Director: Billy Wilder
Year Released: 1964
Rating: 3.0
Oh come on people, it isn't nearly that bad. There was a point in which I was a little concerned with the direction it was taking - this could have very easily gone down the path I was predicting and never right itself - but what Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond were doing was poking fun at the "sexual liberation" of not just the Rat Pack (Dean Martin, in a wonderfully self-mocking role, is only referred to only as "Dino," his "character" with an appetite for booze and women) but the entire culture as well. Couldn't anyone "get" the tongue-in-cheek remarks by Dino about how if he doesn't "score" he wakes up with a "terrible headache," the phallic bottle of Chianti (the bottle neck is several feet long) or Ray Walston (the "square") and his sweatshirts with the famous pianists on it? It isn't flawless like a lot of Wilder & Diamond's other works - it should be a lot shorter (the middle act wears out its welcome) - but hardly "smut." On the contrary - it's quite conservative.
