A silly sex comedy that's often wildly inappropriate in old-school, male-centric ways, and yet, a light bit of entertainment if you don't take it too seriously. Goldie Hawn is like a 1960's "It" girl and charming with her impossibly big eyes and her teeny miniskirts, and seeing Ingrid Bergman out dancing in a mod way is truly priceless. The script has lots of little zingers and the cast knew how to deliver them, which keeps the film humming along. There are also various other cute little things, e.g. the 60's décor, an interior shot at the Guggenheim and several scenes inside a record store, which made perusing the albums on the wall kind of fun.
Walter Matthau was 49 and too old to be a romantic interest of Goldie Hawn (24), but at least the film shows us it's aware of this fact, with someone quipping "Cheer up, one of these days the foxtrot may come back" as he sits watching the dancers at a nightclub. It seems to reinforce the double standard but eventually calls it out with the evolution of Bergman's character, including this wonderful exchange:
Matthau: I must say it's grotesque, a woman your age throwing yourself at a kid like that. Bergman: What about that father-and-daughter thing of yours? If you don't think that looks ridiculous... Matthau: It's different with a man. A man with a younger woman looks appropriate. But when it's the other way around... Bergman: You go to your church and I'll go to mine.
On the other hand, each and every one of the male characters does something inappropriate, and this is on top of the lying and womanizing from the middle-aged men. The dentist (Matthau) puts his arm around an older patient's waist and says "Besides being bad for your teeth Mrs. Durant, think of how caramels can hurt those splendid hips." (She of course responds with all smiles and wishes he were an obstetrician). His pal (Jack Weston) is a complete horndog and talks about topless nurses at another dentist's office, hits on the nurse (Bergman), and makes all sorts of wink-wink-nudge-nudge comments about playing around. Another patient talks put his arm around the nurse and talks about how Spanish men have developed an ability to guess what women look like undressed. Even the nice guy nextdoor neighbor (Rick Lenz) begins making out with Goldie Hawn while giving her CPR.
Despite Bergman's little triumph, this is a man's world out of the 1950's; don't let the music like "I'm a Believer" fool you. It's notable that even Hawn's character excuses the philandering (or what she believes to be philandering), by thinking this guy is "honest" for telling her he's married, and later saying she knows he must play around with women even other than her because "after all, when a man is in a terrible marriage..." So, depending on your sensitivity to this kind of thing, or to silly story lines in general, you may be a little less amused ... but I liked it for its playfulness anyway, and think it's worth checking out.
Walter Matthau was 49 and too old to be a romantic interest of Goldie Hawn (24), but at least the film shows us it's aware of this fact, with someone quipping "Cheer up, one of these days the foxtrot may come back" as he sits watching the dancers at a nightclub. It seems to reinforce the double standard but eventually calls it out with the evolution of Bergman's character, including this wonderful exchange:
Matthau: I must say it's grotesque, a woman your age throwing yourself at a kid like that. Bergman: What about that father-and-daughter thing of yours? If you don't think that looks ridiculous... Matthau: It's different with a man. A man with a younger woman looks appropriate. But when it's the other way around... Bergman: You go to your church and I'll go to mine.
On the other hand, each and every one of the male characters does something inappropriate, and this is on top of the lying and womanizing from the middle-aged men. The dentist (Matthau) puts his arm around an older patient's waist and says "Besides being bad for your teeth Mrs. Durant, think of how caramels can hurt those splendid hips." (She of course responds with all smiles and wishes he were an obstetrician). His pal (Jack Weston) is a complete horndog and talks about topless nurses at another dentist's office, hits on the nurse (Bergman), and makes all sorts of wink-wink-nudge-nudge comments about playing around. Another patient talks put his arm around the nurse and talks about how Spanish men have developed an ability to guess what women look like undressed. Even the nice guy nextdoor neighbor (Rick Lenz) begins making out with Goldie Hawn while giving her CPR.
Despite Bergman's little triumph, this is a man's world out of the 1950's; don't let the music like "I'm a Believer" fool you. It's notable that even Hawn's character excuses the philandering (or what she believes to be philandering), by thinking this guy is "honest" for telling her he's married, and later saying she knows he must play around with women even other than her because "after all, when a man is in a terrible marriage..." So, depending on your sensitivity to this kind of thing, or to silly story lines in general, you may be a little less amused ... but I liked it for its playfulness anyway, and think it's worth checking out.