Quine, Richard

Bell, Book and Candle

Staid, secure publisher James Stewart leads a quiet life until he meets his bewitching downstairs neighbor, Kim Novak. John Van Druten's lighthearted Broadway comedy becomes a lush if lightweight romantic vehicle for Stewart and Novak, who would reunite for Hitchcock's Vertigo the next year. Novak is at her best as a Greenwich witch halfway between the worlds of magic and mortals, looking after her dotty aunt (Elsa Lanchester) and mischievous warlock brother (Jack Lemmon) as they keep their skills in practice. Novak's specialty is making men fall for her, but it's a one-way street: when a witch falls in love, she loses her powers. Director Richard Quine gives the witches an almost beatnik sensibility, a real Greenwich Village subculture hanging out in underground clubs and smart curio shops. Elegantly photographed in rich, glowing colors by James Wong Howe, Bell, Book and Candle is a fantasy world in New York set to a funky bongo-laced jazz score by George Duning. Quine's gliding camera is somewhat marred by abrupt editing, but his handling of actors is superb, in particular Novak, whose mysterious beauty masks inner turmoil and romantic yearnings. Ernie Kovacs appears as a wry author whose specialty is the supernatural, and Hermione Gingold is suitably florid as a witch elder with a penchant for theatricality. For once in his life Stewart is actually upstaged by the slyly comic performances around him. --Sean Axmaker

Paris When It Sizzles

Paris When It Sizzles is an unusual screwball comedy to say the least. Whether it works is another matter, but the premise and humor are interesting enough to make it enjoyable. The basic problem with the film is its two stars: William Holden and Audrey Hepburn hardly sizzle with onscreen chemistry, and Hepburn's character, Miss Simpson, falls far too easily into the hands of Holden's drunken screen writer. However, the story is an interesting play on the typical Hollywood romance, with two plotlines running in parallel to each other. Holden's Richard Benson has only two days to finish a script for an enigmatic producer (Noel Coward). Hepburn's Miss Simpson is drafted in as the typist and as the script is dictated it manifests itself on the screen, allowing the two lead characters to play out any number of romantic stories. It's the cameo appearances in the imaginary world that really steal the show, with the blink-and-you'll-miss-it last screen appearance by Marlene Dietrich, as well as Tony Curtis having fun with his own screen persona. Not one of Hepburn or Holden's best, but worth a look purely for the interesting slant on the mechanical nature of Hollywood's romances. --Nikki Disney

The World of Suzie Wong

A prim young Chinese woman on the Kowloon ferry accuses a middle-aged American of stealing her purse--thus begins a culture-clash romance. Seeking to escape his stifled life, Robert (William Holden, Stalag 17, Sunset Boulevard) has come to Hong Kong to become an artist. He rediscovers the girl from the ferry and learns she is not what she seemed; she's a prostitute named Suzie Wong (Nancy Kwan, Flower Drum Song). Though Robert resists her charms, she becomes his model, and their relationship grows surprisingly complex. While The World of Suzie Wong can be patronizing and has some dubious interpretations of Chinese manners and mores, it's also sophisticated (in a censored sort of way) about love, sex, and social pressure. A viewer may scoff at the child-like hookers, yet find the movie accumulates an unexpected emotional force, particularly through its exploration of how the characters maintain their illusions. --Bret Fetzer

How to Murder Your Wife

"Being married is the normal way to live... isn't it?" The note of doubt at the end of that statement is fully exploited in How to Murder Your Wife (1965), a barbed piece of war-between-the-sexes comedy. Cartoonist Jack Lemmon, an exponent of the Playboy philosophy, lives in the ultimate swinging bachelor townhouse ("Everything masculine and perfect," manservant Terry-Thomas says approvingly) until a drunken evening leads to marriage with an Italian bombshell (Virna Lisi). What to do? The whole movie seems to exist in order to arrive at Lemmon's clever courtroom oration in the final half-hour, which is tartly funny if datedly misogynistic: he unleashes a male fantasy of trashing the gray-flannel suit and late-model station wagon for Hefneresque freedom. The wheel-spinning of the early reels is curious coming from screenwriter George Axelrod, usually a reliable satirist. He had better hours than this, notably in Breakfast at Tiffany's and Lord Love a Duck. --Robert Horton

He had what every man wanted then she came along! Legendary funnyman Jack Lemmon stars in this hilarious farce of almost unremitting fun (The Hollywood Reporter) with the breathtakingly beautiful (L. A. Herald Examiner) Virna Lisi.Bachelorhood is bliss for cartoonist Stanley Ford (Lemmon) complete with an English butler (Terry-Thomas) delectable dames and extra-dry martinis. But when he attends a bachelor party and meets an Italian beauty (Lisi) who pops out of a cake his fate is sealed. The next morning he discovers he s married to her even though she can barely speak English and now the consummate bachelor will go to any lengths to untie the knot!System Requirements: Running Time 119 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 027616880178 Manufacturer No: 1003899

It Happened to Jane

Doris Day was nearing her popular zenith, and Jack Lemmon just hitting his stride, when they teamed up for It Happened to Jane, a small-town comedy in the Capra vein. Doris is a widowed mom whose Maine lobster business is snarled by railroad tycoon Ernie Kovacs (hiding behind a skullcap and a huge cigar), the "meanest man in America." Her lawsuit against him, aided by lawyer-suitor Lemmon, gains national headlines. This is a curious movie: crucial scenes seem to have been left unwritten, while sequences involving Cub Scouts and an oddly impassioned Town Hall Meeting go on endlessly. Director Richard Quine was making some fun movies around this time (Bell, Book, and Candle), but the fizz is only intermittent here, mostly provided by Lemmon's jack-in-the-box youthfulness. Doris sings a couple of tunes and brings her downhome tomboy routine to New York City, where the movie employs some of the quaint TV personalities of the day. --Robert Horton

In this classic romantic comedy Jane Osgood (Doris Day) a single mom with two children is in the live lobster business. But when her first big order for the Marshall Town Country Club turns up dead through no fault of her own it kills her chances for a successful season. Discovering budget cuts at the railroad are to blame she turns to George Denham (Jack Lemmon) her longtime admirer and an attorney to seek compensation from the railroad s tyrannical owner Harry Foster Malone (Ernie Kovacs). Jane wins in her local courthouse but Malone agrees to pay only for the lobsters not damages. She refuses his offer on principle and the battle is on. The press has a field day with this modern-day David and Goliath story. And the whole country turns to Cape Anne Maine to watch as one woman stands up to "the meanest man in the world." It could happen to anyone but IT HAPPENED TO JANE.System Requirements:Running Time: 97 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 043396075450 Manufacturer No: 07545

Strangers When We Meet

STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET features an all-star cast including Kirk Douglas Kim Novak Ernie Kovacs Barbara Rush and Walter Matthau. Douglas stars as Larry Coe a gifted architect who unhappily married falls in love with his beautiful neighbor Maggie (Novak) whose marriage is also on the rocks. The two meet secretly while Larry is at work building a dream house for the eccentric writer and playboy Roger Altar (Kovacs). These clandestine trysts are known only to one other person their mutual friend Felix Anders (Matthau). But when Larry is offered a tremendous career opportunity in Hawaii he is suddenly torn between his home his career and his love for Maggie. And when Felix starts making passes at Larry s wife (Rush) the foundations of his entire life starts to crumble. Based on Evan Hunter s novel STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET is a film in the tradition of classics such as Peyton Place and No Down Payment. System Requirements:Running Time: 117 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 043396050389 Manufacturer No: 05038

My Sister Eileen

Two innocent sisters from Ohio hit Greenwich Village and must cope with wall-shaking subway construction, the neighborhood kooks, and a whopping $65 a month for an apartment. My Sister Eileen is one of those "Look out, world, we're conquering Manhattan!" movies, with Betty Garrett as a plain, would-be writer and Janet Leigh as her knockout sister, an aspiring actress who draws men like milk draws kittens. The 1955 movie's well-scrubbed Greenwich Village is a delightful fantasy playground. The city was never like this, but it probably should have been. In one of his early roles, Jack Lemmon (crooning one of the Jule Styne-Leo Robin songs quite charmingly) plays a magazine publisher, one of the many Young Men with Ideas he would play in the subsequent decade. Even more interesting is the presence of future director Bob Fosse, as a soda jerk who romances Leigh. Fosse also choreographed the film's musical numbers, and his dances include a delightful quartet at a bandstand and a sensational showdown with Tommy Rall. Fosse and Rall try to outdo each other in a male rivalry dance that will remind Fosse fans of his obsession with hats. The breezy direction is by Richard Quine, who cowrote the script with another future director, Blake Edwards. The original source material, stories by Ruth McKenney, formed the basis for a play and a nonmusical 1942 Rosalind Russell movie, also called My Sister Eileen (in which Quine played the Fosse role); there was a Broadway musical adaptation of the stories, Wonderful Town, which is not related to this film. --Robert Horton

The Sherwood sisters get off the train in Manhattan looking for fame and fortune. Eileen (Janet Leigh Academy Award® nominee 1960 Best Supporting Actress Psycho) a beautiful aspiring actress and Ruth (Betty Garrett TV s Laverne & Shirley ) a loveless would-be writer move to New York to realize their dreams. After suave magazine editor Rober Baker (Jack Lemmon 1973 Academy Award® winner Best Actor Save The Tiger; It Happened to Jane)insultingly rejects Ruth s corny romantic tragedies Ruth takes his advice to write about something she really knows? Her belle-of-the-ball sister s power over men. Ruth s secret jealousy of Eileen leads to a web of lies that only an international incident with the Brazilian Navy and a jail-bound conga line can untangle. The optimistic humor of Blake Edwards screenplay and the lively fun of Robert Fosse s choreography make for full-scale enjoyment in this charming big time or bust success story.System Requirements:Running Time: 107 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MUSICALS/MUSICALS Rating: NR UPC: 043396073272 Manufacturer No: 7327

The Solid Gold Cadillac

Judy Holliday shines as an idealistic stockholder who uncovers corruption at the top rung of a major corporation in this lighthearted romantic comedy. 1957 Academy Award® Winner for Best Costume Design!

Together in Paris [Region 2]

Paris When It Sizzles is an unusual screwball comedy to say the least. Whether it works is another matter, but the premise and humor are interesting enough to make it enjoyable. The basic problem with the film is its two stars: William Holden and Audrey Hepburn hardly sizzle with onscreen chemistry, and Hepburn's character, Miss Simpson, falls far too easily into the hands of Holden's drunken screen writer. However, the story is an interesting play on the typical Hollywood romance, with two plotlines running in parallel to each other. Holden's Richard Benson has only two days to finish a script for an enigmatic producer (Noel Coward). Hepburn's Miss Simpson is drafted in as the typist and as the script is dictated it manifests itself on the screen, allowing the two lead characters to play out any number of romantic stories. It's the cameo appearances in the imaginary world that really steal the show, with the blink-and-you'll-miss-it last screen appearance by Marlene Dietrich, as well as Tony Curtis having fun with his own screen persona. Not one of Hepburn or Holden's best, but worth a look purely for the interesting slant on the mechanical nature of Hollywood's romances. --Nikki Disney

Breakfast at Tiffany's [Region 2]