BEFORE: Why, you might ask, am I focusing on divorce during a month dedicated to films about love and romance? I could point out that it's a part of relationships, you have to take the bad with the good and so on, but my choices will be made more clear once we reach Valentine's Day - I'm building to something, I hope.
Really, I'm continuing a look at the attitudes toward marriage in the 1960's - and trying to maintain some kind of linked actor chain at the same time. Tony Curtis from "Sex and the Single Girl" was also in the gender-switching comedy "Goodbye, Charlie" with Debbie Reynolds, who appears in tonight's film.
THE PLOT: A couple argues, then visits a marriage counselor, They split up. After meeting other people, they are re-united at a night club where they realize that their marriage was better than their divorce.
AFTER: According to last night's film and this one, all that married people do is argue. I'm not saying that they don't, but to only portray married people as bickering, selfish lunatics sort of reduces them to ridiculous stereotypes, like a cartoon Andy Capp and his wife.
This film opens with a dinner party, and then concentrates on the argument that follows - and once the shouting is over and neither spouse listens to or tries to understand the other, the fight continues silently as they prepare for bed and go about their nightly routines. It's almost like an angry choreography, sliding closet doors back and forth, using noisy appliances to aggravate each other, aiming that clipped toenail JUST right, whether accidental or intentional, so it lands in their mate's personal space. Did they ever consider just using the bathroom at different times?
Sure, men and women may argue differently. Women want to talk about their feelings, and then men write them off as emotional and irrational. Men judge themselves by their income and material goods, and no doubt felt threatened when women became more assertive in the workplace in the 1960's. There are germs of truth there, no doubt, but it all just feels so trite, like it's been covered before in so many other movies and TV shows.
There are intended comedy bits - like showing the free-for-all environment of a group of families as parents try to separate out the kids from their first marriages from the kids from their second marriages, and everyone needs to figure out who's got custody of who this weekend - but the chaos is so grossly exaggerated that the comedy got lost, and it just seems like a confusing mess, and sad. Ha ha, one kid got left behind. Not really funny, is it?
To the film's credit, it's a full 90 minutes before someone tries to pull a deceptive scheme - Mr. Harman gets a new girlfriend, and her ex-husband sets up the ex-Mrs. Harman with a new boyfriend, so she'll get married and not need alimony any more, and more of Mr. Harman's paycheck can go to support his new family, should things get that far. It seems like a long way to go.
Even though they're seeing other people, the movie tries to engineer Mr. and Mrs. Harman back together. Somehow dating other people got them on the same page again (really? please explain how...) and they fall back into the same old pattern, which includes arguing. So, they learned nothing, then?
What's sad is that even after they realize they might be perfect for each other again, the film can't allow them to express their feelings openly and honestly, as adults might. Instead there's a hypnotist act in a nightclub that forces the issue, which is a cheap way to get there. How do we know whether she has genuine feelings for her ex-husband, or obeying some kind of hypnotic suggestion?
As with last night's film, the overall message is unclear - should people get divorced? Should they try to stay married? Can they learn to share a bathroom?
Also starring Dick Van Dyke (last heard in "Curious George"), Jason Robards (last seen in "The Legend of the Lone Ranger"), Jean Simmons (last seen in "How to Make an American Quilt"), Van Johnson, with cameos from Tom Bosley, Lee Grant, and a young Tim Matheson.
RATING: 3 out of 10 hair curlers
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