Kiss Me, Stupid
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.98 You Save: $8.00 (53%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $6.28 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Kiss Me, Stupid
Movie Review: Kiss Me Stupid
Summary: 2 Stars
This movie is intriguing because it was written by Billy Wilder and stars Dean Martin and Kim Novak. It may entertain hard-core fans and its subject matter was considered racy for its time, but the story never fully transcends conventional 1950s influences.Movie Review: Poor Mr Martin
Summary: 2 Stars
A rather unfunny film that has dated badly. Some moments but really misses the mark. Avoid.Movie Review: Stupid and stupider. One of the worst films ever made.
Summary: 1 Stars
Billy Wilder is one of the great writer-directors. "Some Like It Hot," "Sunset Blvd.," "Stalag 17," and "Double Indemnity" remain critical and popular successes."Kiss Me, Stupid" is his most-controversial film, and for good reason - it's one of the very worst films ever made by a respected major director. Had Wilder obeyed his basic artistic rule -- "What would Lubitsch do?" -- "Kiss Me, Stupid" would never have been made.
"Stupid" is a "bookend" for "The Apartment." In the latter, a man figuratively prostitutes himself to get ahead. In the former, a man literally prostitutes his wife to the same end. You might conceivably make a genuinely funny or dramatically valid film about a woman debasing herself to advance her husband's career, but "Stupid" isn't it.
"Stupid" opens appropriately with Dean Martin as a Las Vegas singer/comic, playing a charmless and obnoxious version of his boozing, womanizing alter ego. "Dino"'s humor is vulgar and unfunny, but the audience and four waiters laugh their heads off. A fifth waiter -- representing Wilder himself -- stands unsmiling, with an expression that clearly indicates what he thinks of Dino. (When the director uses a stand-in to tell the audience how they're supposed to view the proceedings, you _know_ that what follows is going to be, at the very least, heavy-handed and unsubtle.)
Meanwhile, in Climax, Nevada (yes, there really is such a place), piano teacher Ray Walston is venting his jealousy at every man (including the milkman) who comes near his adorable wife (Felicia Farr). When not teaching piano, he's working with the local auto mechanic (Cliff Osmond) on songs (actually unpublished Gershwin-brothers garbage) they hope will make their fortune.
Taking a forced detour on the way to LA, Dino stops to buy gas. Osmond sabotages his car and convinces him to spend the night at Walston's house, where Walston and Osmond can pitch their songs. Osmond suggests that Dino's uncontrollable libido can be turned to their advantage by letting the singer have sex with Farr (the ex-president of Dino's fan club!), thus guaranteeing the sale of their songs. (Note the cynical assumption that sex will procure the sale, regardless of the songs' quality.)
There's no need to let Dino actually boff Farr, because she can be replaced with one of the "waitresses" at "The Belly Button," a local road house. After much arguing, Walston reluctantly agrees, and proceeds -- on their wedding anniversary! -- to cruelly kick his wife out of the house.
By this time Osmond has returned with Polly the Pistol (Kim Novak). The next half-hour revolves around Walston trying to convince Dino that his "wife" is ready, willing, and able. But as Novak begins to take a sincere interest in Walston (she detests Dino and, though being paid, has no desire to hit the sack with him), Walston responds with his characteristic jealousy and kicks Dino out -- then goes to bed with Novak. (Yes, I know, none of this makes much sense.)
Farr has meanwhile been getting drunk at "The Belly Button." She can't hold her liquor, so the madam suggests she sleep in Novak's trailer. Then Dino shows up, desperate for a piece of tail -- if he doesn't have sex every night, he has a severe headache the next day -- and is referred to the trailer by a bartender who doesn't know Novak is away.
When Dino tells Farr the local piano teacher kicked him out, she realizes what's going on, and tries, with apparent success, to sell Dino on "Sophia," one of the dreadful songs Walston pitched. Farr winds up having sex with Dino, even though he doesn't know she's Walston's wife, and he leaves $500 for her services. When Novak comes home, Farr gives her the $500 so she can buy a car and look for a better life.
Though understanding Walston's motives, Farr nevertheless wants to divorce him. As they're about to enter the lawyer's office, next to a hardware store with TV sets in the window, they hear Dino singing "Sophia" on his TV special, and prasing Walston and Osmond for their song-writing abilities. Walston admits he has no idea what's going on but he still loves her. Farr responds, "Kiss me, stupid." The End.
"Stupid" repeats a theme that pervades much of Wilder's work -- people will do _anything_ for money, no matter how degrading. This is hardly a profound insight, but in his other films it's usually subordinate to some greater issue. Here the audience's faces are rubbed in it.
"Stupid"'s unerring vulgarity is exceeded only by the illogic of its resolution. What's the point of Farr going to bed with Dino when she doesn't tell him who she is, and thus has no leverage to persuade him to buy the song? (Not to mention that Dino _pays_ for her services.) Are we supposed to believe she's "nobly" prostituted herself to help her husband? She hasn't. This negates what appears to be the intended point of the film, leaving us witnesses to a two-hour dirty joke with no punch line.
Would "Stupid" have been better with Peter Sellers? No. Ray Walston's performance has been called "charmless," and why shouldn't it be? Are we supposed to feel sympathy for, or identification with, a pathologically jealous man who treats his wife despicably, then commits adultery? Her dalliance with Dino neither justifies nor explains anything -- other than the desire to "get it on" with her favorite singer. It can't be seen as "revenge" for her husband's infidelity, of which she knows nothing.
"Stupid" is the perfect example of Oscar Wilde's dictum that "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well-written or badly written." There's nothing wrong with "Kiss Me, Stupid"'s subject matter -- only the vulgar, witless, and _stupid_ way it `s handled. "Stupid" is neither a sophisticated sex farce, nor even a cynical view of American mores and values. Rather, it's Billy Wilder spewing bile at the human race -- and nothing more.
Movie Review: Risky material for its time.
Summary: 1 Stars
Horrid entertainment for the 00's.
I read mixed reviews for this flick, but I bought the DVD out of admiration for Billy Wilder, and a respect for the humor that Dean Martin generally lends to a role. Oh man, was that ever a mistake.
Before I get into the part about this being the worst movie I've ever seen, my family was in the theater business when I was a kid, and I asked my dad why I'd never heard of this flick before, all he said was "it was banned....too controversial for the time." Well I should have listened to him, by "controversial" I thought maybe he meant that this Wilder film was ahead of its time, avant garde sort of stuff and like that. haw haw haw But what he was actually talking about was the theme of marital infidelity that is at the core of the script.
OK, well other comedies of the 50's & 60's addressed the issue of infidelity too, but as far as I know only another Wilder project, "The Apartment", actually provided a vehicle where anybody was SUCCESSFUL at it! But thats not why this movie is so bad, and I'm no angel but a premise where a Vegas singer shows up at your house and expects to hose down your wife during his stay just because he's there is sort of disquieting...OK, that pisses me off alright.
But the real A Number 1 reason this movie sucks sooooooo bad is Ray Walston. Now, Mr Walston was a fine character actor and had some theatre to his credit, but he is the central character of this flick and as such he occupies the camera too much. He's annoying. He's irritating. He only has one speed...frantic, and he aint that easy to look at for 2 hours at a time. And if he wasnt bad enough, Kim Novak shows up with a cold, a Brooklyn accent, and at least 20 extra pounds which I suppose is what hookers in Nevada were supposed to look like before HBO.
Somebody with a little star power like a Jack Lemmon could have saved this turkey, but if all that wasnt bad enough, this thing was actually produced in Black and White. Yes, its 1964 and they are still making movies in B&W. That surprised even me. You've been warned. 1 Poached Egg