Rent Kiss Me Stupid (1964)

Bitter Comedy. - Kiss Me Stupid review by Steve

Really odd sex comedy, which rips up fifties Hollywood censorship. Dean Martin plays 'Dino', basically his own image. The film starts with him telling booze jokes on a stage in Las Vegas. He intends to drive to LA to do his tv show, but gets sidetracked by a small town schmuck who wants to sell him songs.

It was generous of Martin to play such a cynical version of his playboy persona. The songwriter (Ray Walston) knows Dino is going to sleep with his wife (Felicia Farr) so he swaps her for hooker/waitress Kim Novak to help grease the sale of his Italian ballads. Peter Sellers was originally cast as the musician and it's hard not to wonder what might have been (he had a heart attack).

The problem is, given the possibilities of the post-censorship era, Billy Wilder doesn't do anything interesting with the freedom. The married couple can have casual sex, but it's hard to care. There are a few laughs, but there isn't the moral complexity which gave his comedies depth and feeling. And without this, his cynicism is often cruel.

Kim Novak miraculously gives her 2D tart-with-a-heart archetype a little pathos. It's a handsome looking B&W film with an interesting setting; the encroaching Pottersville of postwar America. Novak lives in a proto-trailer park. The cocktail bar on the edge of town offers customers the girls as well as hard liquor. The social history is absorbing, but too much else misfires.