Oh, Men! Oh, Women!

It's odd to say it about a film made by Nunnally Johnson, unquestionably one of the finest screenwriters in film history, but the script for OH MEN! OH WOMEN! desperately needed punching up from somebody like Neil Simon. As it stands, we have a psychiatric-based farce which isn't very funny. And when it tries for wisdom, it's considerably worse. Add in Johnson's typically static direction that emphasizes the staginess of the source material and you have a good long slog to get through even the film's relatively modest 90 minute running time. It would have been a disaster without its talented cast: David Niven, for the umpteenth time, gives us that unusual combination of stuffiness, befuddlement and charm that served him so well over his long career. Making his first film appearance, Tony Randall is already the Tony Randall that we would come to love, but in one of her last film appearances, Ginger Rogers is pretty much wasted as a bored wife. Playing her husband, Dan Daily does what he can with a fairly tedious character, and Barbara Rush is better than I expected, though she became more wearing as the movie went on. All in all, the film is an exceptional example of pure mediocrity.

As an aside, possibly the last person in Hollywood who would have actually seen a psychoanalyst in real life (she was a devout Christian Scientist) was Ginger Rogers, yet this was the third movie which saw Ginger's character on a shrink's couch: CAREFREE, LADY IN THE DARK, and OH MEN! OH WOMEN! Unfortunately, the movies deteriorated as the career moved on.

It takes a lot of talented people to come up with a comedy so misguided as this. Their intentions must have been honorable, and everyone fights frantically to keep the goods from sinking, but it's a loss, one of those drawing-room disasters which might have looked good on the page but not stretched across the widescreen. David Niven plays a psychoanalyst bored with his patients and confused over his fiancée's involvement with two of his clients. The actors drink and slur their words...why? Is it funnier to hear drunken wisecracks? Tony Randall as a neurotic and Barbara Rush as the prospective bride get the worst of it: his badgering ninnyisms and her high-pitched hysteria are not funny for any era. Based on a play, and obviously so, with tatty furnishings and dull, flat sets. A scene early on, with Rush in a taxi, is the high-point...we actually get outdoors and away from the whining.

This is a kind of film not made any more. It is a quiet comedy with intelligent, literate, articulate, unhappy adult humans attempting to work through their problems. Though the framework is farce, the lighting here is dark, the pace relaxed. If you have no patience for this approach don't waste your time.

But if you are tired of strident, moronic comedies about slobs or adolescents or balky zippers, this is a great opportunity to see a bunch of fine acting pro's at the top of their game. David Niven surprises with his precise physical comedy, Ginger Rogers and Dan Dailey are more thoughtful than usual, and Tony Randall thins out his baritone to be even more nerdy and creepy than usual.

There are also some sly jokes in the music track, with quotes from "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing" and Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" underlining some of the more absurd dramatic situations. Ocean liner buffs will also cherish the final reel shot on the French Line's Liberte.

Our attitudes have changed since the 1950's about psychiatry, alcohol and stalking ex-lovers. Fine, consider the social archeology as a bonus, and learn how we've changed and how we haven't. It shouldn't stop you from smiling, or even laughing.

Highly recommended for those who don't confuse adrenalin with humor.

The opening credits to Oh Men! Oh Women! are misleading, but I don't know if it was intentional or not. Dan Dailey received first billing, when he was clearly a supporting character, and David Niven received third billing, when he's the only one who's tied to everyone else in the movie. He plays a therapist, and two of his patients are Ginger Rogers and Tony Randall. Just as The Niv is going on a cruise with Barbara Rush, his fiancé, he learns some unsettling information about her. As everyone collides and the truth comes out, will he and Barbara patch things up?

The movie was based off a play, and I have a feeling that if done properly at that time, it would have been very funny. In the movie, Ginger Rogers ruined every scene she was in by acting as though she'd taken a valium before every take. Dan Dailey overacted terribly, and Barbara Rush didn't seem to have any acting ability whatsoever. David Niven's comic timing was always very good, but when paired up against such terrible costars, it was hard for him to singlehandedly save the movie.

Tony Randall, who unfortunately has the smallest part of the main four actors, gives a fantastic performance. If only the entire movie were a tete-a-tete between him and David Niven. In his first therapy session, Tony runs the gamut of human emotions, delivering a hilarious and exciting monologue deserving of applause at the end. That scene is hands-down the best scene in the movie. If you love Tony Randall, you're not going to want to skip this movie. If you're just looking for a funny movie that was based off a play and has great comic timing, try out The Impossible Years instead-it's one of my favorites.

There's a Mike Nichols and Elaine May LP sketch about psychiatry (she's the libidinous doctor, he's the patient) from around the same time that manages to do in three minutes what this movie fails to accomplish in an hour and a half: make hilarious sport of the sexual undercurrents implicit in the doctor-patient relationship. This one's done in by a stagy screenplay derived from a hit Broadway sex comedy of the day, an ugly production, and some howlers of miscasting. David Niven's supposed to be a promising young psychiatrist; he's 50 and looks it, and he's mismatched against Barbara Rush as his fiancée, an ostensibly adorable sprite who comes off as grating by today's standards. Dan Dailey (rather good, despite formidable odds) is an "amusingly" alcoholic stage star married to Ginger Rogers, who -- interestingly, given her starring role in "Lady in the Dark" years before -- once again is the woman on the couch who needs to be dominated by an alpha male to be happy. Tony Randall, in what could be considered a warmup for Felix Unger, is the sniveling, fussy, paranoid anhedoniac mixed up in this mixed-up crowd. Writer-director Johnson tries to slam the laughs across, lapsing into overwritten, over-directed fantasy scenes (though it's fun to see Rogers framed by an aluminum-foil halo, like a child in a Christmas pageant) and easy happy endings for nearly all concerned that one doesn't buy for a minute. And, typical of big studio comedies of the time, the characters drink and drink, which is supposed to be hilarious, and meet via unconvincing coincidences (Randall just happens to look up Rush the same night that Dailey does; both just happen to have had flings with her years before; both have just met Niven that very day, who's supposed to sail with her on a honeymoon cruise the next day; etc.). Interesting for the sociology, I guess, as psychiatry was going mainstream, and middle American audiences could chortle at the zany, immature doings of this allegedly smart, cosmopolitan set. But it's a pretty leaden comedy, even by the not-high standards of the time.