Honeymoon Hotel

Just one of oh so many of those not so funny comedy capers where the guys (Robert Morse, Robert Goulet and the big boss Keenan Wynn) are trying to enjoy some harmless cheap flings and cheat on their significant others, all the while their significant others seem to always be a step behind these clumsy men.

Eventually the three (3) men and their significant others (Nancy Kwan, Elvia Allman, and Chris Noel) all end up in the same hotel suite with a very tipsy and very hot looking Jill St. John and the boys have some explaining to do.

The movie is quite boring and with very plastic acting. I wouldn't recommend it even though everyone seems to end up happy at the Honeymoon Hotel.

A 5 out of 10 rating

Honeymoon Hotel came on my TCM channel today via Hulu. I was answering email when I looked up. My jaw dropped. The apartment swinging bachelors, Robert Goulet and Robert Morse, are sharing is the exact same set used in an MGM movie a few years earlier: Sunday in New York (a far better film). The efficiency kitchen is a step-down from the living room, and the spiral stair case leading to the bedroom. Check. There's even a brief moment with a look inside the living room closet where Jane Fonda hung her mother's bathrobe to ward off amorous suitors. Only a year separates the two films. I purposely went to the "Did You Know?" section of Honeymoon Hotel page to see if anyone else noticed, and indeed they have. Only one year separates these two movies--Sunday in New was released in 1963. MGM must have really felt a budget crunch by then.

Anyway, this film just gets more tired and predictable as it goes along. Poor Robert Goulet--this was his film debut. Robert Morse had already made one prior film to this. I'll bet both wish they hadn't landed in this picture. I love Jill St. John. She's gorgeous, and can play the dumb redhead in her sleep. (she has a fantastically high IQ). But this movie doesn't ask anything more than to wear tight dresses and act like a really dumb readhead. The wink-wink gay subtext is offensively applied with a trowel here.

A 60's sex farce with little charm, mainly because the male characters are so unlikeable. Robert Goulet plays a guy who deliberately prevents his friend (Robert Morse) from reconciling with his fiancée so that he can try to score with a woman he's fallen for (Nancy Kwan). His boss comes to the same place with one of his lovers, and both his boss's wife and his friend's fiancée show up, thus setting off mayhem/musical chairs as the horny men try to not to get caught with the wrong women.

To its credit, the film's interracial romance is presented as any other, but it's hard to understand why Kwan's character would be attracted to Goulet's, and certainly hard to root for him. Jill St. John plays the lover and she does what she can, but her character is so ditzy and her big moment ends up being running into a plate glass window with her breasts. And then of course, the wife and fiancée characters are shrews. Kwan gets a scene to show off some dance moves, which was one of the few highlights. Also look for Elsa Lanchester as the chambermaid, and note the apartment set was the same used in 'Sunday in New York' a year earlier.

When Jay's wedding doesn't go off as planned, he takes the best man on the vacation to the Boca Roca Hotel, which is for married couples only. Robert Morse (a year before The Loved One!) is Jay Menlow, and his buddy is Ross, played by the dashing Robert Goulet. running around in a towel. Lots of silly doubletakes and looks by the hotel staff, played by Bernard Fox and Elsa Lanchester. Jill St. John is Sherry, who swishes and sways through the whole movie... she's drunk most of the time, and doesn't seem to know or care with whom she ends up. keep an eye out for Sandra Gould from bewitched.. she's the hotel operator. it's all very predictable; a bedroom farce, where the men keep almost getting busted. this one even has Ross' boss ending up at the same hotel, complicating things even more. pretty silly. not much chemistry between the players. and some bits go on WAY too long.. the kaluga dance on the patio (was juliet prouse busy that day? ) Film directed by Henry Levin. fun fact: Lanchester was married to Charles Laughton for thirty years.

A couple of Broadway names, Robert Goulet from Camelot and Robert Morse from How To Succeed In Business, star in Honeymoon Hotel in an attempt to make film stars of both. The two never did become box office together or separately.

Poor Bobby Morse gets jilted at the altar, but best man Goulet decides since we've got our reservations at a Honeymoon Hotel in the Carribean. Of course in those days before same sex marriage they have their problems. Goulet has an agenda, he's pursuing his boss's side dish Jill St. John. The boss is Keenan Wynn and you can't blame him for his indiscretion being married to harriden Elvia Allman.

Bob and Bob try an awful lot to get that Bing and Bob effect, but it doesn't go over quite so well with them. The Dorothy Lamour of the piece is hotel recreation director Nancy Kwan who has some real nice moves on the dance floor.

But one should never pass up an opportunity to see Jill St.John playing one of her patented bimbos.

Nice film, but Goulet and Morse will never be Crosby and Hope.