BEFORE: Jack Lemmon film #3 in this chain, and this seems like it will be a continuation of the exploration of the battle between the sexes. "The Great Race" dealt with the emancipation of women (their words, not mine) and "Irma La Douce" showed their sexual liberation (umm, sort of). This one flips the script from "Irma La Douce", in which Jack Lemmon played the faithful lover of a hooker with many partners - tonight Lemmon's character is the non-monogamous one.
THE PLOT: A love-struck landlord tries to convince a pretty tenant to dump her fiance and give him a chance.
AFTER: I don't know where to start with this one - it features a long list of deplorable behavior which is somehow connected to the sexual revolution of the 1960's, and Lemmon plays a "swinging single" owner/landlord of a building who treats all of the women as his sexual playthings - and those that aren't into him just need a little "convincing", that's all.
I'll begin with the opening song, which sort of sets the tone. Maybe this was viewed as harmless, but the song is about the title Yum Yum tree ("Yum Yum" is later revealed as a euphemism for sex...) whose scent is so appealing, that if you bring a woman under the tree, it will put her in the mood and get her "happy love juices" flowing. Say what now? Perhaps a metaphor, but I just found this too vulgar and more than a little rapey.
(In fact, "flowing juices" are mentioned three times in the first ten minutes of the film - so either the writer was desperate to carry the song lyrics into the script, or he was so lazy he couldn't come up with another metaphor for love. Lazy, lazy, lazy. And a little icky.)
As for Lemmon's horndog landlord, Hogan - he's got a master key to everyone's apartment, his flat is one of those red-walled bachelor pads with push-button candles, remote-controlled violins, not much furniture except for a bed and a bar, and African fertility sculptures. No doubt the whips and restraints are in the side closet, next to the gorilla costume. He rents his rooms to single women only - when men come around suddenly the rent quintuples, which is a clear violation of fair housing laws. And then he (apparently) doesn't allow any drapes or frosted windows, and his tenants seem happy to oblige him by undressing and showering in front of open windows - geez, you'd think eventually they'd catch on.
His latest conquest, a college professor is moving out, after their relationship fell flat - in a contrivance he accidentally rents to his ex-girlfriend's niece, Robin, and her roommate (another college student, or was he a teacher? This was a bit unclear.) without considering that said roommate could be a man. Young Robin is engaged in a social experiment of her own, to find out if she can live with her boyfriend platonically, since she doesn't want to see her relationship go downhill after marriage, and once the passion cools, to be stuck married to someone she can't stand.
It's a noble goal, but the logic just isn't there to support it. "Let's not have sex now to see if we can someday be married." Abstinence just doesn't work, as proven once again in this week's headlines. It's better not to mess with the pattern I mentioned the other day - friends, lovers, roommates, spouses. The only time you should consider a different the pattern is if you're a Hollywood screenwriter and you want to sow chaos and confusion into a fictional relationship (as in "The Goodbye Girl") Again, I'm confused by the logic - how is living together without being married (sex or no sex, whichever) somehow worse than living alone and potentially having flings with multiple partners? I mean, let's be real and just view cohabitation as part of the natural progression.
With one man in love with Robin, but committed to not having sex with her, and the other man trying to have sex with her, but with no intention of love or commitment, the classic love triangle is set in place. When the aunt comes back into the picture, it's almost a love rectangle, but she ends up sleeping with Hogan again, just for revenge, and to get him out of her system. Umm, that'll show him?
Aunt Irene, the professor, is a strange character - she seems to be teaching some form of feminism - but there's a weird variety of it here. Maybe 1963 represents a strange time in American sexual politics, when women were already in the workforce and juggling career and family, but also still struggling for equal rights. (Thank God those days are over, am I right?) I'm guessing Robin's flunking her classes on women's studies, because she can't wait to keep house and cook and clean for her man. She even cuts school so that she can shop for groceries and get the laundry done. Way to put yourself first, girl. Why can't HE help with the shopping and the laundry while she focuses on her studies?
She's also so clueless that she can't see Hogan for what he is, she just thinks he's a kooky guy who likes to give her rides or take her to dinner, while not noticing the fact that he's peeping in her window and keeps turning up in her apartment somehow. (Geez, how is this guy not in jail? Thirty years later he'd have surveillance cameras installed in every woman's apartment.) Meanwhile, Hogan is playing upon the fact that he and Robin's boyfriend were in the same fraternity to give him horrible advice on how to keep avoiding sex, assuming that she'll eventually turn to her landlord. Is that any way to treat your frat brother?
Eventually the plans are all revealed, and the boyfriend determines that the old ways are the best - trying to romance women with poetry and alcohol. Liquid lubrication, it's a classic. But if you're really in love, you shouldn't need to get a woman drunk. Did he consider having an open discussion about how the plan isn't working? If they're really meant for each other, they should be able to have a rational conversation about re-negotiating the arrangement. Or the simpler method would be to declare the experiment a success - "Honey, now that we've been living together for 2 weeks, let's consider adding sex to the equation." How simple is that? Although, then you wouldn't have such a farcical apartment complex.
It's a long time before the landlord gets his comeuppance - the foil characters, a married superintendent and cleaning woman, cover his tracks for nearly the whole picture, tacitly approving his lifestyle, before eventually splitting (no doubt to save their own marriage, that super was bound to get ideas with all those women showering and exercising with the windows open). In reality, this guy should have gotten a fist to his face the first time he entered a woman's apartment uninvited with his master key.
I'm tempted to give this film a "2" just to make a point, but I have to keep reminding myself that this was made during a different era. I can't necessarily impose today's values on yesterday's swingers. This may remind some people of an early "Three's Company"-like situation, while the inside of the apartment looks a bit like the set of "Two and a Half Men".
Also starring Carol Lynley (last seen in "The Poseidon Adventure"), Dean Jones (last seen in "The Sugarland Express"), Edie Adams (last seen in "The Apartment"), Paul Lynde, Imogene Coca, Robert Lansing, with cameos from Bill Bixby (also carrying over from "Irma La Douce"), Army Archerd, Linda Gray.
RATING: 3 out of 10 shots of Mezcal
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