Blu-ray Review: Operation Petticoat (1959)

Now Available to Own 
 

  
Photo Slideshow   

Under the tutelage of his frequent cinematic collaborator and early mentor, the talented director Richard Quine, Blake Edwards penned the original and adapted scripts for a string of successful service comedy studio pictures from Sound Off to the On the Town inspired All Ashore.

Rounding out the series of 1950s-based WWII nostalgia driven films by co-writing the Jack Lemmon vehicle Operation Mad Ball, Edwards cemented a relationship with the star that would ultimately pay off in his greatest early achievement via the dramatic Days of Wine and Roses years later when he became an acclaimed genre and rule-breaking filmmaker in his own right.

After ten plus years of writing jokes and helming B-movies, Edwards had proven his track record with the then-trendy genre that played into the Greatest Generation’s experiences and sacrifices in the second world war now that the veterans had begun growing restless in the suburbs. Given the chance to move up the ladder in the same terrain, Edwards closed out the decade with a cinematic coup by taking advantage of the opportunity to climb it several rungs up to go straight to the top.

Earning his dues by trying to be the funniest, friendliest and/or fastest one in the room, Edwards was tapped to direct a big-budgeted WWII submarine-based servicemen sex comedy with a star-studded cast of marquee names playing larger-than-life characters.

Two years before he talked Audrey Hepburn into taking on an against-type role in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (which has since become synonymous with the star who rose to icon status with the film) and four years before he kicked off another picture-perfect collaboration with Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther franchise that illustrated his ease with physical pratfall based comedy, Blake Edwards took Petticoat to sea.

Embracing the challenge of blending high and lowbrow humor in the film’s shameless hybrid of sophisticated wordplay with silly slapstick and sight-gags, you see in Petticoat a filmmaker at play, practicing and getting better with a new prop, line-read, or ensemble approach here or there.

While like a few of his other earlier works, the results are uneven, Petticoat is one of his strongest precursors to Panther.

Whether scenes are filled with conman swagger or comedic klutziness, you can sense his filmic thought process being tested onscreen so that by the time he crossed paths with Sellers, it only took them one test-run (by way of the first, oh-so-slow Panther) to realize that chaotic rhythm – something fast-paced and with a beat you can laugh to – makes everything wittier.

And it’s this frantically fast and furiously funny approach that both professionals illustrated again and again both together (in The Party as well as the Panther series) and apart (in The Great Race for Edwards and Dr. Strangelove for Sellers).

Petticoat’s long-overdue arrival on this Blu-ray presentation from Olive Films offers the ideal opportunity for cinephiles to get a second chance at their first impression of Edwards which is too often linked with the absurd antics of Sellers in Panther, Dudley Moore in 10 or sadly, the misguided racist caricature of Mickey Rooney contrast with the loveliness of Hepburn in Tiffany’s.

Despite its contrivances and formulaic service comedy structure that couldn’t hold a candle to the then-recent Mister Roberts, upon revisiting Petticoat today you find an energetic, ambitious – if overlong old-fashioned ensemble comedy that highlights all roles from walk-ons to leads.

From the wild guests at The Party to all those taking part in The Great Race, Edwards is – like most writers – fascinated by people and the generosity with which he creates something scenes out of nothing parts is a breath of fresh air to the cardboard cutouts walking around in today's titles.

And while one can only imagine how stressful it’d be to direct cast members of the stature of Cary Grant – much like he did with Richard Quine and Jack Lemmon – Edwards reunited with Grant’s co-star Tony Curtis later on in a career where not only did he seem to play well with others collaboratively by working together to bring out the best in all but also by building on his background as a writer in understanding that the film begins on the page.

The result is a brilliantly written dialogue-heavy comedy with a peach of a part as a fast-talking operator (in the vein of Sgt. Bilko or Axel Foley) for Curtis whose multiple page per minute delivery helps punctuate the Oscar nominated script from Pillow Talk scribes Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin.

While one shortcoming of the new high definition transfer is the shoddy sound and lack of subtitles to make sure every word lands, it's nonetheless a multilayered work that's pulsing with life. Lensed with care and attention, the cinematography by legendary Howard Hawks cameraman Russell Harlan (Red River, Rio Bravo) ensures we feel every bit of sexual tension and every close call aboard the perpetually doomed U.S.S. Sea Tiger that Cary Grant’s career officer is determined to save from the scrap heap and get back in fighting shape.

Pushing his hardwired military mandated morals and regulations aside, Grant opts to look the other way and let Curtis’s conman steal any available part that isn’t nailed down as the new supply registration officer with a habit of smuggling anything from people to toilet paper aboard the sub.

After a group of stranded female servicewomen are forced to stow away on a ship filled with men quickly driven to distraction – including Grant who fails to keep things professional after ill-timed flirting forces him to torpedo a truck instead of taking out the enemy who’s just discovered their position – understandably, it’s getting things off the vessel that proves to be Grant’s biggest problem.

Soon realizing that they’ll need to band together to get out of the war alive and keep the ship afloat – both of which are tested when a primer problem results in a bright pink submarine – the crackling chemistry and camaraderie helps buoy Edwards’s Operation whenever it begins to stay off course. Amazingly deriving some of its most memorable characters and craziest anecdotes from real life battle stories – Petticoat manages to hit mostly untroubled waters for a majority of its overly long running time.

Hilarious as the conman template for the talk-his-way-out-of-anything archetype later embodied by Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop, Tony Curtis (whose daughter Jamie Leigh was cast in what would’ve been essentially the love interest to his ‘59 part in the short-lived late ‘70s TV spin-off) nails his jokes although his character’s skirt-chasing antics seem about a overdone as the actor’s rather conspicuous eye makeup.

One of the highest grossing titles for the year, Operation Petticoat was also said to be one of the biggest regrets of Bob Hope’s professional life after he turned down a role in the film he later admired.

While the subpar sound quality and muddied color specs of the release pales in comparison to some of Olive’s previous titles (in Blu-ray or DVD) and make me wonder whether or not it was even restored before the 1080p upgrade, the film is still an entertaining men-in-uniform romp with a bit of war action and sex comedy mixed in for good and bad measure.

For admittedly the changes in tone work about as well as the extended flashback device does to bookend the uneasy blend of nostalgia and the ridiculousness that arises in this nonetheless enjoyable tribute to problem solving on a large scale.

However from a film studies standpoint, Petticoat can also be appreciated as a tribute to early Edwards (and therefore his mentor Quine) in not only foreshadowing later work but also showing you his movie-making method of madness.

Namely, as evidenced onscreen, it starts by surrounding yourself with a loyal, talented crew. Then by working in the fact-based offscreen elements, Edwards also uses everything at his disposal from a memo about toilet paper to the unexpected patriotism of a brassiere to make you laugh so hard that – like a magician using comedy instead of a wand as a misdirect – you don’t notice the trick that he’s actually making you think as well.

And now that we've just begun to digest his transition from writer to director, what we really need is a box set release of his ‘50s service comedies to reacquaint film lovers with the start of a brilliantly funny career due to his collaboration – before Moore, Sellers, Hepburn or Lemmon – with the underrated Richard Quine.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Film Intuition Interview: Chris Lemmon On His Book, His Father's Legendary Career and The Jack Lemmon Film Collection

(Originally Published along with all of Film Intuition's other interviews, TV, book & music reviews, and news in Jen's P.O.V. -- Misc. Reviews, News & Interviews)

The Film Intuition Interview:
Chris Lemmon Chats With Jen Johans
About His Book, His Father's Legendary Career
& Sony's The Jack Lemmon Film Collection

View Video Clips from the New DVD Collection

Read the Film Intuition Review of the Set






Bookmark this on Delicious

Print Page





Author's Note: As just one of millions of film lovers who have cherished the wondrous performances which have been captured on film over the course of the life and career of two-time Oscar winner and twenty-two time Golden Globe nominated actor Jack Lemmon-- it was truly an honor to have the opportunity to interview his son and biographer, Chris Lemmon.

Warm, gracious, funny, and entertaining-- speaking with Chris was proof enough that the Lemmon hadn't fallen too far from the tree. And very quickly I realized that given his penchant for storytelling and painting visual pictures with his memories of his beloved friend and father, when the time came to transcribe the conversation, it would be best to structure it solely with Chris's own words.

So without further ado, I'm incredibly humbled and thrilled to offer Film Intuition's loyal readers and fellow Jack Lemmon fans, my conversation with Chris Lemmon regarding Sony's brand new collection of Jack's work.

Chris Lemmon: We're so excited; this is the first shot for all five of them. And on top of that we were able to marry the theme of the book into the bonus documentary so well with these specific five titles that really basically give you a ten year slice of my father's life, his career and him as a person and an artist [which] is really just something original that I don't think has been done before.



Boy, I just couldn't be more pleased. All five separately I think are terrific works and very varied-- they show so many sides of pop because that's what he was, he was so multifaceted as a performer. I like all five of 'em and not just individually but for that specific reason that-- combined they give you almost like a history or a biography of him not just as an actor but as a person because he imbued his performances with so much of himself. So you literally see him grow from an up-and-coming star to the top Hollywood box office draw over the course of a ten year period when you take these films together as a whole.

I think he liked all of them but I really feel that he had a special affinity for Notorious Landlady only because Dick [director Richard Quine] was such a close friend and Dick and Kim [Novak] were together as a couple when they were filming that so there was a lot of off-camera emotion involved there as well. I think that when you have rich friendships like that it can only help to augment what's going on on camera no matter what it is you're playing. And also I think because it turned out to be such a hell of a good film.



Not to mention I think that Sony does as good of a job as can be done with all of their box sets; they're always tastefully done. Again, to use one of my father's favorite phrases, I'm tickled pink.



Dad clicked well with everybody. Blake [Edwards] and Dick [Richard Quine] had such a great relationship that it's just unfortunate Dick's life ended at an earlier age because I think he would've gone on to do all sorts of fun stuff. But in the book [Chris Lemmon's book A Twist of Lemmon] Blake's one quote is if I had anybody to choose to do a film with it would be Jack Lemmon.

And that happens in this business; you run across people you click with and you work with them again and again and Blake adored pop and used him whenever he could and obviously saw how multifaceted Jack Lemmon was because he was able to use him in everything from The Great Race to the Days of Wine and Roses and that's a pretty broad spectrum if you take a look at it.

The Great Race was always one of my very favorite films of my father's and to this day I still defend my stance that it's one of the great films ever made; I don't care whether it's a wacky comedy or not. I adore The Great Race and I think he was-- pardon my French-- balls-out-brilliant in it.

In the third grade or something like that, a little kid comes running up and says, "you see that kid over there-- that's Robert Conrad's son. He's the guy who acts as Jim West on The Wild Wild West; he's more famous than your dad."

And I say, "Well yeah, sure he is, he's Jim West." And when he was running away I remember thinking to myself, "I didn't know my dad was famous, I thought he was just an actor."

Jack Lemmon

DVD Review: The Jack Lemmon Film Collection (Phffft!; Operation Mad Ball; The Notorious Landlady; Under the Yum Yum Tree; Good Neighbor Sam)

Now Available to Own on DVD

An Introduction

With the bonus of an all-new documentary hosted by Chris Lemmon featuring accounts of those who worked with or were friends of the legendary actor Jack Lemmon such as Kevin Spacey and Shirley MacLaine-- five previously unreleased works from Lemmon's Columbia Pictures endeavors finally make their way to DVD in this must-own set.

Naturally skeptical about the movies since-- as both a classic film lover and one who was especially fond of Jack Lemmon-- I was shocked to realize that I hadn't seen any of the five titles (and in fact had only heard of Under the Yum Yum Tree). Luckily, I was thrilled to discover that each one was entertaining in their own way. And in fact, after viewing two in particular-- Good Neighbor Sam and The Notorious Landlady-- I realized at once that I wouldn't hesitate to include both of those in a list of the actor's very best movies.

Since we're normally accustomed to thinking about Lemmon in terms of his partnerships with his best friend and best onscreen counterpart Walter Matthau as well as his great collaborations with Neil Simon and Billy Wilder, it was a tremendous discovery to see the way he fostered many excellent friendships and working alliances early on in his career.

And to this end, the collection features some notable overlaps in regards to two works co-starring Kim Novak, a few directed by Richard Quine, a lively duo from filmmaker David Swift, and a couple penned by Blake Edwards that showed his early dazzling ability to blend pratfalls with complicated monologues to endlessly witty effect in five vastly different films reviewed below.

Phffft!
(1954)
Director: Mark Robson
Writer: George Axelrod

To quote the luminous and vastly underrated Ms. Kim Novak who appears in the film's trailer-- while referencing the impossible to pronounce and abysmal title-- "if you can't say it, see it." Yet despite the fact that she's front and center in the trailer as part of Columbia Pictures' attempts to elevate Kim Novak as a "rising love goddess" in the same vein as their rival studio's Marilyn Monroe, Novak's part in Phffft! is relatively small and silly.

And this is especially in comparison to the film's real draw for fans of the year's previous collaboration between Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon in the lovely George Cukor classic It Should Happen to You as they were no doubt eager to see them reunite.

Penned by George Axelrod (who also wrote the cinematic classics Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Seven Year Itch), the movie opens with an amusing set-up of marital discontent as-- after eight years of life together as man and wife-- Judy Holliday's character Nina announces that she wants a divorce.

Annoyed that she's interrupting the sexy hard-boiled pulp novel he tries to read throughout the film (as a great running gag as he's stopped in the foreplay stage every single time) and just as glad at the prospect of putting a stop to their relationship that's fizzled out, Lemmon's Robert agrees far too easily and quickly for Nina's taste that the feeling is mutual and the same thought had occurred to him.

While clearly they seem to be on the same page-- personal inventory wise if not literally as Robert has to reluctantly close his book-- the way the couple continues to argue over the grounds of the arrangement and who thought of dumping the other one first makes viewers instantly realize that perhaps the shock of addressing their boredom has most likely made their marriage come alive for the first time in years. Still they dash to Reno for a quickie divorce with both predictably trying to figure out the best way to move on, especially when they're still professionally involved with one another.

Making drastic changes as Nina and Robert attempt first to occupy their time with self-improvement activities with Holliday's decision to learn a foreign language and Lemmon's choice to pursue painting (before realizing they have no talent in either area)-- inevitably they begin seeking romantic companionship in the strangest of ways.

Whereas Holliday's Nina mistakes what she assumes is a seductive come-on by the leading man of the show she writes for only to discover that like most actors he just wants a better part, Lemmon goes the early mid-life crisis route by buying a sports-car and taking the awful advice of philandering ladies man Jack Carson who informs him to grow a mustache and fixes him up with the pom-pom dancing Novak.

And soon enough the two realize their efforts are actually bringing them closer together as witnessed in one of the movie's standouts when they're surprised to discover they've both taken dancing lessons and proceed to show off with their respective partners only for their "dance off" to find them literally sweeping each other off their feet. However-- and true to romantic comedy form in addition to increasing our own amusement-- they fight their obvious attraction the entire way right until an ending that seems to have possibly influenced Pillow Talk.

Despite the age of the film which suffers as the weakest digital transfer in the set by making you strain for the remote to emphasize the volume-- and possibly if your television is able, get rid of excess noise from the dated print-- it's a great deal of fun.

And although it won't be mistaken for the second time around romantic comedy divorce hits (or "comedies of remarriage" as scholars have labeled them) like Cary Grant's efforts The Awful Truth and The Philadelphia Story-- it makes a terrific companion to It Should Happen to You and once again celebrates the deft physical timing of the two leads that they're able to punctuate with some truly classic Axelrod lines (yet dialogue-wise, Carson gets the best material).

Also on the DVD, you'll want to be sure to check out the hidden twenty-two minute television gem Marriageable Male which shows an impossibly young Jack Lemmon pretending he's a male model (and perhaps foreshadowing his great passion for golf, striking a pose with a club) in order to try and drive a wedge between advertising artist Ida Lupino and her brainy fiance she's currently supporting.

A true blast and one that has a great deal of potential as a comedic work-- making my writer brain work overtime in figuring out how we could write something like that that's feature length today-- in many ways, despite being one fourth of the length, Marriageable Male is just as impressive as Phffft!

Operation Mad Ball
(1957)
Director: Richard Quine
Writers: Arthur Carter (based on his play), Blake Edwards & Jed Harris

Two years after Jack Lemmon won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy's military comedy-drama Mister Roberts, he returned to familiar and audience favored territory via Arthur Carter's comedic stage-play about servicemen trying to throw a big party despite their overbearing Captain Lock as co-written for director Richard Quine by Blake Edwards and Jed Harris.

While the result was a lighthearted romp that an interviewee in the box set's documentary likens the movie as a possible precursor to the hit film and spin-off TV series M*A*S*H-- in my eyes Operation Mad Ball plays like a 105 minute episode of The Phil Silvers Show a.k.a Bilko or Sergeant Bilko which ruled the CBS airwaves as a three-time Emmy award-winning Best Comedy Series for 143 episodes from 1955-1959.

Despite the familiarity of the admittedly minor plot and the fact that the film never fully manages to shake its theatrical roots as what-- at times-- essentially feels like a filmed version of the play, it's bolstered considerably by Jack Lemmon's tremendously mischievous charm and fast-talking, good-hearted yet downright conman World War II vet, Private Hogan.

Set post-war in September of '45 in an unclassified area of France, director Quine (who would work with Lemmon six times) and co-writer Blake Edwards' work is elevated immensely given Lemmon's energetic performance as he tries to wheel and deal his way out of Lock's insistent wish to court-martial him. And Lock's desire to rid Hogan from sight we soon ascertain derived mainly because Hogan is smarter than the man as well as having the distinction of being the most decorated private in the war, but one who tarnished the Captain's good will by deciding to run crap games as part of occupational therapy.

When he gets caught telling a nurse how beautiful she looks in the moonlight and-- given her position as an officer whereas enlisted men don't have that opportunity and therefore are forbidden from becoming romantically involved with an officer-- Lock goes ballistic and after Hogan manages to evoke the Geneva Convention in his defense, Lock re-assigns Hogan to the mortuary.

The bulk of the film-- in addition to the cliched subplot of Lemmon trying to woo the beautiful nurse-- consists of him leading the other soldiers in the planning and execution of a celebratory ball in honor of a young man who's shipping off for the pacific and away from his own female lieutenant sweetheart.

Although overall, it's the weakest disc in the set-- the cast and dialogue manage to make it work very well. With a great foil for Lemmon in Ernie Kovacs and nice supporting work by Mickey Rooney, the ensemble comedy makes a nice Saturday afternoon time-waster as we delight in seeing Lemmon play a part that one decade later would've no doubt have been given to his buddy Walter Matthau.

The Notorious Landlady
(1962)
Director: Richard Quine
Writers: Blake Edwards & Larry Gelbart
(Based on a story by Margery Sharp)

Although he acknowledges that his father would've been thrilled that all of these titles are finally being made available to the public, when I interviewed Chris Lemmon recently, he noted that if he had to choose one, he believed that his father Jack would've been particularly pleased with the debut of The Notorious Landlady.

It's a tremendous achievement by all involved including his great friends Richard Quine (who directed Lemmon for the fifth time in this ingeniously plotted work), Kim Novak (in yet another pairing of the two), and screenwriter Blake Edwards who in the exact same year had directed Lemmon in the wildly different and deeply moving film Days of Wine and Roses.

With a crackerjack script by Edwards who partnered with future M*A*S*H and Tootsie writer Larry Gelbart providing a solid foundation for the cast and crew alike, the movie manages to blend together as many genres as possible as it weaves a tapestry which starts with a seemingly simplistic plot that grows increasingly complicated with every twist and turn.

Notorious Landlady begins quite notoriously indeed as a wicked comedy crossed with gothic tinged noir as Novak's beautiful London resident Carly Hardwicke is suspected of murdering her husband whose body hasn't been found. Unable to rent out a room in her flat because she's under the suspicion of all of Scotland Yard and her nosy neighbors-- and likewise in desperate need of money-- Carly has all but given up on the idea that someone will arrive without knowledge of the possible crime.

However, as an American diplomat just arriving in the country from being stationed in Saudi Arabia, Jack Lemmon's smooth talking Bill Gridley proves to be the ideal candidate for her new tenant. For after catching even the briefest glimpse of Novak's radiant beauty (which can't even be hidden with a scarf or in the black and white photography), he flirts with shameless abandon and tells Carly he'd sign a one hundred year lease.

With the two sending off tangible sparks just in their opening moments together onscreen (no doubt augmented by the fact that they'd worked together previously in various projects for Columbia and Novak's serious off-screen romantic relationship with Quine helped solidify their friendship all the more), Gelbart and Edwards' innuendo filled conversational teases and romantic wordplay make it even funnier when Gridley inevitably discovers the truth about Carly's past from his superior Fred Astaire.

Persuaded by Astaire and forced by Scotland Yard not to cause an international incident given Lemmon's pleas that she's so angelic she has to be innocent, they encourage him to get even closer to Carly and report back on all of his findings. Shocked that they're asking him "to be a male Mata Hari," Lemmon initially refuses but is too smitten to stay away and far more worried when Astaire lays down the law that under no circumstances is Novak to realize he's been informed of her past.

"If she knows I know, I go?" Lemmon's Gridley asks and with the threat that he'll be sent either back to Saudi Arabia or somewhere even more remote if he fails, makes a spectacle out of international diplomacy or America's foreign relations in England, Lemmon grudgingly agrees to Astaire's terms.

And while this alone is the ideal So I Married an Axe Murderer style impetus for a great dark romantic comedy, the filmmakers constantly change genres when a real genuine mystery is revealed including foul play and a courtroom drama (dragged out a bit too long), a blackmail situation with danger, intrigue and more.

Although given its 123 minute running time and especially in a post-crime incident, a lull in the pacing that screeches the fast-paced plot to a grinding halt thereafter, making the second half a bit uneven-- all is forgiven and the entire film is saved by one wondrously choreographed homage to the silent comedies of Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton.

With Novak and Lemmon showing off their natural skills at pratfalls, wordless physical humor, and energy as they run around a Concert By the Sea, chase a wheelchair down a hill and more all in sync with the music-- it's a moment of sheer cinematic joy and among some of Lemmon's best onscreen sequences-- not to mention one that no doubt helped propel Edwards' affinity for silly physical humor he'd use again with Lemmon in The Great Race as well as with Peter Sellers in The Party and The Pink Panther series.

Under the Yum Yum Tree
(1963)
Writer/Director: David Swift
(Based on the play by Lawrence Roman)

Earlier I mentioned that-- had it been made later-- Lemmon's role in Operation Mad Ball may indeed have been given to Walter Matthau. And in the case of former Pollyanna and The Parent Trap Walt Disney Studios writer/director David Swift's first foray into '60s "sexless" sex comedies with the box office smash Under the Yum Yum Tree-- had playwright Lawrence Roman not originally written it for Jack Lemmon, I think it's safe to say that Lemmon's Some Like it Hot and The Great Race costar Tony Sex and the Single Girl Curtis would've been tapped to play the lecherous landlord in this two-time Golden Globe nominated work.

I mean, when you imagine a kinky peeping tom who only rents apartments to young women whom he plies with stuffed animals and heart shaped keys, the last person you'd imagine going for the role is our beloved "Everyman" Jack Lemmon a.k.a. the individual Chris Lemmon joked in both his book and the set's documentary called himself both "modest" and "America's Sweetheart." However, Jack Lemmon has marvelous fun trying to seduce sweet young things and break up two happy college sweethearts in this dated but entertaining work.

As the Sony Picture Home Entertainment box set's documentary notes, a scheduling conflict prevented Lemmon from taking part in Lawrence Roman's play when it made its run on the stage but he definitely made it up to the playwright by tackling it for the big screen in a film that would become one of the top-grossing pictures of 1963. And likewise it ended up garnering Lemmon one of his record-setting twenty-two Golden Globe nominations he would accumulate over the course of his amazing career.

Essentially you can think of Yum Yum as a male-centric version of a Doris Day or Sandra Dee film but one that goes much further than Pillow Talk, Send Me No Flowers, If a Man Answers, or That Funny Feeling.

In doing so, Swift's film casts the adorable Carol Lynley as the object of Lemmon's latest lust-filled obsession in one of two virginal roles which finds Lynley's Robin and her boyfriend Dave (Dean Jones as the other virgin in a nice gender switch) deciding not to give into holy matrimony just as an excuse or legal permission to have sex. Instead Lynley's Robin makes the choice that they will test their compatibility sans literally sleeping together by ironically "sleeping together" albeit in separate beds in the same apartment as a trial run at cohabitation.

And to this end with a daring idea of two kids shacking up without a certificate from city hall, Swift makes the era's other sexless sex comedies of Day and Dee look downright Disney by comparison. And this is especially the case given Swift's bold choice to move the similarly themed plot-lines of those stars' comical mistaken identity or misunderstanding narratives of loopy l'amour sabotage into the same terrain that Lemmon's other frequent collaborator Billy Wilder mined with his Hot co-star Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch (in which incidentally Wilder had hoped to cast Lemmon's later on-screen soul mate Walter Matthau).

Now finding Lemmon inside that (Wilder again) Apartment he stood outside of in the Oscar winning classic-- he dons a Hugh Hefner style wardrobe and makes it his mission to try and shag Robin by cleverly getting Dave out of the picture, wearing out the young man by urging him to take out his raging hormones with an endless regime of exercise.

And continuing his lascivious quest Lemmon's described "sneaking, crawling, dirty man" enters the young lovebirds' apartment on any whim with the repeated excuse that he needs to water the (plastic!) plants as well as taking to listening outside their door, trying to peep through windows to further insinuate himself in his hopeful disintegration of their relationship.

While of course there's no question that pure romance will conquer all in the end-- I confess at first the "ick" factor of seeing Lemmon as a sleaze took a little while to adjust to cinematically. Nonetheless the politically incorrect and eerily stalker-esque Yum Yum still remains quite a riot-- if only to catch Lemmon in a truly against-type role as a morally bankrupt leering playboy-- especially in moments wherein you feel like you've broken through that fourth wall and can truly see him visibly loving every minute of playing such a crazy part.

Good Neighbor Sam
(1964)
Director: David Swift
Writers: David Swift, Everett Greenbaum & James Fritzell
(Based on the book by Jack Finney)

While there's no doubt that the only way that Yum Yum could be made today would be as an eerie thriller, during David Swift's follow-up "sexless" sex comedy with Jack Lemmon the next year in the infinitely lovable Good Neighbor Sam, I couldn't help but wish someone would try and play with this piece again since it's a work of purely comedic Lemmon gold.

Not since I caught director Frank Oz's 2007 gem Death at a Funeral have I been so thoroughly convinced that this work would make one incredible stage production in the same spirit of British bedroom farces including the one utilized to brilliant effect by Peter Bogdanovich in Noises Off.

The set-up alone is priceless as Lemmon's all-American people pleasing suburban husband, father, and routinely overlooked advertising employee (one of the many men in gray flannel suits of the era so to speak) finds himself in two unbelievably strange situations all in the course of twenty-four hours.

Things start going Sam's way when his company's big time client-- the prudish and pious owner of Nurdlinger's Eggs (a game Edward G. Robinson)-- threatens to leave the firm when he runs background checks on all of the unwholesome men assigned to his account living Mad Men style Don Draper like lives of extramarital sin and pleasure. And much to his surprise, the previously ignored Sam Bissell is suddenly the company's MVP since his life is as clean as his vacuum-like name.

Having been given a major promotion to run the account, Sam rushes home to celebrate with the wife he adores (Lemmon's Great Race co-star Dorothy Provine) only to end up walking in on her best friend Janet (Romy Schneider) taking a shower. Incredibly embarrassed, Sam realizes he'd forgotten that his wife Minerva was picking up the divorced Janet from the airport where she's newly arrived from France to organize her grandfather's estate. Luckily, the trio laugh off the confusion and go out celebrating, only to realize that Sam and Janet are going to have to get a whole lot closer in the future so that Minerva's friend can inherit fifteen million dollars.

Upon learning that her grandfather left everything to his favorite relative, Janet's thrilled but her happiness dampens considerably when it's revealed that there's a clause attached to the will stating that she has to be married in order to receive it. However, due to a difference in California law, Janet ascertains that she's legally still married yet before she can collect on the money, her unscrupulous and greedy cousins arrive-- mistake Sam for her "husband" and then hire a 'round the clock detective to make sure she's blissfully wed.

Although Sam continually sneaks back and forth between the two houses (as conveniently Janet has rented the newly vacant place next door), further complications arise when Janet is also mistaken for Mrs. Bissell when she drives him to work to ward off the detectives and also when Janet's ex arrives out of the blue and decides that he'll keep up appearances too by staying with Minerva for the time being.

With all the on-the-surface, unintentional swinging happening, Swift's comedy grows incredibly funny as the two real couples and two fake couples get irrationally jealous as well as irrationally close--much to the delight of viewers. Of course, in an era of romantic comedies where deal-making and "pretend you're my fiance" or gimmicky paradigms are commonplace, it may not seem like (to those who have yet to check it out) that Good Neighbor Sam offers anything other than what we're usually presented with at the multiplex. However, it's in the constant raising of the stakes, the delightful twists and admittedly silly yet refreshingly likable quartet of characters who never feel like one of today's interchangeable rom-com "types" that make it well worth your while.

Although like The Notorious Landlady, the whopping 130 minute running time seems a bit excessive for a comedy (even one as complicated as this one) but it's the marriage of great innuendo again with slapstick, sight gags, and terrific supporting players that keep you from growing bored with what could've been a rather incredulous plot.

And in the end it's a pure delight and like Landlady and the TV short Marriageable Male one of the creative and jubilant titles in the collection that makes me recommend picking up The Jack Lemmon Film Collection without hesitation.

DVD Review: Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) -- The Paramount Centennial Collection 2-Disc Edition

Fight the Mean Reds
With Holly Golightly On 1/13/09

"...she was most frequently associated with the free-spirited, unpredictable and inimitably stylish Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's... In the movie, when she says, 'I love New York,' you love it for all the magic she herself brings to the mythology of a great melting pot. Blake Edwards---one of the best filmmakers of the last fifty years-- understood this profoundly while making the picture. It's clear by the way he brings Hepburn into the film at the very beginning: an empty, early dawn Fifth Avenue; a single cab; a tall, striking, unmistakable figure fades in, the 'Moon River' theme playing with all the utter confidence of certain nostalgia. From start to finish, Edwards knew it: this was Heburn's picture, and he is never away from her for long."

-- Peter Bogdanovich
Who the Hell's In It (pg. 438-439)

And sure enough, much like the nameless cat that Golightly tracks down in the alleyways of New York (or rather Paramount's "New York" set that perished in 1983's horrific backlot fire) in the film's famous rainy romantic finale, whenever Hepburn's character isn't onscreen, the film suffers for it as viewers lean closer to the image, trying to find our favorite party girl in this 1961 classic.



While it's the most iconic of Hepburn's movies as seldom an issue of any major fashion magazine goes by without an homage to the over-sized sunglasses, string of pearls and amazing little black dress she wore like it was a second skin-- once joking in real life that Givenchy's wardrobe was her body armor since only in it she felt safe and protected-- upon closer inspection, it's one of those works that plays better in memory than it does in reality.



Based on Truman Capote's beloved novel by the same name which features a very different Golightly than the one personified by Hepburn and one that the author always envisioned being portrayed by Marilyn Monroe (upon whom, it was rumored he drew more than a little inspiration), it's a role that one immediately recalls as the definitive Audrey Hepburn performance but also a part with which the actress was never entirely comfortable.

As a new mother, Hepburn continually stated that "I always wonder if I risked enough on that one," as "I was nothing like" the southern child bride who runs away to New York and reinvents herself as a fashion chic escort hunting a rich husband. Saying that perhaps "I should have been a little more outrageous... I believed in good casting. And I'm still not sure about Holly and me," as is included in Paramount Centennial Collection's fact-filled booklet contained in the 2-disc set, nonetheless the studio adapted the film for her, dropping some aspects of the film's plot such as "a 'fling' with another woman," as 501 Must-See Movies notes (ed. Emma Beare, pg. 299).

Additionally adding a love story and making George Peppard's fellow prostitute (or "gigolo") straight and a romantic interest for Holly which differed from the book, as Blake Edwards notes on Disc 2 of the DVD, in the process of transferring the novella to the screen, Paramount and screenwriter George Axelrod made a very "big jump from the Capote Holly Golightly to our film's Holly Golightly."



Yet, it was perhaps this addition of Hepburn's natural grace and glamour that make the film so startling, especially when Buddy Ebsen's much older Doc arrives on the scene and informs both the aspiring writer/gigolo Paul (Peppard) and the audience of Holly's true origins as a barefoot child bride in the south.

Suddenly, our heart breaks even more as we realize how fragile Holly is despite her knowing facade and how dangerous it is for her to constantly push others away, not even wanting to grow close to her cat, by forming and abandoning attachments quickly with a series of people who use and abuse her-- all of which is perfectly articulated in Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer's Oscar winning song "Moon River" which has become nearly as famous as Givenchy's little black dress.



As Mancini memorably recalled, acknowledging that the work was specifically tailored to the actress, "no one else has ever understood it so completely. There have been more than a thousand versions of 'Moon River', but hers is unquestionably the greatest... To this day, no one has done it with more feeling or understanding... When we previewed the film, the head of Paramount was there, and he said, 'One thing's for sure. That f***ing song's gotta go." Audrey shot right up out of her chair! Mel Ferrer [Audrey's husband] had to put his hand on her arm to restrain her. That's the closest I have ever seen her come to losing control," as Hepburn's son Sean Hepburn Ferrer quoted in Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit (pg. 83-84).

While there are various versions of that story including one in which Hepburn argued "over my dead body," "Moon River" is the audibly heartbreaking pulse of the film, evidenced in the opening credits and echoing throughout but it's in an especially understated and unguarded moment when an unglamorous everyday Holly sings it on the fire escape that instantly makes one empathize with her plight.

View the Clip

Although it's hard to watch the film by today's standards without cringing and wanting to fast-forward every single scene featuring the horribly racist and stereotypical portrayal by Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi, in trying to ensure cultural sensitivity and understanding, Paramount includes a valuable seventeen minute featurette called "Mr. Yunioshi: An Asian Perspective" which gives audiences an overview of the history of Asian Americans both onscreen and off-screen.



One of the four new featurettes included in the Paramount Centennial Collection which also dishes up all of the other featurettes from the 2006 release, including feature commentary from producer Richard Shepherd, "Audrey's Letter to Tiffany" and a short history of the jewelry store since 1837 in "Brilliance in a Blue Box," one of the other standouts was the new roughly twenty minute biographical portrait of composer Henry Mancini.

The legendary Oscar winner who collaborated with Edwards throughout his career on everything from Peter Gunn to Tiffany's to the Pink Panther movies, this time around we get an intimate view of the musician featuring interviews with his widow and children.

Also offering the 2006's informative "The Making of a Classic," which includes some incredibly candid confessions from Edwards as he notes that although he would've directed the film "if I had to crawl all the way up the walk of fame," that he's not sure he would've cast Peppard today and that he'd give anything to recast Rooney's Yunioshi. These comments come along with some humorous anecdotes about his invention of that famous cocktail party scene which paid off ultimately when he cast Peter Sellers in the equally politically incorrect yet hilarious film a few years later, aptly named The Party.

The fifth entry into Paramount's wondrously packaged double-disc sets included in their Centennial Collection and the fourth featuring Hepburn, following Roman Holiday, Sabrina, and Funny Face-- while it pales in comparison to the sparkling diamond that is Hepburn herself, it's been restored to a superior digital level, making this version a jewel for Hepburn devotees everywhere. And in celebration, check out this fan-made video honoring the film and star.