Sex and the Single Girl (1964) and some Belated Thoughts

Some months ago, when I was working on my review of the Natalie Wood boxed set, I invited a couple friends over to watch Sex and the Single Girl (1964) with me. All three of us were pretty horrified by the ridiculousness of this film. Yes I know it's the 1960s and there are a plethora of silly films from that era (many of which I enjoy immensely) but this one was ridiculous to the point of being just plain stupid. How did this film even get made?

When I was reading David R. Slavitt's book George Sanders, Zsa Zsa and Me for review on this blog, I got my answer. Director Richard Quine (known to me primarily as Susan Peters' ex-husband) was desperate for money to pay back taxes, alimony and child support. He also owes his publicist Goldblatt a considerable amount of money. To pay him back he has to work on a new movie, any new movie. Goldblatt also worked for Tony Curtis who thought it would be fun to make a movie with his friends Henry Fonda, Lauren Bacall, Natalie Wood and Mel Ferrer. Warner Brothers had just paid 800 grand for the rights to Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl not realizing that it was a nonfiction book with no plot line whatsoever. All they knew is that the book was a bestseller and culturally significant. So Quine needs movie, Curtis and his cronies want to make a movie together and WB has rights to a socially important book. All three elements literally crash together to make a mess of a movie.

Some other thoughts on this film:

My original review
Sarah's enthusiastic review on Cinema Splendor (she can appreciate strange '60s films like no one else can)
Nicola also didn't like it. Vintage Film Nerd.
Mercurie mentions this film in Part 3 of his excellent series on Sex Comedies. A Shroud of Thoughts.

Born to Kill (1947) @ Chez Kevin

On Sunday night, a few friends came over to Chez Kevin for dessert and a movie. Just this past October, Kevin had purchased his first home. A condo; the first floor in a historic Queen Anne style home. I am not exaggerating when I say that everyone who sees Kevin's place is absolutely gobsmacked. The home is filled with character, has a gorgeous layout, nice big rooms and original Queen Anne details. My favorite details are the Queen Anne style tiles around one of his two fireplaces and an old-fashioned pencil sharpener. Kevin decorated it well with lots of nice furniture, candles and other special accents.

Before we watched the movie, I took some pictures of Kevin's place. He's got extensive collections of DVDs, books on movies as well as movie poster artwork. Here are some highlights:

Here is Kevin's main bookcase for his DVDs. Notice the painting on top? It's a commission painting done by the ultra-talented Kate Gabrielle of James Dean in Giant (1954). Kevin's always given me very thoughtful gifts, so for his last birthday I thought I'd do something special for him.

This is part of his collection of DVD boxed sets.

When Kevin was debating what movie to show, he considered Fellini's Nights of Cabiria (1957). He has a poster of the film in his living room.

Two of Kevin's favorite directors.

Here are some more movie posters (Italian). When you walk through Kevin's condo, there is no doubt that the person who lives there is a true film buff!

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After much debate as to what to show during the movie night, Kevin ultimately decided on Born to Kill (1947). He introduced it to us as a film noir, that is as dramatic as it is darkly humorous. I met Kevin a couple years ago when I was a student in his film noir class, so for him to show a film in this genre for his first official movie night was a special treat for me.

I hadn't seen Born to Kill before so I was looking forward to watching a film new to me.

Or so I thought.

Born to Kill (1947) stars Claire Trevor and Lawrence Tierney. Trevor is a divorcee who witnesses the aftermath of a murder committed by Tierney. She is both terrified and entranced with Tierney, tapping into her own murderous and evil tendencies. Trevor is engaged to a rich man in order to gain her own financial freedom from her rich foster-sister, Audrey Long. Tierney punishes Trevor by marrying Long and using her for his own selfish purposes.

As I was watching the film, certain things seemed awfully familiar. Then when I saw actress Isabell Jewell, who plays Laury Palmer, I had a vision of her lying, prostrate on the floor, dead, the camera focusing on her shoes. At one point, I wanted to point at the television and proclaim "She gets murdered! I remember her shoes!". Alas, I held my tongue so as to not ruin the movie for anyone. It's not much of a spoiler, considering most of the story is based on the investigation of her murder, but it would have been rude otherwise. When the image I had in mind popped up on the screen, I knew that indeed I had seen this film.

Isn't it amazing that one can watch a film, forget all about it with the exception of one solitary image? That seems to happen to me a lot.

Some topics of conversation from pre-show and post-show bonding.

1) Lawrence Tierney was an intimidating man. Onscreen and off.

2) Lawrence Tierney once played Elaine's dad on Seinfeld.

3) In the late 1940s, folks were fascinated by evil women. This explains why so many films during this era showcased femme fatales.

4) Costume Designer Edward Stevenson had a penchant for strange hats and head-dresses as well assymetrical clothing.

5) Engagements were unusually short in those days.

6) The popcorn that Lisa brought in from Trader Joe's was absolutely delicious!

Thanks again to Kevin for such a great movie night! I'm looking forward to his next one.

ALERT to all Classic Film Bloggers

A Google Alert for keywords "Charles Emmett Mack" alerted me to the fact that http://pakway.blogspot.com and it's mirror site http://guromusic.blogspot.com have stolen entire posts from my site. I have gone through the site thoroughly, identified all of my blog posts and have written to the blog administrator asking that my posts be removed immediately. He asked specifically for which links to remove. I have also found other film blogger's content on there as and I made sure I contacted them directly about their content being stolen.

I have alerted other folks on Twitter but thought I'd make an announcement here.

This person is continuously adding new content to his blog so your blog may be next. Check your stats. If you see IP Address 119.152.53.101 from Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan in your stats, then assume the blog thief in question is trying to steal your content.

This person has a disclaimer at the bottom of the posts that says that what he is doing is not illegal. If your content is not copyrighted, it's really a free for all. Take the opportunity to add a copyright disclaimer at the bottom of your blog and on the RSS feed of your individual posts.

Don't take the "Oh I'm sorry for you, but I'm glad it didn't happen to me" stance. Even if it hasn't happened yet, it can happen in the future.

And if you find someone else's content stolen, please stick up for them! Let them know about their content being stolen and complain on their behalf. We have to stick together as a community of bloggers. We all work really hard on our blogs and we can't allow scrap bloggers to leech off of us like this.