Andrew_Eskridge

I saw this movie the first night it opened in Las Vegas in 1981. The large theater was packed, SRO. What may come as a surprise today, the film was received seriously by the audience, who sat transfixed throughout. I don't recall inappropriate laughter (well, maybe a muted laugh or two when little Christina muttered "Jesus Christ" at the end of the wire hanger scene), and I remember hearing favorable comments from people around me, although many were horrified by the depictions of child abuse.

Unfortunately, the movie did not live up to the high expectations at the box office. After all, it was based on a best-selling book that sold 4 million copies.

A few weeks later, Mommie Dearest was re-released and was being advertised as a campfest in the vein of Rocky Horror, and patrons were urged to bring wire hangers to the theater. The studio turned against its own movie in order to milk more money out of it. That's a shame, because Faye Dunaway gave the performance of her life and deserved an Academy Award nomination, if not the award.

Former sex goddess Gina Lollobrigida is a gorgeous 40ish redhead in this fast-paced comedy filmed on location in Italy in 1968.

La Lollo plays the mother of the lovely Janet Margolin, whose American soldier father was supposedly killed during World War II. The thing is, Gina isn't sure who the father was, since she was friendly with three soldiers at the time, (played by Peter Lawford, Phil Silvers and Telly Savalas), and all are very much alive. Each of the three thinks he is the father and has been financially supporting the girl in secret for over 20 years. Trouble and hilarity ensue when the three men and their wives return to the Italian village for an Army reunion, and Gina has to juggle all six of them while keeping her daughter from finding out the truth.

It's a funny script that hearkens back to Hollywood's great screwball comedies, with especially good jobs from Silvers and Savalas and Shelley Winters and Lee Grant as their wives. But it's Gina who steals the show with her glamorous mugging.

Bob Hope plays a worldly writer whose specialty is the sexual mores of European women. He is called back to the U.S. from his home on the French Riviera after his business manager takes off with his money, leaving him with back taxes to pay. His editor (played by the delightfully droll John McGiver) assigns him to write a book about the sexual mores of American suburbanites and places him in a tract house in a new Southern California subdivision. There, Hope meets the glamorous Realtor Lana Turner, who has given up on men, and the wacky pre-feminist wives and mothers who are his neighbors. Romance and troubles follow to a predictable ending.

This is escapist humor at its purest, produced at a time when Americans faced a world seemingly on the brink of nuclear war. Filmed on location, it also provides a fascinating look at the culture of the time, making you wish you were living then amid the Atomic Age architecture. Dig those compact tract homes painted in California coral and aqua, that far-out supermarket with the giant windows in front, that snappy diner with the carhops, that chic barbecue restaurant where they serve shrimp cocktails, ribs and gibsons al fresco! (I wish I knew where it was filmed).

The first hour is great, with quirky comic turns by Paula Prentiss as the excitable young housewife next door, Janis Paige as the sexy soon-to-be divorcée on the make and Reta Shaw as the overbearing neighborhood snoop. Unfortunately, the second half drags a bit as the farce grows thin, Hope grows more grating and most of the action moves inside to studio sets.

Still, it's a nice trip back to 1961.