The Wild Affair

Nancy Kwan is to be married in a few days, whereupon she will become a housewife. She's a good girl in the early phases of the Swinging Sixties, and she wonders what she is missing.

It's a pleasant and, in the end, rather normative effort, mostly distinguished for its efforts to make a real star of Miss Kwan (who is still alive and working), with lots of cinematic leering efforts of the men to get in a one-night stand with the lovely actress while the getting is good. In the end it is pleasant, if not particularly distinguished.

Some of the casting is rather interesting, with Bessie Love playing Miss Kwan's mother, Bud Flanagan as the building's door man, and Terry-Thomas as her boss -- sans mustache and gap-toothed grin.

Welcome to The Wild Affair, also known as Nancy Kwan cuts her hair and still looks adorable. In this very 1960s movie, Nancy stars as a regular Jane who works in an office and faces immediate retirement upon her marriage. But, as many regular Janes in 1965 felt, she's not sure she wants to close up her social life and stay barefoot in the kitchen. This movie feels a bit like a time capsule, with the fashions, hairstyles, and type of party - but also with the attitudes that were new in the sixties and have paved the way to modern feminists' views decades later.

Nancy is just adorable in this movie. If you loved her as much as I did in The World of Suzie Wong and were disappointed that the rest of her career petered out, rent thus one to get one last great glimpse of her sweetness. In this movie, she hasn't yet been typecast as a bodacious babe who never has to act. She has worries, conflicted emotions, and an actual character to flesh out.

If you liked the feel of The Party, where the entire movie takes place in one evening, you'll like this one. When Nancy says goodbye at the office, you can tell she doesn't mean it. She stays for the party and juggles unwanted attentions from her boss, carefree attitudes from her coworkers, and the steadfast love of her fiancé. What will she decide? Will she stay a career woman, or will she settle down and get married - or is there a middle ground? Watch this time capsule to find out.

A very enjoyable and fast paced farce. Nancy Kwan is perfect as the impish bride to be on her last day at the company that produces "it" perfume. (Wasn't Twiggy the original "it" girl?) It has a splendid cast of British character actors, headed by Terry Thomas and including Victor Spinetti, who must have gone straight from this (production began in late 1963) to his role in "Hard Day's Night." There are certain similarities in the look of these films, from the titles to of course the exteriors and certain motifs. Some good dialog and physical comedy. Glorious black and white cinematography, at times gritty and at others glamorous. Overall very enjoyable. The only uneasy thing in the movie, which is not particular to this film and common to similar storylines, is the guys continuously hitting on Kwan are sad reminders of what the workplace once was like and all too sadly as today's news shows, still are far too often. But as other reviews mention, these scenes always resolve innocuously or ridiculously for the guys doing the hitting. Well worth the time watching.

A strange combination of sixties sophistication and slapstick comedy exemplified on one hand by Nancy Kwan's conversations with her reflection, her Vidal Sassoon haircut (described by Victor Spinetti as "the vampire look") and Mary Quant outfits, the stylish black & white photography and the frequent sex talk and on the other by her leering male admirers and the Christmas party in which the sprinklers go off.

Betty Marsden, Gladys Morgan and Victor Spinetti give particularly attractive performances in supporting roles, while the film's three biggest mysteries are how Bessie Love & Paul Curran managed to produce a daughter that looked like Miss Kwan, why Terry-Thomas (who receives guest star billing) hasn't got his moustache and why Bud Flanagan is playing the small part of a doorman.

The only thing of note in this very unfunny outdated comedy is that this is the last film appearance of Bud Flanagan.