Garçonnière pour quatre

This was a fun Kim Novak film I had never seen. Novak stars as a graduate student who is writing a thesis on "the adolescent sexual fantasies of the adult suburban male." She ends up being hired by four men (three married, one divorced) as a "housekeeper" in an inexpensive but very opulent and large apartment in New York City. The three married men are portrayed by Howard Duff, Howard Morris and Tony Randall. James Garner plays the divorced man. These men commute to work together from Connecticut to New York on the same train. It seems that they frequent the same bar before deciding to go back home to their respective wives. At the bar, Garner witnesses his boss (Roger Addison from Mister Ed) canoodling with his mistress. According to Garner, his boss keeps an apartment in New York where he can entertain his lady before he returns home to his wife.

The married commuter men, bored with their wives and each feeling that something is lacking in his respective relationship, begin to fantasize about having an apartment in the city where they can entertain their mistresses as well. As a joke, the three married men enlist Garner in locating a luxurious but cheap apartment. Garner goes to Peter Bowers (Jim Backus), a landlord who is anxious to rent an apartment in his building in which a murder took place. Garner is able to secure a decent price. Novak ends up answering the same ad. After informing her that the apartment has been rented, Garner offers Novak a position as a housekeeper. Much to his surprise, she accepts the position. Elated, the three husbands think that their infidelity dream is going to come to fruition. Garner isn't too keen on the prospect, and he's the only guy who is actually free!. Each of the three husbands tell a white lie to their respective wives that they are taking a course in New York City and as a result, will be spending the night away from home one night a week.

Novak takes the opportunity to conduct her research during each evening with each husband. She gets them to reveal why they're unhappy in their relationships and their feelings in general. Each of these sessions are recorded on a tape recorder. In a form of competition, the men begin to tell each other white lies about their evenings with Novak--as a result, each man thinks that the other has slept with her. Eager to keep getting good fodder for her thesis, Novak doesn't correct them. Garner, repulsed by his friends' tall tales about Novak, refuses to visit her for "his night." He finds himself genuinely falling for her.

Eventually the wives get suspicious and they seek out to find the truth behind their husbands' evenings in New York City. How does this all work out? Watch and find out.

This is very much your typical 60's pseudo-sex comedy that has one foot planted in the production code era and one foot in the budding sexual revolution. Many of them don't work well and seem antiquated today, but the talent of the players involved helps this one along. I'd recommend it.

This delightful comedy has some great bits, especially from the four commuter buddies (particularly Tony Randall, later one-half of TV's "Odd Couple"). James Garner is excellent as usual as the one buddy who's not married and thus the default romantic lead. The gang consists of Garner, Randall, Howard Duff, and Howard Morris. The great supporting cast includes old favorites William Bendix, Oskar Homolka, Jim Backus, and Fred Clark.

The movie is silly, but there are some great lines and lots of fun along the way. The story deals with married men who feel stifled by their wives. They dream up a scheme to share a "love nest" apartment in the city, complete with a blonde. Kim Novak shows up and the plan is put into place, but the boys don't know that Kim is interested only in her secret sociological research. Nothing "happens", but the boys are too embarrassed to admit it to each other and the wives eventually draw their own conclusions. Jessie Royce Landis (NORTH BY NORTHWEST) gets special mention for her performance as Garner's mother, who rallies the three wives against their "cheating" husbands. The movie is a little racy, but only to the point of innuendo, and it's all in good fun.

There's a great running gag where the boys will be riding the train to/from work and Tony Randall will start telling this presumably raunchy story when a passing train roars by, leaving the audience to imagine what could have been said under all that noise. James Garner (THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE NOTEBOOK) has some great drunk bits, jumbling the syllables of his speech ("ti many martoonis").

Jim Backus ("Gilligan's Island", "Mr. Magoo") has a wonderful scene as an apartment owner willing to haggle his own asking price down as low as it takes to rent out a swanky flat (complete with wine rack and mirrored bedroom ceiling). Fred Clark (AUNTIE MAME) plays a private detective, a master of disguise. His character really shines in the chaotic climax, amid a cyclone of arguing spouses and flying pottery.

I've personally never been a big Kim Novak fan. Her performance here is standard, I'd say. Patti Page sings the title song and gets a rare opportunity to act, playing one of the wives.

Some among the cast are a real treat to watch. Others, not so much. There are some great witty lines, but the story is pretty flimsy and among the gags that are hits there is the occasional miss. As a film overall BOYS' NIGHT OUT falls a little short, but it is very entertaining light fare. A hidden treasure, well worth checking out if you get the chance.

(The movie airs occasionally on TCM and is available for purchase on a burn-on-demand DVD-R from the Warner Archive Collection.)

Just watched this with Mom. We both liked this early '60s comedy about four men (three married, one divorced who lives with his mom) who sublet an apartment for themselves and a woman who secretly is studying the sexual habits of middle-aged men like them. It stars Kim Novak, James Garner, Tony Randall, Howard Morris, and Howard Duff. There are also many familiar character actors from various classic movies and TV shows. Silly and funny in spots but mostly pretty enjoyable for what it is. So we say Boys' Night Out is worth a look.

Blacklisted writer Michael Gordon returned to Hollywood to direct such harmless diversions as this one about four bored middle-class commuters who dream of leaving their humdrum existences and revisiting their idea of a dream bachelor pad, replete with wet bar, long sofa, fantastic view, and what may be the most voluptuous idea of a mistress the Hollywood of the sixties had to offer--a sociology student doing her thesis on the sex life of the suburban male played by Kim Novak. This movie would be a drag without her. She takes her place among the best American movie sex symbol acts of that time: Gina Lollobrigida in "Come September"; Tuesday Weld in "Soldier in the Rain"; Sue Lyon in "Lolita"; Virna Lisi in "How to Murder Your Wife." It was a good year for Novak--1962. Richard Quine ("Operation Mad Ball") directed her opposite Jack Lemmon in what I think is her funniest and most mysterious performance as "The Notorious Landlady." Her best moments on screen have always been the ones where she played smart women, and Cathy and Carlyle Hardwicke are two of the smartest she's ever played.

No offense to some of you, but I very seldom agree with that whole "It was a simpler time" thinking, because EVERY decade is full of people saying that about every PREVIOUS decade! (And they're probably always partly right and partly wrong.) And in a way, this movie is evidence of that - it's full of characters analyzing (and over-analyzing) subjects (like why the men want to fool around - which of course COULD BE because they just WANT TO). And of course, it's full of the whole "Men from Mars, Women from Venus" subject, and of course, "Kinsey"-type sex surveys. So as one person on the message boards (partially) says, it's a case of "The more things change...." Luckily, this movie makes light of all these things. There's a line toward the end where Jessie Royce Landis makes a reference to "the Kennedys getting elected." This always reminds me of the difference between a movie MADE in the early ' 60s and any given one SET in the early ' 60s - the latter OFTEN has Kennedy references (and many OTHER topical ones) squeezed in EDGEWISE, instead of A FEW, worked in CASUALLY, the way it's done here. Of the supporting actors, I think William Bendix had the best part, as the bartender with the friendly advice for James Garner.