This was a fun Kim Novak film I had never seen. Novak stars as a graduate student who is writing a thesis on "the adolescent sexual fantasies of the adult suburban male." She ends up being hired by four men (three married, one divorced) as a "housekeeper" in an inexpensive but very opulent and large apartment in New York City. The three married men are portrayed by Howard Duff, Howard Morris and Tony Randall. James Garner plays the divorced man. These men commute to work together from Connecticut to New York on the same train. It seems that they frequent the same bar before deciding to go back home to their respective wives. At the bar, Garner witnesses his boss (Roger Addison from Mister Ed) canoodling with his mistress. According to Garner, his boss keeps an apartment in New York where he can entertain his lady before he returns home to his wife.
The married commuter men, bored with their wives and each feeling that something is lacking in his respective relationship, begin to fantasize about having an apartment in the city where they can entertain their mistresses as well. As a joke, the three married men enlist Garner in locating a luxurious but cheap apartment. Garner goes to Peter Bowers (Jim Backus), a landlord who is anxious to rent an apartment in his building in which a murder took place. Garner is able to secure a decent price. Novak ends up answering the same ad. After informing her that the apartment has been rented, Garner offers Novak a position as a housekeeper. Much to his surprise, she accepts the position. Elated, the three husbands think that their infidelity dream is going to come to fruition. Garner isn't too keen on the prospect, and he's the only guy who is actually free!. Each of the three husbands tell a white lie to their respective wives that they are taking a course in New York City and as a result, will be spending the night away from home one night a week.
Novak takes the opportunity to conduct her research during each evening with each husband. She gets them to reveal why they're unhappy in their relationships and their feelings in general. Each of these sessions are recorded on a tape recorder. In a form of competition, the men begin to tell each other white lies about their evenings with Novak--as a result, each man thinks that the other has slept with her. Eager to keep getting good fodder for her thesis, Novak doesn't correct them. Garner, repulsed by his friends' tall tales about Novak, refuses to visit her for "his night." He finds himself genuinely falling for her.
Eventually the wives get suspicious and they seek out to find the truth behind their husbands' evenings in New York City. How does this all work out? Watch and find out.
This is very much your typical 60's pseudo-sex comedy that has one foot planted in the production code era and one foot in the budding sexual revolution. Many of them don't work well and seem antiquated today, but the talent of the players involved helps this one along. I'd recommend it.
