Boeing, Boeing

In this 1965 Paramount Pictures comedy, Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis are nutty and, for all practical purposes, perpetual kids. The setting is Paris where Bernard Lewis (played by Curtis) is definitely a philanderer who never wants to marry but have only fiancees, and he has three who are all airline stewardesses; there is the beautiful actress Christiane Schmitdner who plays a stewardess for Lufthansa, Davy Saval plays a stewardess for Air France, and Suzanna Leigh plays a stewardess for British Airways. Robert Reed, played by Lewis, is a newspaper man assigned to Paris where he stays with his friend of many years Bernard. During his time there, against his wishes Bernard's fiancees end up arriving at his apartment at the same time due to sudden changes in flight schedules, but one doesn't know the others are there. It does become silly and comical when the two men are hiding each girl in a separate bedroom, sometimes moving them around fast, and coming up with weak last-minute excuses as to why each one of them cannot stay where she has been resting. Thelma Ritter is quite comical as the maid who gets caught in the middle of the entire zany situation. The Paris sights are beautiful and, again, despite the bizarre story line, it is hard not to laugh at the nutty piece

Boeing Boeing is known primarily today as the film where Jerry Lewis stepped out of his schnook character and played a lead role in a Sixties sex comedy. Jerry does all right in expanding his range on this one, but the whole thing itself is not the greatest these type of films ever.

It's more of a warmed over version of The Tender Trap than anything else with Lewis playing not quite so second a banana to Tony Curtis as David Wayne did with Frank Sinatra.

Curtis has a great little operation going over at his place, he's got three fiancés, all airline stewardesses working at different airlines who live at his rather sumptuous bachelor pad in Paris. He keeps complete track of the schedule of Dany Saval for Air France, Christine Schmidtmer for Lufthansa, and Susanna Leigh for British Airways. But one fine day schedules change. Not only that, but an old rival Jerry Lewis comes into town and watches in amazement.

I'm still trying to figure out just how Tony Curtis could afford the living quarters he was in together with live-in maid Thelma Ritter who helps him keep the pretenses up. Just how a Jewish maid from Queens got to be living in Paris is also a mystery. All this mind you is on a reporter's salary and no one said that Curtis was Carl Bernstein.

Good thing he could afford her because Thelma Ritter as usual is the best thing in the film despite the statuesque proportions of the ladies involved. Especially Schmidtmer as Ritter caustically commented.

In his memoirs Tony Curtis says he liked making Boeing Boeing and thinks highly of Jerry Lewis as a person and comedian. He also said Lewis even when not doing his usual shtick in a film was still the greatest scene stealer on the planet with whom he had to stay constantly alert.

It's not a bad comedy, some will find it incredibly sexist for their taste. It does suffer by comparison to The Tender Trap.

1965's "Boeing Boeing" is a dated but mildly amusing film starring Tony Curtis, Thelma Ritter, Jerry Lewis and Dany Saval. Curtis is a swinging bachelor living in Paris who is juggling three flight attendants at one time, all of whom live with him, and all of them are his fiancees.

He's able to do this with the help of his able housekeeper (Ritter) and his carefully worked-out airline schedules. Unfortunately, the new fast planes are goofing up the schedules. Adding to the confusion is a visit by his friend Robert (Lewis), a reporter. The two men and an exhausted Ritter try to keep the women from running into one another at the apartment as their arrivals overlap.

"Boeing Boeing" was originally a play that had a very brief run on Broadway in the 1960's and went on to become the mainstay of dinner theaters throughout the U. S. After a very successful run in London, it has recently been revived on Broadway starring Christine Baranski as the maid, Bradley Whitford in the Tony Curtis role, Gina Gershon as an Italian flight attendant and Maureen McCormack as a German one.

Not having seen the original play, it's hard to know what if anything in the film was changed from the play. In the current Broadway production, the Jerry Lewis character, done to great acclaim on both continents by Mark Rylance, is totally different - he's a shlub who's never seen a woman before. Lewis would have been perfect playing it that way - instead, in the film, the character of Robert is very against type, quite serious.

The handsome Curtis does comedy well and is a perfect playboy. Baranski currently does the Ritter role with a French accent, which wrecks most of the dry humor that Baranski, like Ritter, brings to a role. Ritter is very funny as she changes the photograph on the desk, cooks sauerkraut for the German flight attendant, tosses it when the French flight attendant arrives and makes a soufflé instead and basically wears herself out.

"Boeing Boeing" is pleasant and fun to watch as an example of that great comedy form, the farce.

You'll enjoy this movie from start to end if you take it as it is: a fun, entertaining film with two wonderful leading men. Tony Curtis was a brilliant actor, and in comedies he's simply amazing. I spent a wonderful evening laughing out loud in certain moments. See it!

I first saw "Boeing Boeing" almost exactly a year ago when it came on TV, and I must say that I was delightfully surprised. While it was no comedy masterpiece, it still offered many genuinely amusing moments. The pairing of Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis worked perfectly and it was interesting to see Thelma Ritter (who appeared in Hitchcock's "Rear Window") as the over-employed housekeeper.

Good entertainment, if you can ignore its staginess (the film takes place almost entirely in one apartment).