I just watched Good Neighbor Sam, a movie where an ad man pretends to be his wife's best friend's husband so she can inherit 15 million dollars. All the while they have to dodge a PI hired by her grandfather's relatives to prove they aren't really man and wife. And at work he needs his image as a wholesome choirboy to keep an account with a showily moral client.Jack Lemmon is in the lead, and with him are Dorothy Provine, Romy Schneider, and a memorable turn by Edward G Robinson as the client.
The 60s were weird. I don't mean the counterculture. Just the straight world, with its oddly ambitious "shot like a suburb" movies.
The 60s were weird. I don't mean the counterculture. Just the straight world, with its oddly ambitious "shot like a suburb" movies.
2 comments:
I can't say I remember this one although it's likely it's one I saw back in the days when television ran old movies. Jack Lemmon certainly made his share of very popular films that had complicated social situation plots. Two of the very best were 'The Apartment' and the even better 'Some Like it Hot' - Marilyn Monroe was great in that one playing off Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon who were escaping mobsters by pretending to be musicians in an all girl band.
You're right about 60s movies focus on suburbia - likely part of encouraging a new middle class to take part in the world's biggest shopping spree. Did you ever read David Halberstram's 'The Fifties'? It's quite fascinating and goes a long way toward explaining how much, and how fast, things changed in the US after wwii.
I liked Jack Lemmon a lot. Some Like It Hot and The Apartment are both must-sees in my book. In fact a friend of mine recently saw the former and I told him he needed to see the latter, which he also wound up loving.
This was not a bad movie. There are interesting touches that make it seem something like an art movie in brightly colored sitcom skin. Its problem is overlength. Mike Connors is brought in to further complicate things when the movie should be about wrapping up.
I do remember reading The Fifties. I'm sure it could stand rereading, as I remember there was a lot of good and interesting material. People at the time could see the economic and technological changes taking place, but didn't know how much social change they were in for.
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