Promesse, promesse

Terrible, terrible comedy. But if I were rating it, I'd give it 1 star for the script, photography, and performances, and 10 for the display of Ms. Mansfield's ample attributes. I think this is why they invented the fast-forward button

Jayne Mansfield generated some of the most heated publicity of her career (and that's saying a lot!) when she agreed to film nude scenes for the 1963 comedy, "Promises! Promises!" No American star of her magnitude had ever appeared undraped onscreen before, and the controversy led to the picture being banned, court hearings on obscenity, and Mansfield stoically bearing the bad press (and no doubt saving all the headline clippings). Watching the film is a sad, strange experience; the nude scenes have nothing to do with the plot, and were clearly filmed solely for sensation's sake. What it shows is a star badly on the wane, appearing in an extremely low budget production, and selling her body cheap for the resultant publicity. Jayne's two nude scenes come fairly early in the film, which means there's plenty of time left for highly strained, largely unfunny, mostly sex-less antics. The crux of the plot involves two married couples, Jayne/Tommy Noonan and Marie McDonald/Mickey Hargitay, on a cruise together. In a rather lewd plot device, both women end up pregnant, and because of some drunken revelry between the couples (never seen), no one is sure who the father is for which baby. One surreal scene has Jayne attending a shipboard party where female impersonator T.C. Jones does celebrity imitations, one of whom is Jayne Mansfield! In character as "Sandy," Jayne squeals with delight and does HER "imitation" of Jayne Mansfield. Unfortunately, it's the funniest moment in the film. On the brighter side, Jayne looks especially lovely and voluptuous, and, playing it relatively straight for once, doesn't rely too much on high-pitched ooohs and aahhhs. Micky Hargitay (Jayne's real-life husband) looks much too young to be marruied to former 40's pinup girl Marie McDonald, but displays a rather sweet, doltish charm as a Hungarian actor striving to lose his pronounced accent (it must've been a real stretch for him). For the die-hard Jayne Mansfield fan, this is basically a harmless, actionless, sexless sex comedy, and a chance to see the star rather perfunctorily topless. For everyone else, it's a historic curiosity, and nothing more.

PROMISES! PROMISES! has two reputations - one as a notorious film, being the first film in which a famed Hollywood star appeared nude (heavily hyped in Playboy magazine at the time) and the other as a bad film. It's "notorious" edge is merely historical - today it simply resembles an R-rated LOVE BOAT episode with a little bit of nudity from it's star lady Jayne Mansfield who literally drops her towel and reveals her famous breasts (as well as another scene which shows the butt that once famously bopped down the street to tune "The Girl Can't Help it"). It's bad reputation is not really deserved. While no classic, it's an pleasing time filler with enjoyable performances from both it's main cast and several notable character actors.

The parallels between the film and GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES are remarkably strong. Like Blondes, the film is set on an ocean liner, and has Tommy Noonan as it's leading man. Marie McDonald plays Jayne's caustic pal with an delivery that strongly suggests Jane Russell's performance in the Marilyn Monroe film.

Jayne and husband Tommy Noonan have been married for four years but have been unable to have children. This cruise ship vacation is apparently an attempt to put some spice into their love lives. Travelling with them are best friends, Marie McDonald and Mickey Hargitay, another childless married couple. Hargitay is a vain, health-obsessed movie star who apparently makes Hercules type pictures.

Neurotic (and apparently impotent) Tommy keeps running to ship doctor Fritz Field for help. Field gives Noonan tablets that are actually aspirins suggesting they are some sort of vintage equivalent to Viagra. The "pills" do the trick but Field's elaborate stories about them (suggesting they may have temporary amnesia as a side effect) wreak havoc on the neurotic Noonan's emotions after Mansfield, Hargitay, and McDonald all (accidentally) digest them as well.

This "independent" film has some very good production values despite allegations that it's a "low budget" film; there is superb editing in several scenes in which we see private moments in the Noonan, Mansfield/Hargitay, McDonald cabins which we see via split screen shots as they have concurrent private moments, often mirroring the other with similar or duplicate dialog and action, some it spoken at the same time. The film's score is surprisingly good and very much evokes the image of an "adult" albeit mainstream sex comedy of the 1960's.

Jayne looks sensational and has a charmingly sweet presence here like in her 1950's 20th Century-Fox glory days, qualities regrettably somewhat sidetracked in most of the dreary pot boilers she ended up making for most of the 1960's. I do wish though the script had played more on her considerable comic gifts. Tommy Noonan is very good as her emotional mess of a husband, I actually think his performance here is better than his more famous one in BLONDES. Marie McDonald is quite good as the jaded confidante. Character comic Fritz Field, whose film career spanned 1915 to 1989, is terrific as the doctor and there's a hilarious running bit character played by the plump, sixtyish character actress Marjorie Bennett (a very familiar face for her cheery roles in scores of TV episodes) as a rich old gal who has got herself a young Italian gigolo. The now forgotten T.C. Jones, one of the first widely famous female impersonators, is fun as the ship's hair stylist in perhaps the most blatantly "gay role" then seen in American films, a sassy pal to Jayne who is the lone male attending her baby shower where he amuses the girls with his impressions of Tallulah Bankhead and Bette Davis. Legendary TV comedienne Imogene Coca makes an amusing gag cameo (the film's director was her husband, King Donovan) as one of Jones' more unfortunate hair clients.

This is one of those movies were it's bad reputation gets in the way of people reevaluating it and giving it a fair appraisal. PROMISES! PROMISES! will never be a threat to Jayne's best films, the Frank Tashlin movies THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT and WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? but it is entertaining and actually succeeds at it's most goal of being an amusing light sex comedy.

In a world where the cinematic landscape is regularly changing in many various ways, it's nice to know that there are some constants on which one can rely. One of these is that sex comedies, as a genre, are simply bad. They always have been, and they always will be. They rely on the cheapest and most boorish of gags, jokes, and plots, appealing to the lowest common denominator. They're frankly demeaning to all involved in their creation for how low the participants are made to stoop, the cast not least of all, whose "acting" forfeits all tact, nuance, or meaningful skill. From one picture to the next it's hard to say which is worse, yet there are two reasons 'Promises..... promises!' might be near the bottom of the barrel.

For one thing, set aside the sexual elements here and the movie is defined by sensibilities that feel ripped straight from TV sitcoms of the 1950s. I suppose one could argue that such perfectly charming, perfectly happy-go-lucky, perfectly pleasant ham-handedness could be intended as a send-up of such notions, though even if that's true, this takes the parodying spirit too far and becomes the object of its own intended mockery. Regardless, it's safe to say that the viewing experience is a little taxing as the dialogue, characters, scene writing, narrative, direction, acting, and even the music all seem to embrace pointedly artificial kitsch over meaningful humor or substance. Taxing - and not actually very fun. It's hard to get a real sense of the capabilities of anyone involved when they are all geared toward being as frivolous as possible - and, it seems, lazy and unimaginative.

Secondly, at a time in the film industry before nudity became commonplace, Jayne Mansfield's nude scenes here come off as an extra tawdry, desperate ploy for attention and viewership. A couple of these are pointlessly, shamelessly repeated, multiple times each, in what seems to me to be a tacit admission by the filmmakers that their production had no significant value otherwise, and they needed the boost themselves. I'm no puritan, and I've no objection to sex and nudity in media, but sometimes the inclusion is plainly gratuitous - and here, "gratuitous" is overly generous a description. "Vulgar" and "begging for relevance" seem more appropriate.

It's not that there aren't any good ideas here, but in both the writing and execution they are handled very blithely and even carelessly. The value, and indeed the plot, just kind of get forgotten for the preponderance of the length. This begins with what seems like a firm concept, then just scatters. Factor in all the other facets that are so uninteresting, or even irritating, and one struggles to say this is likable or enjoyable in any capacity. I'm glad for those who get something more out of this feature, and find it entertaining; I regret the 75 minutes I just wasted. Whatever it is you think you'll get out of 'Promises..... promises!' there are much better and more worthwhile ways to get it; just don't bother with this.

There was a time when you could not show nudity in films. And then all of a sudden you could. Who better to use to display this newfound freedom than Jayne Mansfield? So, in Promises! Promises! Mansfield takes off her clothes. Anything else worth saying about the film? Not really. It's a comedy of mishaps and misunderstandings. Unfortunately there is practically nothing that is at all funny in this supposed comedy. How desperate is the film for laughs? Well, there's a female impersonator, a character who is the most wretched thing in the largely wretched film. He does a Jayne Mansfield impersonation. Mansfield's character responds that she does her too. Hilarious, right? No, not at all. The plot, about who exactly is impregnating whom aboard a cruise ship, is rather inane. There's not even enough story to stretch the film out to a proper feature length. The film clocks in at a mere 75 minutes but it seems interminable. In a sign of true desperation Mansfield's brief nude scenes are repeated over and over again in dream sequences or flashbacks. At least the filmmakers were honest with themselves and the audience. They knew people were only coming to see this film for one reason. Well, two reasons to be precise. Mansfield's acting in the film actually isn't half bad. But the story's a dud and the rest of the cast gives Mansfield very little support. As a film Promises! Promises! fails miserably. But nobody cares about its quality as a film, the thing only exists as a vehicle to show off Mansfield's prize assets. In that, if nothing else, it succeeds.