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Boring

A lot of fun.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Anyone expecting a sex farce, even one rendered innocuous by the censorship of the time, will find this not only a disappointing but a sobering experience. Instead of the colour one would expect for a comedy, it is in serious black and white, and what one takes away from it is not the naughtiness of illicit love but the grimness, frustration and boredom of middle-aged suburban marriage. These, along with bratty and selfish children, are made so plain that it's no wonder Bob Hope and Lucille Ball, married to others, are drawn together when they unexpectedly find themselves alone on a tropic vacation. While tedious, jokey happenings result in their never consummating their affair, either then or in later attempts, the movie never achieves a genuinely comic tone. It is sour and depressed, and when the two decide that it's wrong to hurt the ones they love (although the whole point of their getting together is that they love each other, not their spouses) they return to their lawful homes with a feeling of duty rather than joy. This is typical of the time--that period before the Sixties really got started. One could now acknowledge the formerly unsayable--that marriage was boring and even nice, good people had extra-marital urges. But it was still too soon to say that such urges should be acted on, so the urges are stamped on with a lot of unconvincing moralizing, which sounds more like fear than morality.Bob Hope, at 57, was too old for this story of couples married fifteen years who are the parents of small children. Lucy, at 50, looks much closer to the early-forties housewife she is supposed to be. But both are wrong for these sort of parts--having to play serious, Hope is merely stern and repressed. He was always the businessman among comedians, and in this he is all businessman. Lucy's character is as phoney as her whisk-broom eyelashes--she comes across as selfish and hard.The phoniness of the whole enterprise can be summed up in the situation that brings Bob and Lucy together. They are unexpectedly alone when illness and emergencies strike their spouses and another couple with whom they always go on vacation. And why do the three couples always do this? Because, we are told, these people, who live in huge, comfortable houses, have servants, and belong to the country club, could not otherwise afford to go away! Talk about writers who were not even trying!

Two very big names and a complete bore! Lucy and Bob were both lifeless in this "romantic comedy." A better script with funnier situations would have made this a real winner.I only remember a couple of kisses from these two, some "affair." With a better script, I'd like to have seen Doris Day and Tony Curtis in this film with a different title. Those two stars never made a picture together. I think that Doris and Tony could have brought the energy that this film lacked. Plus, it should have been done in color.Lucy looked marvelous here. It's hard to believe that she changed so much between this (1960) and "Mame" (1970). At times, Miss Ball look just like Lucy Ricardo!

One of their later screen teamings, THE FACTS OF LIFE was a 1960 comedy, rather adult for its time, where Bob and Lucy play two friends, married to others, who usually participate in a group vacation together and through some freak circumstances , end up on the vacation alone this year and grow so close they actually drift into an affair and consider leaving their spouses. I have to admit that this movie was surprising to me when I first saw it a few months ago, so I'm sure it raised a few eyebrows in the 1960's...infidelity was most likely a bold subject for a movie comedy and I doubt if it was something Bob or Lucy had done prior to this. but for this day and age, this was a very adult movie comedy that probably didn't do the business it deserved in 1960 because of its "contorversial" storyline. Though it would hardly be considered controversial today, this film was probably quite the departure for its stars and as a curio of cinema history, it is definitely worth a look.

This movie surprised me. I really enjoyed it. Lucy is stunning as a glamor star. She gets the soft focus and lighting, the glamor hair and makeup, but the showstopper is the glamor wardrobe. I've never seen her look more beautiful.I did not know that Lucy had made it so far in her movie career as to be able to star as a glamor girl, opposite Bob Hope yet. Another notch on the resume of this fascinating woman.My wife and I had just been discussing Lucy's talents as a straight actress and by coincidence this movie came on the next day. I had the opinion that Lucy was best in comedy and was not quite right in a straight role. This movie proved me wrong on that! She is convincing and when she kissed Bob I really believed it.Bob is also great. His comedy style here is more subtle than usual, playing funny bits off in a straight style without the usual hamming. The bit with the hankie made me belly laugh.The subject matter of this movie is similar to other movies of the early 60s as the sexual revolution was just starting...all clean and above board on the surface, yet doing their best to titillate us with sexual situations and innuendo. As I said in my review of Bob's "I'll Take Sweden," I find this juvenile and boring. There's no shock value left by now, so it falls flat. However, this movie tackles more serious subjects than simply titillating sex, namely the subjects of infidelity, marriage, and marital boredom. That is more interesting and even in 2005 I found the subject matter moving and thought-provoking.The script is tight and witty, with good dialog. The plot is also more or less water tight with plausible motivations.Good stuff....worth watching.