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Really Surprised!

Admirable film.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

2:34:29 An excessive time length, few characters, too much and empty dialogue to tell few things and with little grace. The songs of George & Ira Gershwin along with the performance of Ray Walston are the best of the film. Incatalogable as musical or pure comedy. Kim Novak shows up too much in everything but interpretation. Maybe this review is like the waiter at the beginning. Everyone laughs but him.

While the writer-director team of Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond have produced some of the greatest films of all time, their late career entry, "Kiss Me, Stupid," does not rank high among the duo's critical or box office hits. However, time has been kind to the film, and what may have seemed shocking in 1964 is relatively tame today, although controversy lingers even in this permissive age. Aspiring song writers Ray Walston and Cliff Osmond conspire to keep Las Vegas songster Dino from leaving Climax, Nevada, where his car has developed suspicious engine problems, long enough to sell him their songs. Walston is overly jealous of his luscious wife, Felicia Farr, and Dino gets headaches without daily sex. With Dino lodged in Walston's guest room, Walston must get his wife out of Dino's reach, and, with Osmond's help, replaces her with Kim Novak, a lady for hire from the local Belly Button Bar.Dean Martin effortlessly plays Dino, who is basically himself, and we hear him croon a couple of pleasant tunes during the film. However, the stand out is arguably Ray Walston, who gives a sometimes manic comic performance as the husband, who is suspicious of every man from the milkman to the dentist to a teenage piano student, who nears his wife. Walston is ably abetted by Cliff Osmond as Barney, his song writing partner and accomplice in the plot to sell Dino their songs. Kim Novak as Polly the Pistol has a part Marilyn Monroe could have played; Novak looks terrific, perhaps more than terrific, and her dumb, but endearing prostitute is memorable and among the film's major assets. Beyond the leads, Wilder has peppered the cast with a number of comic performers like Doro Merande, Alice Pearce, Mel Blanc, John Fiedler, and Henry Gibson, who add short, but amusing bits throughout.Sex comedies in the 1960's seemed daring at the time, and many have dated badly. This film understandably caused a stir by its implication that a man would sell his wife's sexual favors for a business deal. Perhaps the film has aged well because Wilder and Diamond do not cop out, and the moral compromises may still raise eyebrows. The well written script has enough amusing complications to be entertaining, although it lacks the one-liners and laughs of a "Some Like it Hot." Filmed in glorious black and white by Joseph LaShelle with an Andre Previn score and a Gershwin tune or two, "Kiss Me, Stupid," remains a comedy for adults. While no longer as risqué as originally intended, the film benefits from Walston and Osmond's comedy, Novak's astonishing beauty and vulnerability, and Wilder's sure direction. While not a comedy classic, the film is quite entertaining and worthy viewing.

I am an admirer of many of Billy Wilder's movies - Stalag 17, Days of Wine and Roses, Some Like it Hot - and other wonderful, trend-setting, sophisticated, stylish films. But this film just SUCKS!It opens well; the title sequence is basically a snapshot of Dean Martin's Las Vegas act of the time, and his twisted turn playing someone who might be himself has an undeniable fascination.Unfortunately, he is not the male lead of this film - RAY WALSTON is! Walston?! Really?! An able but second string character actor? The supporting player is the leading man? That could be interesting if Walston had been directed against type - but he isn't - he is directed to be a character actor - in a leading role? Really?! Once Walston appears on screen, the film goes straight to hell. In fact it is hell, a weird kind of wigged-out Nevada version of Andy Griffith's Mayberry - why? To provide a small enough stage to make small characters look large, I guess; doesn't work. These characters are all profoundly unpleasant and two-dimensional; except for Martin, who's rarely on screen.The film is apparently a remake of an Italian sex-farce, Wife for a Night; that in itself tells me that the whole project started off badly. (And continued - the Walston part was intended for Peter Sellers, who Wilder couldn't deal with, and Wilder himself suffered heart problems.) But the main problem is that Italian comedy is coming from a very different tradition than Wilder's (so clearly related to Lubitsch), so it's really impossible to guess why he tried what he was clearly unsuited for.Not much to add except the cinematography is good, and the music sucks. (Apparently based on material the Gershwin brothers decided needed reworking... maybe they were right?).Caused a minor scandal in its day - but it was easy to cause scandals back then. That alone is simply not enough to recommend it.

Even though the basic plot is pretty strange, this film for me had some funny scenes in the first three quarters. The jealous husband was portrayed very well. So was his mother in law and her husband. The signature gathering committee was good, too. So this made the movie believable at first. But to me this funny beginning proved to be some kind of a trap. The last fifteen minutes or so were not funny at all. I found them illogical and distasteful. The pinnacle is the last line of the script, which really tests the tolerance of the viewer, with the premise that "anything goes". This juxtaposition of several good scenes, and the unconvincing and disturbing ending really ruined my evening.