It Was The Women's Movie

richard.fuller1

Curtis and Lewis didn't work well as a comedy team. Lewis seemed to be wanting to do something more than his nasal simpletons. How about that name, Robert Reed?

For those who may not know, Robert Reed was Mike Brady in the Brady Bunch tv show.

The movie seemed to be wanting to be a racy European comedy, but the stewardess who roomed with Tony Curtis had her own room. The maid, Thelma Ritter, would change out all of the belongings of the stewardess who was leaving and replace them with the belongings of the one who was coming in.


Jerry wanted some of this action, which was weak. All the conflict could have taken place without Lewis being there.  

Lewis would get beaten up as he spoke badly about Lufthansa (referring to the German stewardess) and some Germans overheard him. This became the code, to refer to each stewardess by the airline she flew for.

There would be one bad moment in the restaurant when Jerry would talk about another stewardess returning and one not leaving yet, and he would proclaim "Boeing, Boeing" as tho to say 'boing, boing' and this made for a very unnecessary inclusion of the title in the movie.

But hands down, the stewardesses and Thelma Ritter were the stars.


The British Vicky, played by Suzanna Leigh, liked kidneys. We began with her and she said everytime she was ready to go out, Thelma Ritter would get hostile toward her. She didn't know that Ritter now had to make way for the incoming flight.


Air France's Jacqueline, played by bobbed Dany Saval, was a tiny wisp of a girl who liked soufflets.

But it was Lufthansa's Lise, played by Christiane Schmidtmer, who made it all funny. Very well endowed (VERY well endowed!) she would arrive when the soufflet was still around.

"Soufflets are for people mitout teeth," she would state and want weiner-schnitzels.

As one stewardess would be leaving, Thelma Ritter would start getting snide.

the British stewardess would tell Ritter something.

"Vunderbar," Ritter would exclaim disinterested.

The funniest was when she was changing out the undergarments and said Jacqueline would get lost in Lise's brassiere.

She had to keep throwing away soufflets and sausages, in anticipation of which stewardess was coming next.

Then there would be one grand moment when two of the stewardesses were heading into the restroom at the same time! Oh no!

Turns out there was no need to worry, as the women didn't know one another.


The women were the stars of this movie in the end, including Thelma Ritter. The guys could have been played by anyone else.

Cute little "la la" tune played at the beginning and the end tho.

score /10

richard.fuller1 19 June 2004

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0088449/