The brilliant Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond created some of the screen's most memorable films. This, sadly, is not one of them. In the 1950s Wilder tried very, very hard to make delightful sex comedies in imitation of his idol, Ernst Lubitsch.
But Wilder and Diamond's acidic cynicism could not be further from Lubitsch's affectionate, sophisticated farces. Lubitsch loved his charming cuckolds and adulterers and made us love them too. Wilder and Diamond seem to HATE every one of the crass, tacky characters in this movie.
Walston's deluded husband and his grease monkey friend are repellent and the women are degradingly portrayed as trashy sex objects or mindlessly compliant Stepford wives. The tone is as far from Lubitsch as A is from Z.
The misanthropy that proved so effective in the underrated ACE IN THE HOLE is totally wrong for this sex farce, whose characters act in ways that bear little resemblance to human behavior.
When the innocent wife peeks through a window and sees her husband embracing a prostitute, what does she do? Barge in and ask what the heck is going on? No. She repairs to the local brothel and gets blind drunk. HUH??? Similarly, the husband tries to drive his loving wife out of the house, so he can implement his money-making scheme, by being gratuitously cruel to her -- in a long scene so cringe-worthy it makes you feel like taking a shower after watching it. How could Wilder and Diamond possibly have thought this was funny? In place of Lubitsch's witty, risqué repartee, we get smutty one-liners that would be rejected by a third-rate burlesque comic.
Is KISS ME STUPID a neglected masterpiece? Some think so, but every bad movie has its passionate defenders. I've read that Wilder later came to his senses and disowned this mean-spirited misfire.
Lubitsch loved all his characters, even the ones who behave the worst. He never patronized or looked down on them. KISS ME STUPID is so filled with disgust, you can't help wondering what its creators were going through at the time that made them so bitter about love, marriage, and women.
"What would Lubitsch do?" read the sign Wilder kept over his desk. I'll tell you what Lubitsch NEVER would have done: KISS ME STUPID. Every genius is off his game from time to time. KISS ME STUPID is to Wilder's oeuvre what A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG is to Chaplin's. I bet Wilder wished in later years he could make it disappear.
(P.S. to the poster who wonders whether Dean Martin could act. See RIO BRAVO and you'll see with the right director he could. Dino is terrific in that late Howard Hawks masterpiece.)
But Wilder and Diamond's acidic cynicism could not be further from Lubitsch's affectionate, sophisticated farces. Lubitsch loved his charming cuckolds and adulterers and made us love them too. Wilder and Diamond seem to HATE every one of the crass, tacky characters in this movie.
Walston's deluded husband and his grease monkey friend are repellent and the women are degradingly portrayed as trashy sex objects or mindlessly compliant Stepford wives. The tone is as far from Lubitsch as A is from Z.
The misanthropy that proved so effective in the underrated ACE IN THE HOLE is totally wrong for this sex farce, whose characters act in ways that bear little resemblance to human behavior.
When the innocent wife peeks through a window and sees her husband embracing a prostitute, what does she do? Barge in and ask what the heck is going on? No. She repairs to the local brothel and gets blind drunk. HUH??? Similarly, the husband tries to drive his loving wife out of the house, so he can implement his money-making scheme, by being gratuitously cruel to her -- in a long scene so cringe-worthy it makes you feel like taking a shower after watching it. How could Wilder and Diamond possibly have thought this was funny? In place of Lubitsch's witty, risqué repartee, we get smutty one-liners that would be rejected by a third-rate burlesque comic.
Is KISS ME STUPID a neglected masterpiece? Some think so, but every bad movie has its passionate defenders. I've read that Wilder later came to his senses and disowned this mean-spirited misfire.
Lubitsch loved all his characters, even the ones who behave the worst. He never patronized or looked down on them. KISS ME STUPID is so filled with disgust, you can't help wondering what its creators were going through at the time that made them so bitter about love, marriage, and women.
"What would Lubitsch do?" read the sign Wilder kept over his desk. I'll tell you what Lubitsch NEVER would have done: KISS ME STUPID. Every genius is off his game from time to time. KISS ME STUPID is to Wilder's oeuvre what A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG is to Chaplin's. I bet Wilder wished in later years he could make it disappear.
(P.S. to the poster who wonders whether Dean Martin could act. See RIO BRAVO and you'll see with the right director he could. Dino is terrific in that late Howard Hawks masterpiece.)