Un amant dans le grenier

I teach a high-school Film History class and use this movie to give the students a real taste of the 60's. London is the setting for this film, and London was the THE happening place in 1968. The Art Direction is superb. Every scene gives a visual clue to the styles and sensibilities of that "mod" generation. The costumes designed by the famous Zandra Rhodes were on the cutting edge for their time. I'd kill for one of those dresses today. The plot is silly,sweet and no great shakes, but this film captures the spirit of the time better than any I've seen. I waited for 25 years for this movie to come out on video, and finally received it from my husband on our 25th wedding anniversary. I believe some scenes were cut for the video, but it still remains our all-time favorite movie, if only for the nostalgia it evokes. My students LOVE it!!

In 1968 I worked as a projectionist. I saw thousands of movies. Memories of this one, among few, have stuck with me for all these years.

Richard Attenborough at his "dry" best. Shirley Maclain at her most sexy and appealing as a bored housewife. James Booth, her "house guest" is a charmer. Along with a host of other fascinating characters an extraordinary look at the 60s English culture and sense of humor.

Keeping your paramour in the attic for the occasional tryst whilst hubby is off making brassieres. It makes for great comedy If you get a chance to see this.....do it. It is worth your time and you will enjoy it.

A relic of its time this poorly conceived so called comedy coupled with Sweet Charity and several other losers killed off Shirley's film career the first time around. Within two years she was finished on screen and was out of pictures for almost a decade until her comeback in The Turning Point. This is one of the unfortunate crop of late 60's movies that tried to cash in on the so called youth wave with the overuse of psychedelic colors and disjointed scenes rather than a cohesive script. The desired effect, whatever that was, is not achieved all that is accomplished is to bore the audience and leave them with eye strain from the overdone color scheme. Skip it!

The sort of nonsense that brought the British cinema to its knees at the end of the sixties. Considering how politically correct Shirley MacLaine was to become during the seventies this seems to have something to offend everyone. Suffused throughout with gaudy Dayglo colours; and believe it or not written by the guy who ten years earlier had shared script credit on 'Vertigo' and shot by the cameraman who had recently shot '2001'!

Nothing dates faster than something trying hard to be trendy; and Fellini seems to have inspired the raucous fantasy scenes. Constant product placement of long vanished items like the 'Teach Yourself' series of handbooks make this film feel as it was made over fifty years ago.

Ye Gods it was!

I found the film extremely hard to watch. I saw it on Netflix and I kept stopping it after fifteen or twenty minutes and resuming it the next day until I got through the whole thing.

I generally like Shirley Maclaine and Richard Attenborough and I like splashy British psychedelic 60's movies like "Casino Royale" and "What's New Pussycat" However, Maclaine was unexpectedly listless and dull and Attenborough, despite a brave attempt, could not bring a spark of life to the movie. The great sets are wasted in a movie that seems to want to be hip or hippie, but doesn't know how.

Someone named James Booth is the real star. It was a surprise to see such an unknown actor actually given more screen time than big stars like Maclaine and Attenborough. I kept thinking he was going to disappear from the movie, but instead his part just grew bigger and bigger to the point of pushing the other stars out. To be fair, He apparently did star in five or six movies low budget, moderately successful films in the 60's, but then went into playing mostly guest star television roles for the next 40 years. He plays a part that desperately needs the zaniness of Peter Sellers. One feels as if the part of Ambrose Tuttle, a crazy spaced out genius was written with Sellers in mind. Booth is much too laid back for the absurd cartoon style of the character and the work.

The movie is visually quite interesting, but it pitches, rolls and jumps all over the place. Sadly, the director seems to know nothing about directing actors or scenes. The actors seem to be talking directly to the audience and not each other. This has the effect of making the movie seem like a long episode of the 1960's television show "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in," but without any jokes. The wonderful time that all the characters appear to be having is not infectious, but annoying.

Anyways, I give the movie one star for Maclaine, one star for Attenborough and one star for the sets, but everything else is a gigantic bore in the film. If you're heavily stoned when watching, as the filmmakers appear to have been when putting this mess together, you can add another three stars.