Un amant dans le grenier

This light-as-a-bubble comedy annoyed me at first with its giddy farcicality but slowly won me over with the gentle wisdom at its core. Polyamory may not be for everybody, but in this story it transforms life for the three main characters: a lonely housewife, her businessman husband, and her underachieving lover. The story moves right along and takes some clever, unexpected turns before arriving at an enormous final irony. All the performances are good.

(Special note to "Zulu" fans: "Blossom" contains a few sly allusions to that great film, including scenes where James Booth shows up in a red tunic. The effect is somewhat incongruous, though, because Tuttle's voice and manner are completely unlike Hookie's.)

A psychedelic film from the 60s that hasn't aged very well. It was probably rated higher when it was released and may have been popular with the teenagers of the time but now it's difficult to watch. A lot of money must have been spent on the fantasy sequences with lavish sets that appear only briefly. A strange film to have some big name actors, and actresses, in it which would not have come cheap. I wonder if it ever manage to make a profit?

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!

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.

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.