The Facts of Life

I watched this movie primarily because it was nominated for Best Screenplay, and in that regard, I was not disappointed. There are several funny scenes and some pretty witty dialogue, but overall this movie rates about 6/10. It's a little too long and some of the plot points are pretty contrived, but Bob and Lucy have good chemistry, which makes up for the few weak points in this film.

Lucy and Bob in a 1960 romantic, satiric comedy. What more could you want?

This is very aware for its time and has some wonderful period scenes. Hope and Ball seem to have very complementary comedy styles which play extremely well off each other.

This movie came out way back in 1960, yet Bob Hope mentions problems raising kids in the electronic age. How forward looking.

The black and white format takes nothing away from this movie, including the scenes of Acapulco when they're alone together.

All in all, an extremely enjoyable movie. I like Lucy much better in this style than her slapstick routine, although she's great in that too. Give this one a look sometime, it's worth it.

Maybe it's because I've left her alone for a while, and absence makes the heart grow fonder. Whatever the reason, I definitely enjoyed this movie much more than the first couple of times I watched it. Wow, I mean it invigorated me, I feel so refreshed after watching it!

I've come to the conclusion that I actually prefer watching old favorites over and over again more than I do watching something I've never seen before. I think it's because after a while, we are set in our ways as people. Everything we actually really love, we fall into that as children and teenagers. After that, everything pals in comparison to What we Loved before. I'm definitely finding that to be true, revisiting movies that I loved growing up.

I'm so blessed that I was raised on old movies, and they were even old back then. I was raised on TCM and AMC and Nick at Nite, and I think it's giving me a better outlook on the world. Those movies and shows were less cynical, more sincere, gentler, just plain old nicer. Take this film for instance - a movie about adultery. But it's made in such a way that you love everyone involved, and you can feel empathy for each character.

This movie is all at once sexy, sweet, sad, wholesome, and scandalous! It may be wrong, but I found myself rooting for the characters that Lucy and Bob were playing! They were so romantic, and I felt their Joy. But I also felt the reservations. This was made so well! Definitely one of the best from the sex comedy era that I think was unofficially kicked off by Doris Day and Rock Hudson in Pillow Talk. And that's a great one - and they're a great pair, but I prefer Lucy and Bob! :-)

Love this movie. One of my favorites.

I have seen a bunch of Bob Hope films, though few from the later part of his movie career. This is because all the Hope films from the 60s that I have seen (especially "Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number") have been disappointments. Despite this, I decided to try "The Facts of Life"...and was very much surprised. The big surprise is that the film really wasn't a comedy!!

Larry (Hope) and Kitty (Lucille Ball) both hang in the same social circle but are hardly friends. She thinks he's a bit of a blowhard. Despite this, neither one realizes that they DO have something in common...inattentive spouses who take them for granted. This becomes obvious when these couples are headed to Mexico for a grand vacation. This is because Kitty and Larry's spouses both have something seemingly better to do and instruct their partners to go without them. In essence Larry and Kitty are pushed together and nature takes its course...and they slowly find themselves falling in love.

Well, this made for a lovely vacation for the two but they both realize that it just cannot be and plan on returning home to their old dull lives. The problem is that when they return home, their spouses continue to find lots of things which are more important than nurturing them. So, the pair decide to pick up where they left off...though complications naturally ensue.

If this doesn't sound like a comedy, well, it really isn't...at least the first half of the film. There are a few mildly funny bits here and there but it's obvious these folks weren't trying to make a comedy but more a romantic drama about marriage and straying spouses. However, when the pair finally get off together once again, the romance becomes far less romantic and the emphasis is on laughs AND reality...the reality that it was just a vacation infatuation after all and an affair ain't so easy after all.

In many ways, this film would be great for couples to watch...particularly folks who have been together for many years. It's a great object lesson about what NOT to do in your marriage as well as to encourage you to keep that love alive.

One of their later screen teamings, THE FACTS OF LIFE was a 1960 comedy, rather adult for its time, where Bob and Lucy play two friends, married to others, who usually participate in a group vacation together and through some freak circumstances , end up on the vacation alone this year and grow so close they actually drift into an affair and consider leaving their spouses. I have to admit that this movie was surprising to me when I first saw it a few months ago, so I'm sure it raised a few eyebrows in the 1960's...infidelity was most likely a bold subject for a movie comedy and I doubt if it was something Bob or Lucy had done prior to this. but for this day and age, this was a very adult movie comedy that probably didn't do the business it deserved in 1960 because of its "contorversial" storyline. Though it would hardly be considered controversial today, this film was probably quite the departure for its stars and as a curio of cinema history, it is definitely worth a look.