There is no sense to this story of a jealous husband (Ray Walston) who sets up a stranded singer (Dean Martin as "Dino Martini", an obvious parody of himself) with a barmaid (Kim Novak) posing as his wife after the real wife (Felicia Farr) flees in tears after the paranoid Walston sets her up for a fight in order to prevent an actual seduction by the sex-crazed Lothario. The film, photographed in a truly dreary version of fabulous black and white, has a hysterical opening in Las Vegas with Martin performing his stage act to Gershwin's "S' Wonderful", then getting stuck in the town of "Climax" where the big social scene is at a dive bar called the "Belly Button". Such character performers as Henry Gibson, John Fiedler, Alice Pearce and Doro Merande (as Farr's nasty witch like mother whom Walston refers to as "Godzilla") pop in and out of the supposed plot line for non-comic effect. Walston is a songwriter who is trying to get Martin to buy his songs (actually trunk songs by Gershwin which appear to have been trunk songs for a reason) for his upcoming musical special.
This is a one joke movie (where the punchline really has the screenwriter deserving to be punched) that in spite of its truly raunchy story seemed to have some promise at the beginning but soon lead me into shaking my head much like the critics at the time did. There is no evidence as to why Martin would want to seduce a married woman inside her own house with the husband present or why Walston thought his wife was cheating on him in the first place. After the subtle sexualities of "Some Like It Hot", "The Apartment" and "Irma La Douce", director Billy Wilder would really hit rock bottom with this one.
This is a one joke movie (where the punchline really has the screenwriter deserving to be punched) that in spite of its truly raunchy story seemed to have some promise at the beginning but soon lead me into shaking my head much like the critics at the time did. There is no evidence as to why Martin would want to seduce a married woman inside her own house with the husband present or why Walston thought his wife was cheating on him in the first place. After the subtle sexualities of "Some Like It Hot", "The Apartment" and "Irma La Douce", director Billy Wilder would really hit rock bottom with this one.