Any Wednesday

On Wednesdays, Jason Robards tells his wife he's spending the night in a corporate apartment, when really he's spending the night at his girlfriend's place. His client, Dean Jones, is in town and is accidentally sent to the executive suite instead of a hotel. He thinks Jane Fonda, Jason's girlfriend, is actually a hooker hired by the company!

Muriel Resnik's successful Broadway play Any Wednesday fits in with many 1960s sex comedies, and Jane Fonda fits right in, as she did in Sunday in New York and Barefoot in the Park. She's beautiful and has fantastic comic timing, so the misunderstandings are twice as funny when she's in the middle. I never find Jason Robards to be very likable, but when he's paired up against Jane, he softens around the edges. While I liked Sunday in New York the best, this is a cute movie for those who like play adaptations or silly comedies that take issue with premarital sex. Jane Fonda really is totally adorable!

Made in the mid-60's (when things were supposedly starting to "swing"), and set in New York, this comedy of errors stars Jane Fonda as a young woman who makes the same mistake too many have (before and after), getting involved with a married man, and believing they have a future, just as soon as he gets that divorce. When will that be? Well, right now it's not possible, because......

The married man in question is her former boss, John Cleaves (Jason Robards), who sets her up in an apartment, where he visits her every Wednesday, telling his wife, Dorothy (Rosemary Murphy) he'll be away on "business". No, she's not stupid, just turning a blind eye.

When an out-of-town client, Cass Anderson (Dean Jones) needs a place to stay, John's new secretary unwittingly directs him to the "executive suite", where Cass mistakes Ellen for a "working girl", hired to entertain him! The mix-ups are just beginning, as Dorothy pays an unexpected visit, thinks Ellen and Cass are a couple and invites them out with her and John. What a night that is!

Soon, Cass discovers that he's in love with Ellen and (to his dismay) that she really loves John and is not after his money and status. And Dorothy, now with clear vision, is not going to settle for wronged wife. Both John and Ellen have choices to make. But do they make the right ones?

Who ends up with whom, who has a HEA, and who go their separate ways? Watch and find out and have fun!

In the days of dinner theater, many actors made a good living traveling the circuit with shows like "Any Wednesday," a Broadway play made into a film in 1966. These frothy sex comedies were all the rage on stage and in film -- Boeing Boeing, Mary, Mary, The Marriage-Go-Round, and of course, Any Wednesday.

Jane Fonda plays Ellen, a young woman who is wooed and ultimately falls for an older married executive, John Cleves (Jason Robards) who makes her apartment an executive one, which is tax-deductible and enables her to live there after her roommates move out. One day, Cleves' unknowing secretary sends over a good-looking young businessman, Cass Henderson (Dean Jones) needing a place to stay for the night. It goes down a predictable path from there.

The good cast makes this watchable, as it's a rather dated story. Rosemary Murphy is a delight as Cleves' wife, whom John is away from every Wednesday night on out of town business. Fonda is beautiful and sexy as the confused mistress, and Dean Jones is attractive as the frustrated Cass, who hated Cleves for business reasons but now finds that his reasons are personal as well.

It's cute, and the story involves a New York blackout, though not the biggie from the early '60s.

Jane Fonda (she's Ellen) is the mistress whom executive Jason Robards (he's John) squeezes regularly; they have an ecstatically happy relationship, meeting every Wednesday in the "executive suite" he keeps for her. Then, into the New York apartment walks Dean Jones (he's Cass), who claims to need the phone (and a place to stay). When Rosemary Murphy (John's WIFE!) arrives, major high-jinks ensue!

"Any Wednesday" is another dated 1960s situation sex comedy. The four are okay - with, perhaps Mr. Jones and Ms. Murphy surpassing their more well-known upper tier co-stars. The "split screen" telephoning is interesting; and, the script is lively with sexual innuendo. These movies seem like three-times-too-long TV half-hours comedies featuring stuff they couldn't tastefully show on TV. The "Gay Joke" comic relief is an "interior decorator" whom Murphy enlists to correct Fonda's apartment decor - it is startlingly over-the-top, like a '60s version of the "Negro Joke" character.

*** Any Wednesday (1966) Robert Ellis Miller ~ Jane Fonda, Jason Robards, Dean Jones

Familiar stuff, but fun stuff with a lot of memories. If ANY WEDNESDAY reminds you of THE APARTMENT, starring Jack Lemmon, you are close. Only difference is that it's more breezy entertainment in what was to become the definitive 60s sex-capades movie. It may have also inspired the 70s tv fav LOVE AMERICAN STYLE, if you're old enough to remember, but at the time was not quite suitable for prime time. It remains an audience pleaser though, and based on the Broadway play, finding apartment dweller Jane in one heck of a mess as her boss (also) wants to use her place for "tax" purposes. Jason Robards plays the boss, his usual gruff self, and he steps into it alright, only to be cut down to size by his wife (Tony nominee Rosemary Murphy) who kind of acts as the unofficial observer of the whole charade. The inside joke is that Murphy seems to be having the best time of them all, watching the walls come tumbling down. Young and handsome Dean Jones only complicates matters. The real deal of 60s "suggestive comedies", not to be missed ON ANY DAY OR NIGHT.