Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Majorthebys Charming and brutal

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Sanjeev Waters A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

SnoopyStyle Wealthy businessman John Cleves (Jason Robards) lies to his wife Dorothy (Rosemary Murphy) to have affairs on any Wednesday. Ellen Gordon (Jane Fonda) is a gallery clerk who inadvertently helps him. He is relentless in his pursuit until she surrenders to his wealth and power. She's getting kicked out of her apartment unless she gets $32K. John proposes his company buy her apartment as a love nest. She surprises herself with her uncontrollable lust for him. One day, John's secretary sends Cass Henderson (Dean Jones) to stay at the company apartment. Cass figures it's a love nest and intends to find out if it's Cleves's. Dorothy drops by and assumes that Cass and Ellen are together. They play along leading to an all out farce.Jason Robards is old and disgusting. He is a horrible character. The affair makes my head hurt and my soul cry. Jane Fonda is playing such a weak minded character. Dean Jones' character is only better by comparison. These are all unlikeable character to one degree or another. I don't care about any of these characters and I don't care what happens to them. The farce is all wacky without being funny.

evening1 I kept thinking of how the self-actualized Jane Fonda of today must look back on this trifle and blush. She plays Ellen, a ditsy bimbo with no discernible direction in life who allows her affections to be bought by the crass, self-satisfied user of a businessman, John Cleves (Jason Robards). This story is terribly dated and all of the characters overact -- down to an interior designer who is egregiously overplayed so as to seem gay. I suppose this film, which often plays like a sitcom, aspires to be a zany farce. But it drags and cries out for editing. (That extended scene in the car, with all the principals playing a silly clapping game...what drivel! Wasn't there any other way to advance this weak-kneed plot??) Fonda is pretty here but that's all I can say for her characterization of an intellectually challenged blonde. Dean Jones -- conjuring a young Jimmy Stewart -- does OK, despite all odds, as the kind of guy Ellen should have been dating -- a young man who could think beyond his own immediate gratification."I'm full of love," he tells his inamorata. "It's all right here -- just waiting for the right person to come along!" Fonda was still starting out in her career, but one wonders why the by-then respected Robards -- 44 when this was filmed but seeming much older -- accepted a gig like this!I know, someone reading this review will tell me to lighten up -- it's just a frothy comedy! Even when viewed through that tinted lens, this could have been way better.

skiddoo This is upbeat and fun, as sophisticated New Yorkers find amoral happiness with various partners, inside and outside of marriage. One reviewer said it was five years out of date but compare it to the coy Sunday in New York or the rather dark and sad The Apartment and you can see the attitude is totally different. Fonda's character has no hesitation in telling two men about her great baby-making pelvis. While a bit bemused by Murphy's character's attitude she is cool with being friends with the ex. The wife seems to be relieved to become the Wednesday lover, instead of her role as business asset. Fonda and Robards' characters parted very amicably despite his lies. Jones's character has no problem about taking on a woman with what used to be thought of as a scarlet past. Everyone seems to come out of it with what suited them the best. Nobody is punished. Everyone lives happily ever after. It's very Broadway not Middle America but one assumes the fact that it took place in NYC allowed the rest of the country to enjoy it, even while shaking their heads at those immoral city people. I wouldn't imagine it was a movie that parents wanted their teenagers to watch.As for one reviewer's likening of the gay portrayal to the negative stereotypes of blacks in the movies, I would just say that in NYC in the arts there were people who behaved like that. My father had a cousin who was a musician and he acted like that. It's similar to the lesbians in early movies who are dressed in suits and look like men. There were women in sophisticated urban environments who did that at that time. I don't know if there are similar complaints on this site about the portrayals in La Cage aux Folles or The Birdcage, or if there are complaints about TV shows like Will and Grace but those are very similar. That doesn't imply that homosexuals who were, for instance, clerks in small towns would be anything like that. Probably most people in the arts in many major cities are at least a bit over the top, if not totally over the top and halfway down the other side. They don't want to blend in. They want to stand out.

moonspinner55 Broadway hit about a married millionaire's mistress befriended by his unsuspecting wife and cooed over by a loyal associate. Lots of slamming doors, comic deception, hissy fits and balloons--okay ingredients for a frothy fracas, and the cast is good. Jane Fonda overacts all over the place, yet she's delicious while dropping dry wisecracks or guzzling champagne (Fonda really keeps this material popping). The picture is so ready-made to be adorable, with little 'shockable' lines dotting the script, that it's easy to see why critics dismissed it. Some of the jokes are about five years out of date (this might have been perfectly pleasant if made in 1960 or '61). The plush production and the tinkly music set a jovial mood, but I bet the film looked awfully archaic coming into the Free Love generation. **1/2 from ****