FAQ

Newlyweds Paul (Robert Redford) and Corie (Jane Fonda) Bratter move into a one-room, fifth-floor walkup (if you don't count the front stoop) in a Greenwich Village, New York. Paul is a "stuffed-shirt" attorney just starting his practice, while Corie is a free-spirit who wants to have fun. When they double-date with Corie's conservative mother Ethel Banks (Mildred Natwick) and quirky Bohemian neighbor Victor Velasco (Charles Boyer), Corie realizes that she and Paul are hopelessly mismatched and asks for a divorce.

Barefoot in the Park is based on a 1963 play by American playwright Neil Simon. Simon also adapted the play for the movie. It's said that Simon based the story on his first marriage.

Sometimes spelled "Shama shama el mal kema ma", "Shama shama elma commama", of "Shama Shama ela mai kemama", the song is presented in the film as a traditional Albanian folk song. When Corie asks what it means, Victor tells her "Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care." In reality, "Shama Shama" was created for the play.

Victor prepares knichi for Corie, Paul, and Ethyl, describing it as a 2,000-year-old Japanese dish made of bits of salted eel, grated olives, spices, and onion batter. The trick to eating knichi is to pop it onto the center of your tongue in order to let the palate get the full flavor. If you nibble on knichi, it tastes bitter. In reality, there is no such dish. Neil Simon created it just for the play.

After eating knichi, the group goes to a small, hole-in-the-wall Albanian restaurant for pelmenchki, a special dish that the restaurant serves only twice a year. Like knichi, pelmenchki was created just for the play. Be sure, however, should you ever encounter pelmenchki in real life, to pour into it a glass of ouzo or it will go sour.

After some sage advice from her mother, Corie goes looking for Paul. She finds him in Washington Square Park, stinking drunk, barefoot, and coatless in −2°F (−19°C) weather. Paul decides that it's his apartment (the lease is in his name) and that Corie can move out because he's going back home. Corie follows him back, notices that he's burning up with a fever, and orders him to go to bed. Still drunk as a shunk, Paul climbs out the bedroom window and up onto the roof where he hollars, "I want to be a nut!", down to Corie through the broken hole in the skylight. Realizing that she doesn't want a nut but wants back her strong and dependable husband, Corie pleads with him to come inside. Teetering on the ledge, Paul suddenly begins to panic. Corie gets Paul to sing the "Shama Shama" chant while she climbs out on the roof after him as a crowd of pedestrians line up to watch. In the final scene, Corie helps Paul back onto the roof, and they throw their arms around each other. "Oh good, they made up," Ethyl says to Victor.