Prudence and the Pill

This silly romp is quite entertaining and even adorable. Its a lot of fun.

I am not the type of person who takes marriage and infidelity lightly. My attitude us be single or be married. Well this IS a farce and it does show how the complications that arise from sneaking around make it hardly worth the trouble.

I'm not sure what exactly attracted me to check out Prudence and the Pill. Partly is was the cast David Niven and Deborah Kerr, and also I was very curious about how a British comedy might handle this type of material. After a slightly interesting opening credits sequence we get down to business. It's all a bit silly really, but that seems to be the problem that it's only a bit silly when reality it needed a lot more silliness to pull this off and make it actually funny. As it is it's just slightly amusing at random bits throughout, but sadly for everyone involved it's more often slow and kind of dry. Not a completely unpleasant viewing experience for sure, it was somewhat watchable, just not as much as I had hoped for.

The main idea behind "Prudence and the Pill" is one that doesn't make sense to me. While birth control pills might have looked VERY different in the UK in the 1960s, all the ones I've seen look absolutely nothing like aspirins or vitamins--which are much, much larger. So how could people be replacing another person's birth control pills with aspirins without anyone realizing it?

This 1960s sex comedy stars Deborah Kerr and David Niven...both of which made quite a few sophisticated sex comedies in the 1950s and 60s (such as the horrible CASINO ROYALE, BEDTIME STORY and THE GRASS IS GREENER). In this film, Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle have an open marriage and both have their lovers. In addition, Mrs. Hardcastle's niece (Judy Geeson) is sleeping with her boyfriend. However, someone is messing with these ladies' birth control pills and soon complications ensue.

Like most of the sex comedies of the era, this film talks a lot about sex (or, more rightly, INSINUATING a lot about sex) without really showing or saying much at all. Racy stuff for the time...very tame stuff when seen today. So, while it portrays folks who have affairs and premarital sex, it's done with 60s sensibilities--being both extremely broad-minded AND old fashioned at the same time.

So is this any good and is it worth seeing? Well, at least for me, no especially. I might have enjoyed it had it just been more interesting, made more sense or made me laugh. Plus, and I guess this makes me sound very prudish, but I thought the Hardcastles were a pathetic couple...and I really didn't care one bit about what happened with them. What was a kooky sex romp back in the day now just seems dated and sub-par despite the big-name stars in it.

In movie after movie men & women regularly mate with each other without anyone ever fussing over contraception. This time however there's so much discussion of it you'd assume that the script by Hugh Mills was based on a play rather than on a novel (that he'd originally published in 1965). It certainly lends a new meaning to the description "oral sex" since all they ever appear to do is just talk about it; until the women suddenly all give birth en masse like the women of the village of Midwich.

The reality for women of taking contraceptive pills on a daily basis was seemingly a complete mystery to Mills, since he depicts them as indistinguishable from aspirins and dispensed by chemists in glass jars rather than individually in pop-out blister packs.

Despite it's rather desperate aim to be contemporary and "with it", the backdrop of extravagent wealth and its upper class characters simply heighten the generally pre-war feel of the thing.

I found this one of the most hilarious movies, full of subtle, elegant, classy and witty British humour. A really complicated argument develops itself very intelligently and in a smooth way through the film. Deborah Kerr and David Niven, as well as the rest of the cast, display their professionalism and talent at its best in this movie and consolidates their status as Stars in the whole sense of the word. It shows how a film can be witty and sexual without having to resort to the worn-out trick of out-of-context nudity, and it should be an example for twenty first century film makers. The acting is superb as it is the story. The copyright owners Thoroughly enjoyable, although due to the story it must be kept rated as it is.