L'homme qui comprend les femmes

How could an insider like Nunnally Johnson make a movie about Hollywood that's this boring and just plain bad?

Clearly Johnson knows movies, yet he manages to do just about everything wrong with "The Man Who Understood Women," starting with that title. Henry Fonda is disastrously miscast as a maverick, manipulative director, and Cesare Danova could have been replaced by his likeness in granite. Leslie Caron is adorable and she works hard, but "Ann Garantier" is an idea, not a character. As for the telescoped plot, I believe Aaron Spelling himself would have rejected it as too simplistic. There is the occasional witty line-- Johnson's forte is writing, after all-- but there's way too much dialog. Movies are a visual medium, not a verbose one, but Johnson's characters talk incessantly.

As it happens, a number of big films circa 1960 were about movie-making. This is by far the worst. Godard's half-baked "Contempt" is at least cinematic. "Two Weeks In Another Town" has energy, largely thanks to Edward G. Robinson and Claire Trevor. And then there's "8 1/2." Fellini's masterpiece and Johnson's dud are similarly long-- 135-140 minutes. But "8 ½" is exhilarating, revelatory, inventive, visually rich, and memorable; "The Man Who Understood Women" fails on all counts.

Johnson had a hand in writing more than 70 movies, producing more than 40, and directing 8. After seeing this and "Black Widow," I can only conclude that 8 was at least 2 too many.

I don't give this movie as low a rating that many had. It was an ok movie. It's listed as a comedy, that's the reason I wanted to watch it. But it's not a funny movie at all. If you want laughs from a movie, watch something else, this is not for you.

What the heck was this? The Bad and the Beautiful Goes on the Twentieth Century, I guess. Based on a novel by Romain Gary, Fonda plays Willie Bauche, a triple threat in the Orson Welles tradition whose films don't make any money, so he soon finds himself kicked out of the studio. While observing a screen test, he becomes interested in the actress doing the test, Ann Garantier (Leslie Caron) and decides to make her the biggest thing since Greta Garbo, manipulating his old boss at the studio to sign her. Ann and Willie fall in love and marry. On their wedding night, Willie becomes involved in some movie business and leaves the hotel. This turns Ann off, and the implication is that she doesn't sleep with him - and six months later, apparently, she's still not sleeping with him. His work always takes precedence over her, and she doesn't like it.

While on a trip to Paris, Ann meets a soldier, played by Cesare Danova, and runs away with him. He applies for discharge from his regiment and tells her that he's supposed to leave at the end of the week, but he's not going.

I've actually described the plot of this film in a much more exciting way than it was filmed. All I'll say is that Leslie Caron looked beautiful and had some beautiful clothes. Everyone is very low key and says their lines as if they're on their deathbed. Except for Fonda, they all sort of moan.

The lead role, Willie, is indeed a Welles type or the kind of producer played by Barrymore in Twentieth Century. Fonda was in comedies, but he was usually the straight man. This role called for a flamboyant, meglomaniacal performance. Fonda was a very internalized actor - I can't imagine anyone worse for this role. It's like having Cary Grant play Mahatma Gandhi.

A complete waste of time - your time, my time, and the actors' time.

The best thing I can say about The Man Who Understood Women is it is not the worst comedy I ever saw: Machete, Jewel Robbery, Candy ( 1968), and Damsels In Distress ( all on my 10 worst films list) nor the worst movie I ever saw about Show Business (No Time For Comedy says hi). But It is the worst film of Henry Fonda's career and I despised the movie. The worst part? Fonda in clown makeup which is more cringe worthy ( and longer) then Octopussy with James Bond in clown makeup. On to Leslie Caron. I must admit I never got what other people saw in Leslie Caron: There are Frenchwomen so much more beautiful and better actresses ( Sophie Marceau, Catherine Deneuve, Denise Darcel and Julie Delpy to name a few), but here she is at her worst. Why? Her constant crying throughout this movie is sickening, which is why I had to fast forward through half the movie. Did I forget to mention, there is not one character ( especially Fonda and Caron) that you can like ( or even care about)? While it is not the worst movie I ever saw ( the ones I mentioned earlier plus Reality Bites and Walk On The Wild Side are worse, it it still makes my 10 worst films list and although I cannot rate it as no stars ( the minimum is 1), it still deserves 0 stars. 0/10 stars.

The Man Who Understood Women was created by noted screenwriter Nunnally Johnson who had worked with Henry Fonda going back to Jesse James. On the basis of respect for his talent and his friendship with Johnson, Fonda got cast in the part of Hollywood wunderkind Willie Bauche, a man who it turned out did not understand women in the slightest or at least the woman whom he married and was responsible for her stardom, Leslie Caron.

Willie Bauche needed an actor with the flair of a John Barrymore to carry it off. In fact Fonda's character of Willie Bauche is a second cousin to Oscar Jaffe from Twentieth Century. Now Henry Fonda has been successful in comedy, but the fellow who utilized him best, Preston Sturges in The Lady Eve did not tamper with Fonda's basic All American serious character, he played Barbara Stanwyck and the rest of the cast off against it. What Barrymore or Orson Welles on whom the lead is allegedly based could have done we'll never know.

Speaking of Welles the character of Max Buda whom he played in The VIPs was exactly like what Fonda was trying to achieve in The Man Who Understood Women.

Fonda is a Welles like character who discovers young hopeful Leslie Caron, makes her a star and marries her. But he's all about himself and Caron's eyes start wandering and land on young army officer Cesare Danova while she and Fonda are on the French Riviera. Of course Fonda gets jealous and begins scheming all kinds of things that you have to watch The Man Who Understood Women to find out.

Leslie Caron was very hot at that point in her career having just come off the best film of 1958, Gigi. Still even I can't understand why she rated billing over Hollywood veteran Henry Fonda. I'm betting Fonda wasn't to thrilled with that either.

Besides working with Nunnally Johnson, Fonda got to work with Myron McCormick with whom he had gone to Princeton with and was part of the famous Triangle Players during their college days. McCormick plays his number two guy who tries to instill a little reality into Fonda's life, but is unable to.

The film actually begins quite promisingly. Nunnally Johnson who knew Hollywood as good as anyone has a great beginning with Fonda alerting producer Conrad Nagel to a new discovery in Caron, but doing it in such a way that Nagel thinks it's all his idea and that he's stealing someone from Fonda whom he can't stand, but who Fonda knows he can't stand. That was all very well done, if the film had kept up that quality it would be a classic today.

The Citadel film series book The Films Of Henry Fonda also says that there are a lot of inside Hollywood jokes, but said to say they stayed inside. One reason I looked forward to seeing it was that after some 50 years of tell all memoirs and second hand accounts, I figured that things a 1959 audience might not have gotten I would have. Well frankly I didn't so Nunnally's inside stuff stays inside.

After this one, Fonda stayed off the screen for three years coming back in a part in Advise And Consent that he was believable in. Far more than The Man Who Understood Women where he was probably the most miscast in his career.