Sex and the Single Girl

I was reading in the Citadel Film Book Series The Films Of Lauren Bacall that the real Helen Gurley Brown was less than thrilled with the film made of her work which was a landmark in feminist literature. Turning it into a poor man's version of a Rock Hudson-Doris Day sex comedy she probably never envisioned.

The Rock and Doris roles are taken by Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood. Tony plays a writer for a Confidential style magazine, today it would be the National Enquirer. He's already done articles debunking her credibility as far as being an expert on sex. Now Curtis proposes to publisher Edward Everett Horton to really get to know this person and embarks on a campaign to seduce the sex expert with all the cunning of Ashton Kutcher on the punk. But as what happens in all these films he actually falls for her.

Of course it doesn't help that he gets in to see her pretending he's hosiery manufacturer and neighbor Henry Fonda and using his marital problems with Lauren Bacall as his entry to the pop psychologist's office. In this film Helen Gurley Brown is not the editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine, but a Joyce Brothers type psychologist.

I wish I could remember who said it, but I read a review of this film once where the reviewer said that the parts Fonda and Bacall played in cheaper productions years ago would have been played by Edgar Kennedy and Dot Farley. I should only have said something that brilliant. Watching Fonda I did see traces of the slow burn and Bacall is certainly more chic than Dot Farley. Nevertheless the way they bicker at each other could be the best thing about Sex And The Single Girl. Neither Fonda or Bacall is terribly proud of Sex And The Single Girl. I wonder what could have induced them to appear in this film?

It's not the worst film that any of the leads or an exceptionally talented name cast of character players ever appeared in. Still these kind of films were being turned out regularly in the late Eisenhower- Kennedy years and this one dates real badly.

Helen Gurley Brown's name and real contributions to feminism have stood the test of time better than this film has.

I actually find this scatterbrained 1964 comedy a surprisingly amusing screwball farce all these years later despite its titillating title. So apparently does director Peyton Reed since he based most of his 2004 comic pastiche, "Down with Love", on the storyline of this movie and less so on any of the Doris Day/Rock Hudson romps of the same era. Regardless, they all have the same brew of conjugal misunderstandings, mistaken identities and leering though never explicit sexuality because those were the days when a woman's virtue would never be compromised for anyone but the right man. Directed by the heavy-handed Richard Quine ("Paris When It Sizzles") and written by Joseph Heller (later the author of "Catch-22") and David R. Schwartz, this ridiculous comedy benefits from a game cast headed by Tony Curtis still riding high from "Some Like It Hot" (which is referred to for easy laughs in the story) and Natalie Wood who shows her comedy chops with dexterity here.

Curtis plays Bob Weston, a sleazy magazine writer for a men's magazine whose editors are intent on exposing Dr. Helen Gurley Brown as a fraud as a sex expert. Author of the best-selling "Sex and the Single Girl", Brown is not at all the clench-jawed celebrity author who wrote the real book and appeared on "The Tonight Show" constantly. Instead, she is a gorgeous, intellectually prodigious 23-year-old who extols female empowerment in the bedroom. Showing off his moral depravity, Weston steals the marital woes of her next-door neighbors, pantyhose magnate Frank Broderick and his acerbic wife Sylvia, and comes to see Dr. Brown as a patient. The rest is predictable but still a good amount of fun. Curtis was still at the top of his game here showing how he can easily elicit laughs from such a vile manipulator, but it's Wood who surprises as Brown. Displaying a nervous but infectious energy that feeds nicely into the two sides of the doctor, she is funny and sexy in a way that she could never quite balance as well again in her career. Witness the hilariously conflicted drunken scene in her apartment for evidence of her talent.

Quine was smart to cast three sharp stars in the key supporting roles - Henry Fonda as the put-upon Frank browbeaten into a sad man by Lauren Bacall pulling all the stops as the shrewish basket case Sylvia is, and Mel Ferrer as Brown's somewhat ambiguous colleague. Add a sultry Fran Jeffries who performs two numbers (including the title tune) for no apparent reason except to sell records, an even sexier Leslie Parrish ("The Manchurian Candidate") as Weston's secretary, and a genuinely funny extended car chase scene, and you have the makings of an under-appreciated sex comedy. The 2009 DVD, part of the six-disc "The Natalie Wood Collection", includes a Warner Brothers cartoon ("Nelly's Folly") and the original theatrical trailer.

Light, fluffy fun with great vintage wardrobes. Natalie Wood was good as Helen Gurley Brown. Would have liked more scenes involving the proudly trashy magazine. However, a little car chase goes a long way, and the interminable chase at the end drags the movie down.

There is something infectious about this comedy. The cast is about as perfect as you can get, but the subject matter was a bit awkward when compared to today's mores.

Before Carrie Bradshaw there was Helen Gurley Brown (Natalie Wood) a real life psychologist and businesswoman (she was editor of Cosmo for 32 years). Ms. Brown has just written a very controversial book about sex and the single girl (hence the title). It creates a firestorm amongst her male colleagues and her conservative patients. Tony Curtis is Bob Weston, a writer for a sleazy National Enquire-esque magazine called Stop. Bob wants to get an interview with Ms. Brown, but pretends to be a patient in need of marital counseling as a ruse. He uses his next door neighbors', Frank (Henry Fonda) and Syvia (Lauren Becall), volatile marriage as material. Of course a romance blossoms and then the normal confusion and hijinks ensue.

My issue with the film is the way Ms. Brown is portrayed. She is a befuddled, confused and weak female. She's also a terrible therapist. Despite writing a book on how a single girl can be successful, she immediately allows herself to become involved with a married patient. If I was the real Helen Brown, I would be appalled. Ms. Wood is gorgeous and I'm captivated by her screen presence, but she plays Ms. Brown as a woman who needs a man...the exact opposite of the book she wrote and my recollections of Ms. Brown in real life (mostly from reading her biography).

I understand this was set in the 1964 when views of male/female relationship skewed more towards male dominance, but it was still hard for me to accept that Ms. Brown could accomplish so much while being so desperate for a man...and a married one at that. Her therapy techniques violate every code of ethics you can imagine. Sure, it was a funny movie and I enjoyed it, but it left me feeling awkward at how simple women were portrayed.

The supporting cast is top notch and the movie's best selling point. Fonda and Bacall as the bickering neighbors are a treat. Mel Ferrer as Brown's fellow psychologist and potential love interest is hilariously smarmy and cocky. Fran Jeffries and Leslie Parish are attractive and funny love interests/secretary for Bob. Larry Storch appears in a cameo as a motorcycle cop during the finale's odd highway chase scene. Count Basie and his orchestra are here just to provide some gravitas, but don't really play any key roles.

There is a running gag about Tony Curtis wearing a woman's robe and everyone referring to him as Mr. Lemon. Curtis and Jack Lemon had starred in "Some Like It Hot" a few years before where they dressed like women. The gag was funny the first two times, but it got overplayed.

I have to say something about the chase scene. It seems that every romantic comedy in the 1960s had a chase scene. This one had a funny idea of the first three cars tossing a quarter to the toll taker. The last car leaves a dollar and takes the 75 cents. It was silly, poorly filmed, but made me laugh. Then there is another similar thing involving pretzels which I simply did not understand. I'm sure there was a point, but I missed it.

With this much talent, it was going to succeed and it does. I just wish Ms. Brown had been played a bit more wisely and not as such an easy mark for Tony Curtis' Bob Weston.

I've seen this one a few times over the years and wish it would come out in DVD. Natalie Wood was never more beautiful, and the battle of the sexes was never more fun. It's great to see a love story that doesn't resort to foul language or adult humor, but simply witty dialog and the vagaries of human nature.

Tony Curtis plays a tabloid reporter trying to get the goods on Helen Gurley Brown (played by Natalie Wood) and her personal life to find out if she actually knows anything about sex and relationships. To this end, he impersonates an acquaintance (played by Henry Fonda) whose having problems with his jealous wife (played by Lauren Bacall) so that he can pose as a patient and seek her advice.

The confusion caused by this impersonation just leads to more problems. However, this is just a sideshow to the reporter's seduction of Dr. Brown and the glorious mayhem that ensues.

Her constant comparisons of Tony Curtis to Jack Lemmon (Curtis' co-star in Some Like It Hot) will appeal anyone who's seen that classic.