Folies d'avril

In New York, the newly-promoted in the Street Broker Howard Brubaker (Jack Lemmon) is invited by his boss Ted Gunther (Peter Lawford) to come to his fancy apartment. However, there is a party and the clumsy Howard feels uncomfortable and misplaced. Ted's wife Catherine Gunther (Catherine Deneuve) is amused with Howard and he invites her to have a drink in a club that Ted has suggested. Howard has a loveless marriage and his wife Phyllis (Sally Kellerman) does not pay attention to him. Catherine is unhappily married with Ted. When they meet the couple Grace (Myrna Loy) and Andre Greenlaw (Charles Boyer) that have been married for many years and are still happy, they decide to travel together to Paris to start a new life together. Will they leave their marriages behind?

"The April Fools" is a shallow, naive but funny romantic comedy. The plot is pleasant mostly because of the gorgeous Catherine Deneuve. It is hard to see what she liked in the clumsy character performed by Jack Lemmon. In the end, "The April Fools" is a silly romance that entertains. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Um Dia em Duas Vidas" ("One Day in Two Lives")

The April Fools, starring Jack Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve is a likeable, though not outstanding film. The film, somewhat bereft of a script, deals with Lemmon's character who arrives at his extremely trendy boss's apartment for a social gathering, which, to Lemmon's sheer amazement, is a fully-fledged swinging 60's hip shindig in classic over-40's type psychedelia. Deneuve plays the rather neglected wife of Lemmon's boss and of course the two meet at the party and do a terribly unconvincing job of falling in love. Deneuve, while pretty to look at, strolls through this film acting like she's hanging around for her agent to come up with something better. And in this film Lemmon just doesn't cut it as a romantic interest. The scene stealers are Lemmon's two drunken cohorts.

This film is far more interesting as a time piece, however. It's fun and engaging to watch this film and see how Hollywood was interested in projecting the late '60s high-class psychedelic world. The scene where Jack Lemmon takes Catherine Deneuve to the private club which is completely fitted out like the jungle and features sexy waitresses who slink around in various animal skins, with the only way to attract their attention is to shoot them on the bottom with a cap gun, really does make you marvel at the fact that clubs like this really did exist. Ah! Those were the days....

Typically good Jack Lemmon performance enhances this uneven Hal Dresner script that strains too hard to be whimsical. Great supporting cast, with Charles Boyer, Myrna Loy and Peter Lawford standouts. Catherine Deneuve is impossibly beautiful in this, one of her few American films, and her melancholy is nicely balanced by Lemmon's trademark veneer of glibness masking a streak of cynicism. Lovely score by Marvin Hamlisch, with the title song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Very 60's in milieu and cinematography, but the two leads especially lend some unexpected poignancy to the plot shenanigans.

I have always loved this movie, and, in many ways, relate to the Howard Brubaker character. Is it a great movie? Absolutely not. But it is romantic, humorous, and touching in many ways. This was my first glimpse of Catherine Deneuve outside of a pilfered Playboy, and she was nearly enough to make me forget Diana Rigg. I have always thought that Jack Lemmon was great, and being an old movie buff, I was very happy to see Myrna Loy and Charles Boyer.

In many ways this film can be considered silly. Boyer's chasing of Lemmon, the total detachment of Sally Kellerman's character, the locker room style boasting of Brubaker's friends, and finally the hasty courtship and decision to flee made by Lemmon and Deneuve. But, somehow it works. The touching love of Boyer and Loy is the perfect counterpoint to the blossoming relationship of Lemmon and Deneuve. And the similar ways in which Catherine and Howard are objectified by their respective spouses (Brubaker's wife considers him a source of funding for her projects while Guenther thinks of his wife as his greatest acquisition) insures fertile ground for anything resembling true warmth and emotion.

Don't think of this as some throwaway romantic comedy. Think of this, instead, as an Everyman's Romantic Fantasy. In reality we think not only of sex at the drop of a hat (not present in this movie), but also of meeting a beautiful woman who immediately recognizes the real man within and is willing to drop all for the love of that man.

I love this movie.

I remember Rex Reed saying that this was a horrible mess and that Catherine Deneuve should never make anything without English subtitles. Well, Deneuve has gone on to become one of the world's respected actresses in any language, and Reed's greatest claim to fame was appearing in Myra Breckinridge.

Don't be afraid to give this movie a chance.

Lemmon and Deneuve star in this lovely romantic-comedy about two unhappy people who fall in love, trying to escape their past and live for the future. Dogged by many critics, Lemmon and Deneuve are a great pair, along with the comic hijinks of Jack Weston and Harvey Korman, both wonderful towards the end of the film. This was also Lawford's best film performance. Only problem: Both Boyer and Loy are wasted. Quick pace. Great chemistry and also a nice title song by Dionne Warwick.