The film begins with Lenny (Charles Grodin) marrying Lila (Jeannie Berlin). On the honeymoon it is obvious that his new wife can be very annoying and she eats like a pig...though he surely must have known all this as they had been dating. After all, it wasn't like the marriage was one of those arranged ones!! So on one hand, you can understand Lenny becoming disenchanted with her...but he knew who he was marrying! To make it much worse, he starts looking at other women and begins dating while he's STILL on his honeymoon!!! Clearly, Lenny is a super-jerk and Kelly (Cybill Shepherd) inexplicably wants him....even though she knows he just got married. Not surprisingly, her father (Eddie Albert) wants to kill Lenny...and who would blame him?! So what's next? See the film.
If you had to sum up this movie in one word, AWKWARD would be pretty accurate! There are many moments where the viewer will likely feel awkward and squirm a bit as they watch that weasel Lenny! I like comedy like this...the more awkward the better. But my wife hates stuff like this and so I am glad I didn't watch the movie with her. So, if films like "The King of Comedy" or the Veal Prince Orloff episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" make you cringe, skip this film!
I think the other reason I really enjoyed this movie was Eddie Albert and his wonderful character. Again and again, I found myself laughing whenever he spoke...and it's among his best performances. It's no surprise, then, that he was Oscar-nominated for this. He was incredibly blunt, funny and hard to dislike! And, he seemed to be the only one outraged at Lenny's god-awful actions and the inane blather that came out of Lenny's mouth!
Overall, a wonderful film and I have no idea why they would bother remaking it...but that's Hollywood for you.
By the way, the music to this film is awful...but representative of the times. I lived through this era and hated hearing the likes of "Close to You" again and again! Somehow I managed to tune it all out, thank goodness!
