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Simply Perfect

People are voting emotionally.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Promises.... Promises! (1963) * 1/2 (out of 4)There's no question that the story, acting, directing and production is one of the worst ever made but are you really coming to this film for any of that? PROMISES....PROMISES! is a landmark movie because it was the first one in history to feature a major Hollywood star nude. That honor goes to Jayne Mansfield who right around the four minute mark shows off her breasts in a bubble bath and within minutes we're introduced to two other nude scenes. This is really a hard movie to judge because there's no question that it's poorly made, dreadfully dull and lifeless but at the same time it's still quite shocking to see an actress from this era appearing nude. It's not like this is some smut film featuring an unknown woman as these have been around since the earliest days of cinema. No, this here was a well-known star taking off her clothes and the first scene in the bath is actually quite sexual so God knows what people thought back when this was first released. From its historic stance, this here is a must see. Mansfield appears in three different nude scenes and these are replayed throughout the movie. What shocked me the most is that the producers didn't hold the nudity until later in the movie and instead we get our first glimpse at the four minute mark and two other scenes shortly after. Usually bad movies with "one" gimmick hold off on the prize but I give the filmmakers credit for not messing around and actually giving people what they wanted. The nude scenes serve no real purpose to the story but it's Mansfield. The performances by the four leads are all pretty bad and especially Tommy Noonan who plays Mansfield's husband. His performance as a drunk is one of the worst I've ever seen but Mickey Hargitay (Manfield's real husband) wasn't much better. Mansfield doesn't seem to be too happy during any of the scenes as she doesn't give much of a performance. PROMISES..... PROMISES! is a bad movie and there's no doubt about that but at the same time it's a must see.

The 1963 Jayne Mansfield "comedy" "Promises! Promises!" is best known these days for one thing (well, better make that TWO things!)--it is the film in which Jayne displayed her unfettered rib balloons; the first time a major actress ever did so in a mainstream Hollywood picture. Unfortunately, the film offers pretty much nothing else, and potential viewers would be well advised--no, warned--to bail out after Jayne's initial nude appearance, which happily occurs only three minutes in. During the following 72 minutes, Jayne and her bespectacled hubby, played by the film's co-producer and co-writer, Tommy Noonan, go on a long ocean cruise with their friends, Mickey Hargitay and Marie "The Body" McDonald. Through a set of ridiculous plot contrivances that include placebo drugs, seasickness and lots of liquor, Tommy can't quite figure out how Jayne has suddenly become preggers and just who did the knocking up. Dated, dreary, deadly and dumb (how's that for double D's?), the picture is a real labor to sit through; it is absolutely, consistently and painfully unfunny, and every lame gag falls (you should pardon the expression) absolutely flat. Character actor King Donovan's direction is uninspired, TV legend Imogene Coca goes completely wasted in a teensy role, and female impersonator T.C. Jones is an embarrassment. Strangely, Jayne unclothed does not look nearly as spectacular as Jayne strutting about in formfitting sweaters and gowns in such truly marvelous comedies as "The Girl Can't Help It" (1956) and "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" (1957). I had originally decided to give this film two stars--one for each...well, you know--but cannot give it even that "high" a rating in good conscience. There is no form of entertainment more lethal, for me, than a completely unfunny comedy, and only a big dumb boob would find this one amusing.

Producer/writer/star Tommy Noonan's painfully unfunny shipboard sex-farce stars real-life man and wife Jayne Mansfield & Mickey Hargitay, wed to different spouses on screen. Hargitay's the husband of a middle-aged Marie "The Body" McDonald while Jayne plays Noonan's wife. Both women are trying to get pregnant while on a cruise but both men are convinced they're sterile; erection pills, a female impersonator, a paternity mix-up, brief (topless) nudity and a song or two follow before the inevitable happy ending. As the first film to show a "major" Hollywood star cavorting "au naturel", PROMISES! PROMISES! was featured in a much publicized "Playboy" magazine photo-spread, ran into censorship problems and was banned in several states.It's also known as a "Triple Ess" movie (three suicides) with a rather dark behind-the-scenes history- five people associated with the production died, either violently or by their own hand, in relatively quick succession: Director King Donovan's wife, Ann, died from an overdose of barbiturates; Marie "The Body" McDonald, wife of co-producer Donald Taylor, died from a massive overdose of drugs and alcohol in 1965 and two months later, Taylor himself committed suicide in the same room in which he found Marie; Jayne Mansfield was near-decapitated in a 1967 car crash; Tommy Noonan died after a brain tumor operation in 1968."The Body" was also in another "S-S-S" film: Paramount's 1942 proto-noir, LUCKY JORDAN. Marie, star Alan Ladd, and bit player Dorothy Dandridge all killed themselves. "Satan's slave" Jayne Mansfield's sagging flesh aside, PROMISES! PROMISES!, possibly the very first viagra flick, is a darkly fascinating "Hollywood Babylon" trope with the on screen action like a train wreck: absolutely awful but just try to look away! This tasteless, tedious exercise in titillation gets a 10/10 on an enigmatic, indefinable level (just because) but it's reely not very good.Reviews: "The only excuse for this shabby, sex-propelled contrivance is that obviously there is an audience waiting to devour it... Several glimpses of a bare-breasted Jayne Mansfield and one of her derrière-in-the-buff figure to satisfy the peeping Toms, Dicks and Harrys who frequent those offbeat, anatomical "art" houses where this attraction is apt to be distributed. But beyond the occasional vicarious sensual thrill it affords the ogle-happy denizen of these cinematic flesh palaces, there is nothing in "Promises! Promises!"... Her tape-measure performance can be summed up in the phrase, "thanks for the mammary". -"Variety", 8/7/63"...its vastly overrated. Miss Mansfield does considerable talking, little acting, and even sings (???) the title tune." -"L.A. Herald Examiner", 8/3/63

Terrible, terrible comedy. But if I were rating it, I'd give it 1 star for the script, photography, and performances, and 10 for the display of Ms. Mansfield's ample attributes. I think this is why they invented the fast-forward button