Kiss Me, Stupid

I just want to add a note here about the songs that the third-rate composer and lyricist, played by Ray Walston and Cliff Osmond, "wrote" in this movie. Hold on! The three songs that are heard in this film were written by none other than George and Ira Gershwin. The music for "Sophia" was intended for but not used in the Gershwin's 1937 show "Shall We Dance?" "I'm a Poached Egg" draws on music intended for their 1930 show "Girl Crazy" and lyrics intended for their 1937 show "A Damsel in Distress." The music for "All the Livelong Day" dates back to 1921. This has been recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, though I don't know on what CD it appears. Anyone can find the interesting details about these songs and complete lyrics, including some not used in the film, on pages 382-385 of "The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin" published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1993.

Dino (Dean Martin) , the good looking and lecherous Las Vegas singer, stops for gas on his way to Hollywood in Climax, Nevada. The oily gas station attendant is Barney Millsap (Cliff Osmond) , a would-be lyricist who writes pop songs with Orville Spooner, the local piano teacher. By disabling Dino's car, Barney contrives a scheme to have charming Dino sing one of their songs on an upcoming TV special. Possessively jealous piano teacher Orville Spooner (Ray Walston) , a local songwriter, wants Dino to hear his tunes but knows the cad will seduce his pretty wife, so he hires a floozy (Kim Novak) to pose as the tempting spouse. Meanwhile, Barney sends his beautiful wife (Felicia Farr) , Zelda, away for the night while he tries to sell a song to famous nightclub singer Dino, who is stranded in town. There Was This Girl in Climax, Nevada!. It happened in Climax, Nevada !. Dino...he came to dinner...Polly the Pistol - she stayed for breakfast...Beethoven - he cooked up the whole mess...This picture is for adults only !.

An enjoyable film with funny, amusing script by the compelling tandem LAL Diamond and Billy Wilder. A roguish, vulgar and thorny issue at the time by passing off a local prostitute as the complacent wife of one of them. Chance and infidelities mix in this uninhibited sitcom, one of the director's best. The attack on 'good customs' and the dominant puritanism in broad sectors of North American society complicated the dissemination of the film at the time. It gets better as it goes along, but the whole thing suffers from staginess, being an adaptation of an Italian play ¨L'ora della fantasia¨by Anna Bonacci. However, one condemned as smut, this lesser Wilder effort now seems no worse than a TV sitcom. Rightly agreeable with plenty of sly bits of business and fun-filled , milestone comedy which neatly combines humor , mirth , entertaining situations , a feeling romance and bitterness . Notable direction render this stunning story more funny than usual. Giving a jaundiced vision leavened by a tender sympathy for the frailty of human motives. Dean Martin basically plays himself as a horny Vegas crooner stranded in the boondocks. Drawing heavily on Martin's offscreen persona, this sees him as a sex-crazed, arrogant crooner stranded in a remote Californian town and feigning interest in a songs composer -nicely played by Ray Walston who steals the show- in return for the sexual favours of the latter's wife -attractively played by Felicia Farr.

The motion picture was well directed by Billy Wilder who includes several punchlines . Being one of Wilder's most inventive and furious screen adaptations .Billy was one of the best directors of history . In 1939 started the partnership with Charles Bracket on such movies as ¨Ninotchka¨ , ¨Ball of fire¨ , making their film debut as such with ¨Major and the minor¨ . ¨Sunset Boulevard¨ was their last picture together before they split up . Later on , Billy collaborated with another excellent screenwriter IAL Diamond . Both of them won an Academy Award for ¨Stalag 17¨ dealing with a POW camp starred by William Holden . After that , they wrote/produced/directed such classics as ¨Ace in the hole¨ , the touching romantic comedy ¨Sabrina¨ , the Hickcoktian courtroom puzzle game ¨Witness for the prosecution¨ and two movies with the great star Marilyn Monroe , the warmth ¨Seven year itch¨ and this ¨Some like hot¨. All of them include screenplays that sizzle with wit . But their biggest success and highpoint resulted to be the sour and fun ¨The apartment¨. Subsequently in the 60s and 70s , the duo fell headlong into the pit , they realized nice though unsuccessful movies as ¨Buddy buddy¨ ,¨Fedora¨ , ¨Front page¨ and ¨Secret life of Sherlock Holmes¨, though the agreeable ¨Avanti¨ slowed the decline . The team , Wilder-Diamond , had almost disappeared beneath a wave of bad reviews and failures . Rating : 6.5/10 . Above average , essential and indispensable watching ; extremely funny and riveting film and completely entertaining .It's the kind of movie where you know what's coming but , because the treatment , enjoy it all the same .

Jealous piano teacher Orville Spooner (Ray Walston) sends his beautiful wife, Zelda (Felicia Farr), away for the night while he tries to sell a song to a famous nightclub singer Dino (Dean Martin), who is stranded in town.

The Catholic Legion of Decency strongly objected to the completed film and it was condemned, the second film to get such an honor -- the first being "Baby Doll" in 1956. One can easily see why, as while there is no nudity, there is plenty of humor revolving around prostitution, adultery and and Dean Martin being a "sex maniac".

A. H. Weiler of the New York Times called the film "pitifully unfunny" and "obvious, plodding, short on laughs and performances and long on vulgarity." This seems unfair. While it is not among Billy Wilder's best work, even Wilder's average films are better than many other people's greatest attempts. I can only say now (roughly fifty years after the film debuted) that while it was not perfect, it had its moments and was quite bold in its own way.

Did you know that there are two released versions of this film? The European release is slightly different from the American release. I have just seen the European version in a sparkling print shown in New York. The tint of the American prints seem to be a darker than the European print. The biggest difference is the trailer scene between Dean Martin and Felicia Farr. Wilder was forced to re-shoot the scene by the American censors. In the European version, there is no doubt that Martin and Farr have a sexual encounter during their night together. This makes the film stronger, but the American scene is much, much funnier and we are left with a doubt as to whether Dean and the pianist's wife had a one night stand.

Seeing this film with an audience was a revelation! The jokes work 99% of the time and laughter filled the theater from the first frame until the last frame. I do feel that with Kim Novack and Ray Walston in pivotal roles, we are given the bus and truck company instead of the heavy hitters. What a film this would have been had these roles been played by Marilyn Monroe and Peter Sellers! Jack Lemmon would have been an excellent choice as well for the Walston role. Now Walston is fine; he is a skillful comic actor but he lacks a certain charisma which prevented him from becoming a top star. Novack, while never a great actress, actually plays the comedy quite well. It is a pleasant surprise. I have also been bothered by Ian Freebairn-Smith's dubbing of Walston's singing voice in the two songs "Sophia" and "All the Livelong Day". Walston had a musical comedy background and sang in the movies "Damn Yankees" and "South Pacific". Maybe the vocals were recorded while Peter Sellers was still on the project. Of course, Dean Martin is perfect in this film. He plays himself, or shall I say he plays his known caricature, and he does it beautifully. He proves what a fine comedian he has always been. Take that Jerry!

This is a low and deeply cynical comedy even by Billy Wilder's standards. It's about the American Dream and says a man would sell his wife to achieve it. Ray Walston, (brilliantly cast; nobody played sharper or more venal in comedy than he did - remember, he once even played the devil?), is the small-town songwriter who tries to sell some of his songs to a visiting superstar called Dino, (Dean Martin, parodying himself as a womanizing, hard-drinking piece of scum). The way he does it is to pass his wife off as a piece of bait for Martin to sleep with and hopefully take his songs. But being the all-American hypocrite that he is, he can't bring himself to use his real wife so he packs her off to a motel and hires the local floozie Polly the Pistol (Kim Novak) to take her place.

The film is very funny in the way it undermines our conventional sense of morality. It's like a French Farce full of dirty American gags and in some ways is one of Wilder's best (though under-valued) films. The only 'nice' character in the whole picture is Polly and Novak brings to the part the same kind of touching naiveté we associate with Monroe. (It's a very Monroe-like performance). And this is probably the best acting Novak has done outside of "Vertigo" and possibly "Picnic"; (her Polly is like an older, more sullied version of the character she played in "Picnic"). A lot of Americans found this film deeply offensive, (it was a bigger success in Europe), and it was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency.