The War Between Men and Women

The title of the film comes from a story told in drawings - The War Between Men and Women - whose author was the famous American humorist, James Thurber (1894-1961). Thurber's most famous work is the short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" which was made into a movie starring Danny Kaye in 1947. A new version of "Mitty" is in production.

The character of Peter Wilson played by Jack Lemmon in this film suffers from failing eyesight which also plagued Thurber and contributed to his unique drawing style. This film was probably inspired by William Windom's portrayal of a Thurber-like character in a TV series broadcast in 1969 called My World and Welcome To It which is a title of one of Thurber's books. Windom went on to do a one-man stage performance of Thurber's works including some animation of some of Thurber's drawings. At the end of The War Between Men and Women we see one of these animations, an anti-war piece by Thurber called "The Last Flower".

Very cute, with clever interweaving of cartoon and live action ( particularly for an older movie. Lemmon does an outstanding job, as does Gerritsen. Many endearing scenes, peppered with mostly good fun throughout.

Unless you are trying to see all of Jack Lemmon's films you should probably skip this film. Lemmon plays an almost blind cartoonist who is getting progressively worse. He has a weird relationship with Barbara Harris's character. She was formerly married to Jason Robards. The movie is not funny though it is supposed to be a comedy. It didn't really have any point or redeeming feature. 3 out of 10.

One of Jack Lemmon's most innocuous pictures. He plays a professional humorist in New York City, a cynic and confirmed bachelor quickly losing his eyesight, who thinks very little of marriage, women and dogs. How soon do you think it will be before bookstore manager (and marriage-minded divorcée) Barbara Harris gets him to the altar? She's got the dog, plus three kids and a puppy dog-like former husband, but what's in it for Lemmon? We are never sure what motivates him to take on this brood, to attempt winning over the children, to compete for attention with the ex-spouse. It isn't incredible that Jack should fall for Miss Harris (she's winsome and a little daft, despite an ugly hairdo), but it is fairly difficult to believe Lemmon's character would take this plunge--and there's nothing in the script to convince us otherwise. The production is colorful, the animation interesting (if not amusing) and the acting very fine (particularly by young Lisa Gerritsen), however the essence of a plausible story is missing. Based on the writings of James Thurber, screenwriters Danny Arnold (who also produced) and Melville Shavelson (who also directed) shift from satire to the more outré, silly kind of TV comedy without grounding the scenario in a bittersweet style of realism. As such, the movie is one-part comedy (with satirical inflections), one-part drama (with pathos) and one-part character study (disguised as a family's journey). It isn't any wonder the end results are cute, yet iffy. Shavelson, Arnold and Gerritsen had all previously tackled Thurber on the short-lived television series "My World and Welcome To It". **1/2 from ****

This movie is based on Thurber's book and his life, it's funny but very touching, like James Thurber himself. Of course Thurber's absurdest humor is not everyone's cup of tea, and much of this movie was over the audiences head. As usual the almost forgotten Barbra Harris is perfect, funny pretty and just a bit mad. When this movie came out there was a TV show on at the same time based on the same work. It was called "My World & Welcome to It" Lisa Gerritsen played the daughter in both . What seems to annoy many people who see this movie is the use of Thurbers cartoons. And I admit it took me a while to finally get the humor in his cartoon strips. so, although this may only be a film for Thurber fans , it is an excellent one.