That Funny Feeling

Joan Howell (Sandra Dee) is an aspiring actress and questionable maid. She is supposed to be cleaning the apartment of Tom Milford (Bobby Darin). She doesn't expect him to be home and never met him before. When he asks her out, she tries to pass off his apartment as her own. He decides to play along.

This stars the real life married couple, Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin. They are so wholesome. They fit this light comedy although it only taps on the funny bone. I wouldn't say that either are great comedic actors. The side characters get a bit closer to the laughs. The premise is a sitcom with less realism. Depending on the value of the paintings, this is either unrealistic to downright stupid. Well, I guess that they're not his paintings.

That Funny Feeling marked the last film that husband and wife Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin made together. Soon after this they split, but the passion was so strong they never remarried.

I'm thinking that around this time Rock Hudson was getting set to depart from Universal and I'm sure the studio thinking was that Darin and Dee could step right into the shoes of Hudson and Doris Day. Ten years earlier Rock and Doris would have made this film no doubt about it.

Sandra lives in a cracker box apartment with her friend Nita Talbot when she meets man about town Darin. Among other things Dee does to make the rent is clean apartments and she cleans Darin's though she never met him. Not knowing who he is, she pretends that his apartment is her's while Darin is supposed to be away on business.

The business he's on is trying to protect and hide the assets of his boss Donald O'Connor in the Tony Randall role, to wit some modern art paintings, hideous to some, valuable to others from being part of a divorce settlement. After this film gets positively zany in the Rock and Doris tradition.

O'Connor has some of the best lines in the film. I suppose had the Rock&Doris type comedies stayed in vogue O'Connor might have had a second career in these parts. A lot of other familiar faces dot the supporting cast, again like a Rock and Doris flick.

Darin even sings the title song over the credits of That Funny Feeling. What more could you want?

"More locations than the A&P"... does anyone else remember the A&P chain of supermarkets?? They actually say that line in the film.... A & P is all gone now, but they have an interesting story at wikipedia. Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin were married in "real life", and were known for their wholesome, family friendly films.... they did make three of them in the 1960s. Darin died quite young, at 37, after heart surgery...he was already divorced twice by that time. Dee and Darin made these films about mistaken identity and misunderstandings, like Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Astute viewers will recognize Nita Talbot, who was Marya on Hogans Heroes! The silly mix-up in "Feeling" is that Joan is actually Tom's maid, but since they have never met, Joan (Dee) pretends to own his apartment, which wouldn't be a big deal, except that she tells this to Tom when she meets him, and he KNOWS it's not hers. Supporting roles by Larry Storch ( F Troop) and Leo Carroll (North by Northwest). Like every episode of Three's Company, when the deception is discovered, rather than talk it out and have a good laugh, they continue on and dig the hole deeper and deeper. Donald O'Connor is in here for comedy. Some double entendres about an unmarried mother when Joan takes some things to the pawn broker... It's all mostly plain, simple fun. As long as you buy in, its all harmless and done. Pretty okay.

That Funny Feeling is so incredibly dated, it could never be remade today, but if you like sex comedies from the 1960s that have absolutely no relevance in the modern era, you'll probably enjoy watching it. And if you like seeing the adorable sparks between Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, add this one to your list.

Sandra Dee plays a maid who feels ashamed of her lowly station when the wealthy Bobby Darin asks her out on a date. Even right there, the movie's dated. Thanks to Love Story, poor girls don't think twice about going out with rich boys. Bobby and Sandy go out, get along, but when he wants to see her home safely, she panicks and takes him to one of the apartments she cleans! This is 1965, so he just sees her to the door and leaves, by the way. What she doesn't know is that the apartment she's pretending is hers is actually his! It's actually a really cute story and meet-cute, but it's so dated you're going to have to put on your '60s goggles before you watch it.

Of course, there are tons of sex jokes and will-she-or-won't-she situations that were hilarious at the time but now just evoke a chuckle. Bobby's friend and sidekick is Donald O'Connor, and his advice for his bachelor friend is very funny. In my opinion, there's no reason why Pillow Talk has stood the test of time over That Funny Feeling; they both involve dated plots, deception, misidentities, and an endless quest to get the virtuous lady in the bedroom. Give it a try if you like this type of comedy!

OK, so we in the 21st century don't judge Sandra Dee's movies too kindly, as she usually played some nubile woman existing only to be cute, and we don't consider it particularly PC. The truth is, most of the teen flicks of the past 25 years haven't been much different, and I for one find "That Funny Feeling" more interesting than many of the teen flicks from my lifetime. True, much of the movie is pretty predictable, with Dee as a working class maid pretending to live in a young businessman's (Bobby Darin) apartment, while he goes along with it; I actually didn't spend much of the movie laughing. But the movie definitely has its moments, namely the telephone booth and the party (some people might even include the shot of Sandra Dee in the bathtub...meow meow).

Obviously, given that during the '60s, we started seeing movies like "Dr. Strangelove" and "The Graduate", this one might seem worthless at best. But, I will say that it does have a certain charm to it. It's not a masterpiece by any stretch, but doesn't pretend to be. Just nice, silly fun. And Sandra Dee is actually kinda hot. Also starring Donald O'Connor, Nina Talbot, Larry Storch, Leo G. Carroll, Robert Strauss, Kathleen Freeman and Arte Johnson.

I bet that somewhere beyond that great sea in the sky, Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin can take comfort knowing that we still remember them, even if it is for something as silly as this.