Stars, sex and fun

elisedfr

Sex comedies from the sixties may seem a trifle dated now: it's a long way since Rock Hudson and Doris Day made their way through the seduction game. But what it loses in accuracy (if it was ever accurate), it wins back in appealing, innocent charm. This one was made in 1964, and follows the regular storyline: a guy who's strongly described as a womanizer, decides to make love to an inexperienced young woman, but she confuses him with someone else and the two fall in love in the process. This time, the guy is a newspaper man, from a tabloid (directed by Edward Everett Horton, who hasn't changed a bit since Fred Astaire) and the girl, a psychiatrist loosely based on the journalist Helen Gurley Brown- in fact that's her name, but the rest is fiction. There's also a shade of The Moon Is Blue, with everyone wondering if Helen is or not a virgin.

The film itself is not very long and you have sometimes the feeling it lasts forever- and sometimes you wish it could. In the pivotal part, Natalie Wood is plain exquisite. She seemed to have grown more and more beautiful with each film she made, and it's no exception. She also manages to be terribly funny, without turning ridiculous, childlike and touching yet never losing her sophisticated seduction. Wood was about 26 then and to me that makes the film work much better than the Day-Hudson comedies. Who could believe a thirty-ish, attractive woman with an interesting job and an independent mind wouldn't meet any man before Rock decides to come along? As for Tony Curtis, he's very fine as the seducer. He has the chance to play a few wacky comedy scenes as well, jumping in the river with Natalie in his arms, and dressing as a woman to get out of her building- a Some Like it Hot joke he even explains to the audience. There's no Tony Randall here but Henry Fonda is the best friend, a fussy, middle-aged, depressed lingerie manufacturer, who can't seem to make things right with his wife, blasé Lauren Bacall. The real magic of the film is anytime Wood and Curtis interact, flirt and seduce each other, but the two older stars make for a very enjoyable counterpart. Fonda, claiming he will "never laugh again" then giggling over a racy tabloid is priceless. So is Bacall, opening her door to Natalie an early morning, with her legend husky voice. We've also got Mel Ferrer in a highly unexpected turn, as the light-hearted and pro-dancer psychiatrist Rudy and Fran "Meglio Stasera" Jeffries has a small part as Tony's casual girlfriend -and of course getting to sing the title song.

Richard Quine gave a less dynamic direction than usual, but his emphasis on the easy life of the early 60's well-offs is still pretty funny to watch: the buildings, dresses, dances, dates come all from better days, probably idealized even then by the gentle eye of Cinemascope. The car chase near the end is uneven as well, with dragging bits against genuine laughter. Another pleasant point, still is the very breezy music written by Neal Hefti, the man responsible for The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park. A short piece devoted to accompany the two young leads 'romance, "The Game" is probably the sweetest Hefti ever get. Don't forget to check the in-jokes; Quine makes repeated allusions to one of his favorite actors, Jack Lemmon, who would a year after co-star with both Curtis and Wood in comedy masterpiece The Great Race. "When you smile like that, you do look a lot like Jack Lemmon", remarks a smitten Natalie through mid-film. He does not by the way, but who cares ? Lemmon's subtle yet persistent shadow on the film is another little thing that makes Sex and the Single Girl very lovable indeed.

score 8/10

elisedfr 26 October 2012

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2694478/