is channeling his inner Sidney James, all leer and not much else. And if you want proof that it’s never a good idea to hire a television personality merely because he has a large following, look no further than Simon Dee.

Several notions will not endear themselves to the contemporary audience – the cross-dressing, the cliché gays, and the Englishman in brownface playing an Indian. That’s not to mention the pratfalls and endless falling into swimming pools.

There’s even less of a plot than in the last outing. Dr Burke (Leslie Philips) accidentally stows away on a cruise ship after pursuing model girlfriend Ophelia (Angela Scoular) who’s working there. He also comes up against actor Basil Beauchamp (Simon Dee), an old school bete noire, who plays a doctor in a television soap.

Dr Burke is hounded by the ship’s Master-at-Arms (Freddie Jones) so occasionally it lurches into farce. And there’s any number of sexy debutantes either desperate to climb into bed with the TV star or hook the gambler.

If it had settled on one tone – slapstick, sex comedy or farce – it might well have worked even in the face of the poor script. Cor blimey, there’s even some fleeting nudity from Ophelia and Leslie Philips and a striptease that’s way out of place for what was originally a much gentler comedy than the Carry Ons. In terms of style it’s all over the place and not a single member of the cast is appealing enough to rescue it.

Had Leslie Philips been in traditional “ding-dong” comfort zone it might have passed muster but here he’s just the butt of all the jokes without generating an ounce of sympathy. Robert Morley (Some Girls Do, 1969) isn’t a patch on James Robertson Justice. Angela Scoular (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969) seems off-key, Freddie Jones (Otley, 1969) as if he’s in a different picture while the constantly leering Harry Secombe (Oliver! 1968) belongs in a Carry On. Graham Stark (The Picasso Summer, 1969) is deplorable as the Indian waiter Satterjee.

The only person to rise above their station is Joan Sims (Doctor in Clover, 1966) who makes a cameo appearance as a Russian nurse. In bit parts you might spot Yutte Stensgaard (Zeta One, 1969) and Janet Mahoney in her debut.

Directed as usual by Ralph Thomas. Script by Jack Davies based on a Richard Gordon bestseller.

After this, the series was reimagined for television and returned to its gentle comedy roots.

For completists only – and even then…

Doctor in Clover / Carnaby M.D. (1966) ***

Ding dong! All change. Out go the dithering twerps and in comes the seductive lothario. Dirk Bogarde after one last charge and no longer the country’s top attraction at the box office has departed for the more receptive arthouse climes of King and Country (1964), Darling (1965) and Accident (1966). In his place, at St Swithins, has come Dr Gaston Grimsdyke (Leslie Phillips) who imbues the character with trademark seductive purr.

With Gaston able to be upfront in his intentions, there is less reliance on the innuendo that suffocated rival Carry On series, and seemed to cover all manner of male deficiencies, most obviously the ability to pursue a girl in the normal acceptable manner. The exceptionally slight narrative is more a series of sketches and falls back on slapstick, some of which is hilarious – two doctors covering everyone in foam – and others less so (how many times can you fall fully clothed into a swimming pool?).

The patients line up to fill any gaps, headed in the main by “I-know-my-rights” walking medical encyclopedia Tarquin Wendover (Arthur Haynes) who despite his rough exterior reveals a penchant for ballet, and Russian ballet dancer Tatiana Rubikov (Fenella Fielding) determined to attract the male gaze.

Now there are two medics to put everyone in their place, Sir Lancelot Spratt (James Robertson Justice) and starchy Matron Sweet (Joan Sims) who revels in handing out a ticking off and takes on Spratt over what might be deemed these days a support animal in the shape of a parrot – and wins. At least she wins round one. But then her steely resolve crumbles as she believes she is secretly being wooed by Spratt.

But in the days when ageing male Hollywood idols were being teamed up, with nary a concern about the obvious age gap, with women half their age, and the likes of James Bond and Alfie never had to countenance rejection, it’s quite amazing that this piece of froth takes a more realistic approach. The main storyline revolves around the 35-year-old Gaston being knocked back by the 20-year-old French physiotherapist Jeannine (Elizabeth Ercy) who, for plot reasons, appears almost constantly in a swimsuit.

In a bid to make himself more appealing, Gaston embarks on a series of rejuvenating activities and treatments, planning to inject himself with a serum which, as you might he expect, he manages to inject into Spratt with hilarious consequence. He then turns to a “mood-enhancing” gas but that rebounds on him when he finds himself instead falling for the matron. As a subplot he is rival with his cousin Miles Grimsdyke (John Fraser) for a plum job – and is passed over, ironically, because he looks too young.

British audiences were taken by the twists to the formula and turned it into one of the top 15 films of the year at the box office. And I can certainly see its continued appeal. The days of the inept romantic are over. This is the permissive sixties after all. And while Gaston is rejected by Jeannine his flirtatious moves are welcomed by the equally seductive Nurse Bancroft (Shirley Anne Field), though since she is already engaged flirtation is as far as she’ll go and Gaston is disinclined to pursue the matter once he notices the size of her future husband.

There’s even a daring, for its time, sequence involving male hands mistakenly caressing each other, with their owners enjoying such fondling before they realize their error.

Leslie Phillips (The Fast Lady, 1962) is in his element – and he has a far better command of comedy than Dirk Bogarde – and a delight especially as his constant amour is constantly curbed. Despite third billing Shirley Anne Field (Kings of the Sun, 1963) has little more than an extended cameo even though she shines in what little she has to do. James Robertson Justice (Mayerling, 1969) remains the grumpy heart of the picture though Carry On regular Joan Sims runs him close. Elizabeth Ercy (The Sorcerers, 1967) has the delightful job of putting Gaston in his romantic place. Suzan Farmer (633 Squadron, 1964) puts in a brief appearance as do a host of British television names including Arthur Haynes (The Arthur Haynes Show, 1957, 1966), Terry Scott (Hugh and I, 1962-1967) and Alfie Bass (Bootsie and Snudge, 1960-1963)

Directed, once again, by series regular Ralph Thomas, taking a break from more serious efforts like The High Bright Sun (1965). Written by Jack Davies (Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, 1965) from the Richard Gordon bestseller.

Inoffensive Saturday matinee material.

A Very Special Favor (1965) ****

Surprisingly funny for a movie that’s long been out of favor. Starring a Rock Hudson (Seconds, 1966) who was just beginning to lose his grip on the marquee after an incredible run of box office success and Leslie Caron (Guns of Darkness, 1962) who had always seemed to just miss out on the top echelons of audience approval.

You can see why this had rapidly lost whatever appeal it originally possessed and that a contemporary crowd would turn its nose up at a man that has such success with the ladies that he has a whole stream of women carrying out his most basic chores. Except that the tale is really about him getting his come-uppance and everyone enjoys that kind of narrative.

Paul (Rock Hudson) only has to look at a woman and she melts. His job, such as it is, though he is wealthy, is to use his charm to commercial advantage. We open with him in a French court winning a case it transpires because he has seduced the female judge. The opposing lawyer Charles (Charles Boyer) encounters Paul on the way home, observing the American batting back stewardesses with ease, and the Frenchman enlists him to seduce his daughter Lauren (Leslie Caron), so much of a career woman, a high-flying psychologist, that her father fears she will turn into an old maid.

But Lauren already has a fiancé, Arnold (Dick Shawn) who, like Paul’s harem, is at her beck and call, carrying out the most basic tasks for her. Paul pretends to be a patient, his fake problem being his irresistibility which has caused a girlfriend to commit suicide. Lauren shows very little sign of falling for Paul’s charm. In order to prove that they are making progress, they go to a restaurant. To Paul’s astonishment, Lauren passes out from drinking too much champagne. He takes her back to her apartment and in the morning pretends that she has succumbed to his charms.

So now the twists come. Lauren is upset to discover that she has been seduced by a man she was determined to keep her distance. But when she finds out the truth, the tables are turned. She invents a Spanish lover which knocks Paul’s ego to hell. Plus she accuses him of impotence. Then he turns the tables again, and using one of his many fans – and a ploy that would prove somewhat ironic given Hudson was a closet gay – switchboard operator Mickey (Nita Talbot), makes Lauren so jealous that eventually he contrives to win her back and the two determined singletons, against all odds, get married.

There’s some marvellous stuff here, some slapstick at which Caron is surprisingly adept, but mostly it’s a tale of flustered feathers and vengeance for perceived humiliation, beginning with Boullard who is so annoyed that any of daughter of his is a stuck-up prude. Paul can’t believe Lauren isn’t falling at his feet and equally she is infuriated that Paul isn’t another male slave like her fiancée.

There’s a great turn from Dick Shawn as the slave and his mother (Norma Varden) who keeps on encountering Paul at his least winning. It’s a relief to see Rock Hudson not playing the stuffed shirt of previous comedies and for Leslie Caron not to be a hapless heroine. So it plays as a more effective modern comedy.

Not everyone was so keen on Caron, complaining about the lack of chemistry between the leads and that Paul would never get hooked by such a cold fish. But I disagree. Sure, it called for a lot more from the audience that the leading lady wasn’t the usual ultra-feminine model, but that made the initial romance more believable. Initially, Paul doesn’t fall for her and is seducing her as a “very special favour” to her father but once he sees the other side of her personality he changes his tune.

But I would hazard a guess that, mostly, people were annoyed with Caron because she wasn’t Doris Day and that, while this follows one formula, it steers clear of the Hudson-Day formula in making Caron a high-flying career woman. Dick Shawn (Penelope, 1966) leads an able supporting cast.

Directed by Michael Gordon (Texas Across the River, 1966) from a script by Stanley Shapiro (Bedtime Story, 1964) and Nate Monaster (That Touch of Mink, 1962).

Worth a look.

The Thrill of It All (1963) ****

Has three unusual distinctions for a Doris Day comedy. First of all, it’s feminist. Secondly, it’s prophetic. Third, and perhaps most interesting of all, is that it plays exactly into expectations – for completely different reasons – for audiences sixty years apart. Only the ending would split the audiences.

And this is a somewhat mature Doris Day. Having shucked off Rock Hudson and Cary Grant, she was no longer stuck in a relatively mindless, however charming, love story following the usual formula of girl-meets-boy girl-loses-boy girl-gets-boy. Here she’s contented housewife Beverly Boyer married to successful obstetrician Dr Gerald Boyer (James Garner) with two kids apt to cause disruption but whose main purpose, equally unusually, is to make caustic comment about grown-up behavior. There is one magnificent outlandish set-piece involving soap powder but the slapstick is toned down and there’s a gentle satire of the television industry and advertising.

There’s only one downside to the marriage, her husband is being called out at all hours to deliver babies and that’s such a worthy calling what decent wife could complain about such absences even if it means spoiled dinners and missing events.

However, everything is turned upside down when by pure chance Beverly takes on the role of becoming the onscreen spokesperson for a brand of soap called Happy Soap. This being in the days of live television – so this is set strictly in the 1950s hence the more pronounced tone of a woman’s place being in the home – she has to do the advertisement live on air and her fumbling and inexperience touch a chord with audiences who respond with such vigor that she is offered a contract that puts her in the position of earning substantially more than her husband. How dare she?

Naturally, the demands placed upon her by the advertising company turns the domestic tables. She’s the one coming home late and he’s the one seen as her adjunct. The soap powder boss is so determined to keep her he fulfills every whim – even when such wishes are not made with any seriousness. So she wakes up one morning with a swimming pool in the back yard which virtually demands that a car drive straight into it.

The battle of the sexes comes down a battle of women’s rights (yes, they are mentioned) against men’s rights, in other words freedom vs toeing the line. Rather than delighted at her extra dough, he’s infuriated that she’s infringing on his perceived role as being the sole provider for the family.

Eventually, he decides the only way to bring her to her senses is to arouse her jealousy by being seen in the company of other women. But that only works up to a point. And she only gives in when she is made to realize – by the only narrative misstep as far as the contemporary audience is concerned – that his job is much more important than hers.

While this is the first of two pairings – the other being Move Over, Darling the same year – between Doris Day and James Garner (Hour of the Gun, 1967) is lacks the purer screen chemistry she found with Cary Grant and Rock Hudson and you feel the plot has been written to accommodate this deficit. There’s little requirement for intimacy or proper wooing, much less for the misunderstandings that fueled the previous pairings.

Doris Day’s haplessness is put to a different use, as it is initially the reason why she proves so appealing to television audiences.

Whether women in the 1960s had to keep to themselves their rooting for the career women in Beverly being given a chance to shine, or whether – the beginnings of the modern feminist movement dating from the publication of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan published in 1963 – she was seen as a poster girl for the movement I’m not qualified to judge.

These days, however, Beverly would be viewed as an early champion of women’s rights and that, regardless of how important it was that a man tasked with delivering babies had a woman at home to make his dinner and mop his brow, his demands should not take priority.

While there aren’t as many outright laffs as in previous Doris Day comedies, the feminist angle provides the picture with an unusual worthiness, not something you’d go looking for in Day’s portfolio.

Directed by Norman Jewison (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968) and written by Carl Reiner (The Art of Love, 1965).

Passage of time has made this more important than the material might suggest. Gets extra marks for serious intent.

Doctor in Love (1960) ****

Chortled all the way through. You can see why it was the biggest film at the British box office in 1960. Dirk Bogarde had turned up his nose at repeating the character for the fourth time and went off to make more serious pictures like Victim (1961) which, it transpired, dented his box office appeal. Replacement Michael Craig (Mysterious Island, 1961), while brawnier, passes this particular screen test with flying colors though he has his work cut out to hold his own against such practised scene stealers as James Robertson Justice (Mayerling, 1968) and Leslie Phillips (The Fast Lady, 1962) and once Virginia Maskell (The Wild and the Willing, 1962) enters proceeding her coolness makes the camera her own.

I was surprised how much this relied on innuendo. But this is a gentler exercise in smut than the sniggering guffawing Carry On approach. And there’s little chance of it descending into misogyny since the females hold all the aces. The plot is episodic and none the worse for that and even a diversion into a strip club, which might suggest a narrative clutching at straws, proves a surprising highpoint.

Basic story shifts Dr Hare (Michael Craig) out of hospital and into general practice which provides ample comedic opportunity via patients and colleagues. But, first of all, just to confuse matters and as if the producers were worried the series might not survive outside the boundaries of St Swithins Hospital, the tale begins with him returning to hospital with what turns out to be jaundice.

Cue the booming interventions of Sir Lancelot Spratt (James Robertson Justice) and the first of the love stories wherein Hare and Dr Hinxman (Nicholas Parsons) are rivals for flighty Nurse Sally Nightingale (Moira Redmond), who, in the first of many knocks to the male ego, while playing off one against the other goes off with another man. Before she does, Dr Hinxman takes revenge by prescribing all sorts of medications which will leave Hare so indisposed he is unable to respond to the nurse’s ardor.

Back in civvy street, as a GP, Dr Hare has to fend off predatory female patients and secretary Kitten Strudwick (Carole Lesley) and deal with standard comedic issues such as the boy who gets his head jammed in a cooking pot and the less common task of explaining the facts of life to a 40-year-old virgin. His boss Dr Cardew (Nicholas Phipps) is under the thumb of a wife who has shipped out to California only to summon her husband every now and then. The ever-amorous Dr Burke (Leslie Phillips) fills in and is the prime mover in an episode that involves strippers Dawn (Joan Sims) and Leonora (Liz Fraser). There’s a particularly good reversal in a drunken scene where the totally inebriated Wildewinde (Reginal Beckwith) completes all the police drunk tests (if that’s what they’re called) with ease.

When Dr Burke is incapacitated, his place is taken by Dr Nicola Barrington (Moira Redmond). And that should have been enough of a plot to see the picture through but the movie doubles down on complication. Dr Barrington fends off Dr Hare and when Nurse Nightingale reappears Barrington in due course quits. Dr Spratt is also on board for further scene-stealing duties including ruling the roost in a strip club and undergoing an operation.

The romantic situation is resolved, Dr Spratt is put in his place temporarily and our hero effects a return to the hospital.

I wouldn’t say the writing (by Nicholas Phipps) is of the highest caliber but the jokes come at an assembly line pace and the cast are superb, barely a cast member incapable of stealing a scene. You hire James Robertson Justice and Leslie Phillips at your peril. Without Dirk Bogarde hogging the scenery, this flows much better than others in the series, with the supporting cast being more than just foil to a star who was a major box office attraction at the time. And it helps that the women – Moira Redmond (Nightmare, 1964), Virginia Maskell, Carole Lesley (Three on a Spree, 1961), and Carry On regulars Joan Sims and Liz Fraser – are even more adept at scene-stealing than the men and not merely foil for misogynist jokes as in the Carry On series.

Director Ralph Thomas (The Wild and the Willing) seems to have found a new lease of life without having to deal with Dirk Bogarde and brings a certain verve to proceedings, especially in tripping up male ego.

Comedy is such an odd one to judge. Many a time I have sat through with scarcely a titter movies I’ve been told are hilarious. Other times I’ve been told to give them a free ride because they are making a point. So I stick to my own rule.

Make me laugh – I don’t care how – and this had me laughing all the way through.

A Pocketful of Miracles (1961) ***

Frank Capra was yesterday’s man – one movie in a decade – and 15 years away from the consolation of knowing that his flop It’s A Wonderful Life (1948) was on its way to becoming, arguably, along with The Wizard of Oz (1939), America’s most beloved picture thanks to annual Xmas showings on television and subsequently in the cinema.

There’s nothing new here, either, it’s a remake of his Lady for a Day (1933) and it’s more of a fable lacking punch than some of his more famous pictures. And the main interest for contemporary audiences may well be that it marks the debut of Ann-Margret (The Swinger, 1966) who gets to sing but not shake her booty in trademark fashion. And it takes forever to wind up to a pitch. We’ve got to wade through three subplots before it gets going.

First of all Prohibition gangster Dave (Glenn Ford) meets up with the daughter Queenie (Hope Lang) of a deceased club owner who’s in hock for $20,000. Dave is much taken by the earnest Queen’s determination to repay the debt at the rate of five bucks a week. For no reason at all except narrative necessity, she’s turned into a nightclub singing sensation.

When Prohibition ends, big-time Chicago gangster Steve Darcey (Sheldon Leonard) plans to muscle in on the New York rackets and it takes all Dave’s suave bluster to keep him, temporarily, at bay. The end of Prohibition comes as a relief to Queenie and with the nightclub shut down she agrees to marry Dave with the proviso that he give up the gangster life and retire to her home town in Maryland and they become an ordinary couple.

Very much on the fringes of this is Apple Annie (Bette Davis), a street panhandler who sells “lucky” apples, one her most satisfied customers being Dave. When her illegitimate daughter Louise (Ann-Margret) returns from Spain to New York with rich beau Carlos (Peter Mann) in tow, Annie’s in a pickle, because she’s been keeping up the pretence of being a wealthy woman.

Queenie insists they help Annie to maintain her charade and Dave goes along with the idea because he’s worried his luck will run out. So Annie is turned into a sophisticate, manners polished, furnished with a luxurious apartment, including a butler, and fake husband Henry (Thomas Mitchell).

None of the stars seem to know how to handle the material, and for most of the time they act as if in a pastiche, like they were throwing winks to the audience. Glenn Ford (Fate Is the Hunter, 1964), generally adept at comedy, plays this all wrong. He wanted the part so badly he helped finance the picture. Bette Davis (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, 1962) overacts, as does Peter Falk (Murder Inc, 1961), though the Academy didn’t think so and threw him a second Oscar nomination. Hope Lang and Ann-Margret, playing it straight, get it right, though the latter, vivacious personality to the fore, wins that battle by more than a nose. Might well have worked if original choice Frank Sinatra hadn’t ankled the project.

Hal Kanter and Harry Tugend wrote the remake, based on a Damon Runyon story. It was always a tricky business to capture the stylistic essence of Runyon, Guys and Dolls (1955) the most effective transition, Lady for a Day better than this and Little Miss Marker filmed three times.

Once the Bette Davis pretence enters the equation, the tale takes on some narrative drive and the quintessential Capra shines through. But it’s too little too late.

Not the swansong Capra anticipated, but he only has himself to blame.

Come September (1961) ***

The quite superb concept that underpins the traditional unsettling of Rock Hudson is sabotaged by the inclusion of an unnecessary generation gap element and because one of the youngsters is singer Bobby Darin that throws a musical spanner into the works. The basic set-up is that Lisa (Gina Lollobrigida), the Italian lover of wealthy American Robert (Rock Hudson), is fed up with the part-time nature of their relationship. Although their affair dates back six years, it only lasts for the one month (September) he vacations each year in his luxurious villa on the Ligurian coast.

She’s so annoyed at his lack of commitment that she’s about to marry posh Englishman Spencer (Ronald Howard), that imminent event only put off by the unexpected earlier-than-usual arrival of Robert. Matters are further complicated because his enterprising Italian butler Maurice (Walter Slezak) hires out the villa to paying guests for the other eleven months. To explain the owner’s sudden arrival, Maurice persuades his guests to go along with the notion that Robert is a former owner fallen on hard times deluded into thinking he still possesses the property.

The guests are a gaggle of young women, including psychology major Sandy (Sandra Dee) who proceeds to analyze Robert, and they are herded around by formidable chaperone Margaret (Brenda de Banzie) who prevents Lisa sneaking into her lover’s bedroom.

So enough plot to be getting on with. You’d assume Spencer is going to turn up, maybe with his equally formidable sisters, to cause ructions at the villa. Lisa appears to enjoy making Robert wait the way he has kept her wait, so a gentle shift in power, and there’s going to be an inevitable bust-up so we expect a quick shift into the will-she-won’t-she scenario. Plus, there’s the whole issue of Robert claiming back his villa and dealing with the over-entrepreneurial Maurice.

Instead, the second act enters a whole new realm. Unless one of the girls was going to make a play for Robert, there’s not much reason for them to be there except for the nuisance value and to allow Margaret to flex her authority. An unwelcome quartet of young men, led by Tony (Bobby Darin), embark on the equally unwelcome task of wooing of the young ladies, Tony having his eyes on Sandy. Although various romantic entanglements are enacted, that’s not what takes center stage.

Instead, the bulk of the middle section scarcely involves the Robert-Lisa quandary and instead it’s devoted to an endless battle between Tony and Robert as the younger specimen attempts to prove he is mentally and physically superior. Now the one element that had made these Rock Hudson comedies work was his helplessness. He may occasionally be smart or wealthy but the whole point of these stories was for a woman to run rings around him or at the very least drag him way out of his comfort zone.

Seeing Robert best Tony – endlessly – takes the shine off the picture and it’s not until Robert is revealed as a sanctimonious hypocrite, living by a double standard, that the movie catches fire again as Lisa storms off in a huff and we can settle down to some good old-fashioned will-she-won’t-she.

This proves a very successful change of pace for Gina Lollobrigida, and she reveals herself to be such a splendid comedienne that it became part of her repertoire – reunited with Hudson for Strange Bedfellows (1965) and leading a pack of men a merry dance in Buona Sera Mrs Campbell (1968).

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Rock Hudson. He’s good comedy value, but the second act ruins it. Bobby Darin (Pressure Point, 1962) and Sandra Dee (A Man Could Get Killed, 1966) act as if they’re in a completely different movie, of the frothy beach variety. Walter Slezak (The Caper of the Golden Bulls, 1967) is an adept scene-stealer. Look out for Joel Grey (Cabaret, 1972) in an early role and Brenda de Banzie (I Thank a Fool, 1962).

Directed by Robert Mulligan (The Stalking Moon, 1969) with a screenplay by Oscar-winning Stanley Shapiro (Bedtime Story, 1964) and Maurice Richlin (All in a Night’s Work, 1961).

A hybrid that rocks the wrong boat.

Surprise Package (1960) **

Poses two questions. Is this every bit as bad as Once More with Feeling, Stanley Donen’s previous picture? Yep, sorry, it’s every bit as wretched. The second question is: how on earth did Donen go from this mess to sublime romantic thriller Charade three years later? Well, the answer might simply be in the casting. Yul Brynner is no Cary Grant. And in this movie he’s not even Yul Brynner.

My guess is he’s meant to be a humorous twist on the Brynner screen persona. But playing a gangster with a thick Noo Yoik accent was always the preserve of the dumb supporting actor not the star. And since Yul Brynner isn’t any more convincing in this than in Once More with Feeling the project is in trouble from the start.

We’re given too much of this faux gangster drivel at the start when mob kingpin Nico (Yul Brynner) is collecting tributes from his underlings. Then, for no particular reason, he is deported, sent back into exile to his homeland of Greece. There he encounters the only smart guy in the picture, the corrupt chief of police Stefan (Eric Pohlmann) who’s so astute in the bribery department that all Nico receives in return for his thousand dollar bribe is to be told he won’t be arrested for bribery.

Stefan sets up Nico to meet another exile, deposed King Pavel II (Noel Coward), whose accent makes no sense either unless he was exclusively raised in high class British society, schooled at Eton, a member of upper class clubs etc etc, otherwise how to explain the plummy tones unless this is also meant to be as over-the-top gag as Nico’s Noo Yoik accent. Nico plans to buy the king’s crown for a million bucks. But the boys back home stiff him and instead of the cash send him instead his girlfriend – the surprise package of the title – mob moll Gabby (Mitzi Gaynor), and the ongoing gag here is that, what with Nico trying to elevate himself in society, Gabby’s table manners and speech let him down.

So with no cash forthcoming, what’s a gangster to do to pad out his exile? So Nico decides to steal the crown. And if there had been either a hint of the classic heist a la Grand Slam (1960) or Topkapi (1964) or its alternative, the totally inept thief, then we might have been onto something. But instead we’ve got much what we might expect from such a poor piece – not much. And in any case, the laffs are meant to come from another party, representing the king’s citizens, and led by Dr Panzer (George Coulouris) who wants the crown restored to its proper home. Two crooks chasing the same prize? What a crazy idea. But this works as well as the rest of the picture.

Thanks to Gabby’s principles, the crown goes in neither’s pockets. To make a buck, Nico and the king transform the latter’s villa into a casino with Gabby, now Mrs Nico, employed as the hat check girl.

Stanely Donen made three pictures in 1960 and then not another man for three years, which suggested he was a) working on too many projects at once and b) that break sure refreshed his cinematic skills. Just like Once More with Feeling he gets wrong virtually most of the directorial decisions, beginning with the accents and ending up with the storyline and characters you don’t care a button for, which wouldn’t have mattered if they could generate a laugh.

Yul Brynner followed this up with his iconic performance in The Magnificent Seven (1960) so perhaps he can be excused. This pretty much killed off the career of Mitzi Gaynor (South Pacific, 1958) – it was another three years till she appeared on screen again, and that was her final picture. It took Noel Coward (Bunny Lake Is Missing, 1965) four years to get another screen role.

Written by Harry Kurnitz (Once More with Feeling) from the Art Buchwald novel so I am assuming this was greenlit before the results of the previous Donen-Brynner teaming were known.

At least Charade revived Donen’s career.

A New Kind of Love (1963) ***

Just about scrapes by, small thanks to Paul Newman’s atrocious Texan accent, Joanne Woodward’s frightful blonde wig – more Lady Penelope than classy Parisian – and Maurice Chevalier serenading a horde of drunken women. Maurice Chevalier? Well, of course this is Paris and Chevalier always sings regardless of being peripheral to the story.

Suffers, too, from being a smart-ass picture, in the vain hope of hitting the satirical bullseye taking swipes at everything in sight, from women barging into a sale to haute couture, airline stewardesses, journalism and even Paris. And there’s a string of fantasy sequences that might (or might not) have worked at the time but fail to gell now. Takes forever for the principals to even be brought close enough together to envisage romance and it doesn’t help that that supposedly most eagle-eyed of creatures, the reporter, can’t see through a simple disguise.

Tomboy Sam Blake (Joanne Woodward) is a pirate. Not the swashbuckling kind, leaping through the rigging, which would be worth seeing I’m sure, but the industrial kind, stealing the designs of better designers for a New York department store.

Steve Sherman (Paul Newman) is piratical, stealing other people’s wives. When his latest conquest turns out to be married to his boss, he is shifted off to Paris as – punishment? Yep, you can see the awry thinking behind this one.

Meanwhile, Sam and a gang from her store, boss Joe (George Tobias) and colleague Lena (Thelma Ritter), are off to Paris on a spying expedition to the annual fashion shows. Lena has her eyes on romance with the boss but is beaten to that prize by the glamorous Felicienne (Eva Gabor). Sam isn’t interested in romance. She’s a career woman, or in the parlance of the day, a “semi-virgin” (though I suspect that description was a screenwriter’s invention). Neither is Steve, for that matter, at least not of the long-lasting kind, he’s happily tearing around with a woman on each arm, enjoying the more nefarious sights of the French capital while Sam is knee deep in work.

After Sam gets a makeover, complete with long cigarette-holder Lady Penelope style, resulting in the bouffant hair style and is sitting in a café, she is approached by Steve who, assuming she is a high-class courtesan, attempts to interview her for the article he hopes will save his job. They’ve bumped into each other, she disdaining his obvious approaches, a couple of times but then she was rigged out in a short haircut and dark glasses. And this is such a complete transformation he doesn’t recognize her. And, in order to make this movie work, the audience has to play along.

As does Sam, keeping up the pretense of being a high-class hooker in order to get her revenge on the man she despises. The fictions she dishes up, of dalliances with powerful men, are published in his column and their success ensures he’s not fired. Felicienne is edged out of the way, revealed as previously a sex worker, so Lena can make her play for Joe.

Before that ploy can work, Steve sets up Sam with Joe who sees through the disguise. There’s a whole bundle of other unlikely shenanigans before we reach the compulsory happy ending.

Hollywood was fairly enamored with the sex worker or goodtime girl – Never on Sunday (1960), Butterfield 8 (1960), Irma La Douce (1963), for example, with the Oscars chipping in to show their support – and another (yes, this had been done before) comedic twist seemed to offer potential especially with two big stars going all risqué.

Paul Newman (The Prize, 1963) never quite worked out how to manage comedy until Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) where he maintained his usual persona and just delivered the lines rather than trying to wring laughs out of them. He also has a bad habit of trying to demonstrate character by fidgeting, so his face, eyes and hands are all over the place.

Joanne Woodward (A Big Hand for the Little Lady/ Big Deal in Dodge City, 1966) is better value initially but when she takes on the disguise there’s too much of the knowing wink. Six-time Oscar nominee Thelma Ritter (Boeing, Boeing, 1965) has a better idea of how to play comedy by just sticking to the knitting.

Writer-director Melville Shavelson (The Pigeon That Took Rome, 1962) just about makes it work and when it doesn’t throws in sufficient distraction.

Not the Newman-Woodward team’s finest hour.