User reviews

When writer-director Billy Wilder made `Kiss Me, Stupid' in 1964, he was riding high: His comedy-drama `The Apartment' had won the Oscar as best picture in 1960 and Wilder's `Irma La Douce,' released in 1963, had been a smash. `Stupid,' however, would not receive critical raves or a warm reception at the box office. Instead it would be condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency, banned in several cities and dropped by its original distributor United Artists, which gave `Stupid' a limited and unsuccessful release through its art-film branch Lopert Films. Seen today, it's laughable to think that this innuendo-laden but mostly innocuous comedy created such a furor. Admittedly, Wilder pushed the boundaries of good taste with some of the dialogue and imagery. Even so the movie is far more nutty than smutty. Set in the Nevada hamlet of Climax, `Stupid' tells the story of church organist and piano teacher Orville J. Spooner (Ray Walston), who is insanely overprotective of his adoring and adorable wife Zelda (Felicia Farr, who was married to Jack Lemmon offscreen). Orville and buddy Barney (Cliff Osmond) write songs in their spare time – one is called `I'm Taking Mom to the Junior Prom ‘Cuz She's a Better Twister Than My Sister,' and another begins, `I'm a poached egg without a piece of toast/Yorkshire Pudding without a beef to roast' – and they're excited when singing sensation Dino (Dean Martin as the same kind of leering lush he usually played in his nightclub act and on TV) is stranded in town. Orville thinks he can sell some material to Dino, but the aspiring tunesmith is alarmed by Dino's reputation as a great seducer and fears Zelda, a Dino fan, will end up in the star's clutches. So Orville hires Polly (Kim Novak), a trampy type with teased platinum hair who works at the local dive known as The Belly Button, to pretend to be his wife while he entertains Dino for an evening. Thanks to a series of surprises, it becomes a night to remember for all concerned, including Zelda, who wasn't even supposed to be a part of it in the first place. As the somewhat similar `Indecent Proposal' would do almost 30 years later, `Stupid' ultimately states that the best way to test a relationship is to walk away from it for a while and see what happens. What separates `Stupid' from so many of the so-called `sex comedies' of the period is its combination of cynicism and directness. Beneath the teasing and the titillation there are some genuinely provocative themes about human nature and the sacrifices we're willing to make to catch a break. Although the movie has what might be termed a happy ending, it's a conclusion with more than a few dark clouds hanging over it. Wilder and Diamond must have somehow known that the second half of the 1960s would be fraught with social changes and the re-evaluation of old standards. What looked like trash in 1964 seems pretty prescient when screened today.

This is a low and deeply cynical comedy even by Billy Wilder's standards. It's about the American Dream and says a man would sell his wife to achieve it. Ray Walston, (brilliantly cast; nobody played sharper or more venal in comedy than he did - remember, he once even played the devil?), is the small-town songwriter who tries to sell some of his songs to a visiting superstar called Dino, (Dean Martin, parodying himself as a womanizing, hard-drinking piece of scum). The way he does it is to pass his wife off as a piece of bait for Martin to sleep with and hopefully take his songs. But being the all-American hypocrite that he is, he can't bring himself to use his real wife so he packs her off to a motel and hires the local floozie Polly the Pistol (Kim Novak) to take her place.

The film is very funny in the way it undermines our conventional sense of morality. It's like a French Farce full of dirty American gags and in some ways is one of Wilder's best (though under-valued) films. The only 'nice' character in the whole picture is Polly and Novak brings to the part the same kind of touching naiveté we associate with Monroe. (It's a very Monroe-like performance). And this is probably the best acting Novak has done outside of "Vertigo" and possibly "Picnic"; (her Polly is like an older, more sullied version of the character she played in "Picnic"). A lot of Americans found this film deeply offensive, (it was a bigger success in Europe), and it was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency.

Billy Wilder's career as a hitmaker ended with this for-its-time smutty sex comedy, yet it shows all of the flaws and strengths that once made him one of Hollywood's top directors and, for all its sexual innuendo, is really a very sweet film. Although Ray Walston is terribly miscast as small-town songwriter Orville J. Spooner, who hires a local prostitute (Kim Novak) to impersonate his wife (Felicia Farr) so he can use her to sell singing star Dino (Dean Martin) his songs, the other three stars are dynamite. Farr displays a crack sense of comic timing. Martin, one of Hollywood's most underrated actors, is dead on in a parody of his own image. And Novak gives the performance of her career as the romantic small-town slut trying to earn enough money to get her trailer out of the desert.

As with most of Wilder's films, all the cynicism and sex play mask a romantic heart: Polly and Orville begin to believe in her masquerade as his wife, until he kicks Dino out to protect her honor. The two develop a genuine affection for each other that transcends their brief sexual encounter.

At the time of its release, it was a major scandal, condemned by the Legion of Decency and disowned by United Artists. Now, it seems less shocking and ranks among the second tier of Billy Wilder's work. It's hardly as good as "Some Like It Hot" or "Sunset Boulevard," but never descends to the shoddiness of "The Front Page."

Did you know that there are two released versions of this film? The European release is slightly different from the American release. I have just seen the European version in a sparkling print shown in New York. The tint of the American prints seem to be a darker than the European print. The biggest difference is the trailer scene between Dean Martin and Felicia Farr. Wilder was forced to re-shoot the scene by the American censors. In the European version, there is no doubt that Martin and Farr have a sexual encounter during their night together. This makes the film stronger, but the American scene is much, much funnier and we are left with a doubt as to whether Dean and the pianist's wife had a one night stand.

Seeing this film with an audience was a revelation! The jokes work 99% of the time and laughter filled the theater from the first frame until the last frame. I do feel that with Kim Novack and Ray Walston in pivotal roles, we are given the bus and truck company instead of the heavy hitters. What a film this would have been had these roles been played by Marilyn Monroe and Peter Sellers! Jack Lemmon would have been an excellent choice as well for the Walston role. Now Walston is fine; he is a skillful comic actor but he lacks a certain charisma which prevented him from becoming a top star. Novack, while never a great actress, actually plays the comedy quite well. It is a pleasant surprise. I have also been bothered by Ian Freebairn-Smith's dubbing of Walston's singing voice in the two songs "Sophia" and "All the Livelong Day". Walston had a musical comedy background and sang in the movies "Damn Yankees" and "South Pacific". Maybe the vocals were recorded while Peter Sellers was still on the project. Of course, Dean Martin is perfect in this film. He plays himself, or shall I say he plays his known caricature, and he does it beautifully. He proves what a fine comedian he has always been. Take that Jerry!

In this sex comedy from writer-director Billy Wilder, Dean Martin stars as Dino, a Vegas singer and comedian who heads to Hollywood to make his next picture. His ends up in the small town of Climax where his car "breaks down", leading him to stay at the home of local piano teacher and aspiring songwriter Orville (Ray Walston), who hopes to get Dino buy some of his songs. The only problem is that Dino wants a woman for the night, and the insanely jealous Orville is afraid he'll target Orville's wife Zelda (Felicia Farr). So Orville arranges for the real Zelda to be gone, and hires local cocktail waitress Polly (Kim Novak) to pose as her and take the brunt of Dino's charge. Also featuring Mel Blanc.

This was highly controversial upon release, condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency, and lambasted in the press as smutty and prurient. Even Barbara Stanwyck made public condemnations of the film. Now of course it doesn't come across as anything more than a typical primetime sitcom, and even tame by those standards. I wasn't too fond of Walston, although I learned that he was a late replacement for Peter Sellers, who suffered a series of heart attacks after filming began. In fact, the main cast was originally supposed to be Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, and Shirley MacLaine in the Martin, Farr, and Novak roles, respectively. Dean Martin's exaggerated spoof of his own persona seems to have been a forerunner of later "meta" self-parodies like Being John Malkovich, Topher Grace in the Ocean's movies, or the entirety of This Is the End.

Jealous piano teacher Orville Spooner (Ray Walston) sends his beautiful wife, Zelda (Felicia Farr), away for the night while he tries to sell a song to a famous nightclub singer Dino (Dean Martin), who is stranded in town.

The Catholic Legion of Decency strongly objected to the completed film and it was condemned, the second film to get such an honor -- the first being "Baby Doll" in 1956. One can easily see why, as while there is no nudity, there is plenty of humor revolving around prostitution, adultery and and Dean Martin being a "sex maniac".

A. H. Weiler of the New York Times called the film "pitifully unfunny" and "obvious, plodding, short on laughs and performances and long on vulgarity." This seems unfair. While it is not among Billy Wilder's best work, even Wilder's average films are better than many other people's greatest attempts. I can only say now (roughly fifty years after the film debuted) that while it was not perfect, it had its moments and was quite bold in its own way.

Billy Wilder's "Kiss Me,Stupid" was one of the few flops in the great writer/producer/director's canon. It was condemned by the Catholic League and was not well received by the critics or public. And it's a shame because this is one of Wilder's very best films; a cynical, often very funny comedy about a very touchy subject: fidelity (which probably accounts for its PG-13 rating; an oblique tribute to its' power)

Ray Walston stars as Orville Spooner, a third rate songwriter from a small town who has yet to chart a big hit. The role was originally cast with Peter Sellers, but after suffering seven heart attacks in a row, Wilder recast the part with Walston. I think it works out better this way. Sellers' greatest strength is improvisation, which Wilder is dead against. Walston has a dry, scorching delivery that works wonders with Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond's crisp dialogue. This is his best film work and he deserved an Oscar for this role.Dean Martin is cast as "Dino", a drunken, womanizing singer (how much of that was fiction?). Kim Novak is surprisingly good as the town hooker. Between "Vertigo", "Picnic" and this, who would have thought what a great actress Novak really is? She takes such great risks that a bigger actress wouldn't. And last, but not least, Wilder regular Cliff Osmond has the showiest of his Wilder roles as Walston's songwriting partners. (His lyrics for Walston's music are a riot)

I'm not going to give away the plot here because so much of the film's success is dependent on the element of surprise and there are many. But what amazes me is that you can take the riskiest of material and make it funny. Anything can be funny. It's all in how you do it. For example, Tom Green's "Freddy Got Fingered" wallows in just being disgusting and on that level, it is very wretched indeed. In fact, one could say that "Kiss Me, Stupid" was the "Freddy Got Fingered" of its' day. But Billy Wilder isn't just satisfied with presenting something. He has wit and he has ideas. He takes this material and presents it in such a way that it works as drama too.

It's also a great piece of filmmaking. Wilder's film is widescreen black and white, which emphasizes the characters and story. This is important because if it had been in color, we might have gotten caught up with atmosphere. While sometimes that's a good thing, this film has too many rich characters to care with the atmosphere.

Wilder is a master of the "serious comedy", movies in which we laugh so we may not cry. His titles include "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" ( a wonderful film which was never seen as fully intended) , "Ace In The Hole", "Stalag 13", "The Apartment", "Irma La Douce" and "The Fortune Cookie". "Kiss Me, Stupid" is very much in key with his body of work. It's a shame that this film still hasn't gotten the respect it deserves. It's a bigger shame that even fewer people understand it . That's a biting observation of our society.

**** out of 4 stars

Billy Wilder's failed satire of sex comedies involves famous crooner and ladies' man Dean Martin stranded in a small town on the Nevada border, befriended by hack songwriter Ray Walston who hopes to sell Dino his novelty songs. To sweeten the pot, Walston gets curvy waitress/prostitute Kim Novak to pose as his wife and seduce the star. Controversial when first released (and condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency!), the film isn't quite as risqué today, playing like an extended episode of TV's "Three's Company". However, it does push some effective buttons and has edgy moments of comedy (it may be an oldster's idea of hip, but it's pretty close to the real thing and not a poser). Martin, Novak, and Felicia Farr are all engaging, and director Wilder sets up the running gags with his customary aplomb, yet not much can be done with Ray Walston, an eleventh-hour replacement for Peter Sellers and a complete mismatch for this ribs-nudging material. Hurt overall by a claustrophobic production and the dingy design, disappointing cinematography and balky early pacing, which is far too staid. **1/2 from ****

First stumbled across late one Friday night on Tv, this is a much maligned little film. Sure, it's a little odd, perhaps confrontational given the (alleged) morality of it's era but once you get over your initial surprise that Dean Martin star of so many truly awful Jerry Lewis films made something as quirky as this, then it's well worth staying up until two in the morning like I did. Dean Martin gives a good performance as - well, Dean Martin, but the show gets stolen by the husband and wife whose marriage is busy falling apart in smalltown America when Martin turns their world topsy turvy. Wilder, it seems, cannot make bad movies and this is a refreshing twist on the now over-used "handsome stranger stuck in small town after car trouble scenario." Much better than everyone claims....

Kiss Me Stupid is fair, but because it has some risqué moments, 1960's wisecracking and mild female form, it is noteworthy as a predecessor to the coming sexual revolution of the late 60's. There's a mention by lovely Felicia Farr (Zelda, Walston's harried wife) of the magazine, Playboy, referring to her amorous husband. Indeed, Hefner's hedonistic philosophy permeates the film. We see actual unheard-of-before, wife pandering between Dean Martin and Ray Walston. By 1964, this was real edgy stuff. Naturally, after a dalliance with Dino, no harm done, and Zelda is back with a more sensitive husband. This is the Heffner philosophy: If it feels good with mutual consent, then no harm done. Pleasure is its own end. Hubby meanwhile, has his indiscretion with va-va-voom, Kim Novak. The 50's star is on the hefty side as her screen siren days come to a close.

Dean Martin plays his image, the freewheeling Las Vegas cabaret singer, drunk, and a womanizer. His real persona was actually the opposite. Dino was a family man. Nevertheless, audiences loved the rat-pack joker and flocked to the screens to see the swinging Dino. One can only wonder if Dean Martin could act. We'll never find out.

This film, following a near-unbroken 20-year run of commercial and critical successes, spelled the beginning of the end for Billy Wilder. Both ONE, TWO, THREE and IRMA LA DOUCE showed signs of incipient decline, but this 1964 effort forms the line beyond which little of worth was produced by the legendary Austrian. While this isn't a terrible movie, it isn't great; in fact it isn't even very good, despite a decent effort from Walston, a pretty good self-parody by Martin, and a game try by Novak to overcome her limited talents.

The story is based on an Italian play, and Wilder and his long-time collaborator I. A. L. Diamond do little to open up the story. Walston plays Oliver J. (for 'jerk' or 'Jeremiah') Spooner, piano teacher in a small desert town in Nevada called Climax. Oliver spends his time writing songs with his song-writing partner Barney (Cliff Osmond in a strangely dislikeable role) an attendant at the garage across the road from his house, and agonising over undeserved suspicions about the fidelity of his sexy young wife (Felicia Farr). Into Spooner's life drives Rat Pack superstar Dino (Guess Who), and a plot is hatched by the song-writing duo to keep the singer at Spooner's house overnight so that he can expose the star to their musical masterpieces which, needless to say, are pretty awful. The only problem is that Dino is a self-confessed sex hound and Oliver's nubile young wife was a founder member of the Dino fan club at high school. There then follows an over-complicated plot to install local waitress (and part-time hooker) Polly the Pistol (Novak) as Oliver's wife (without Oliver's real wife knowing) so that Dino can get as fruity as he likes with her without Oliver going off the deep end.

This is pretty cynical, downbeat stuff, complemented by a sombre black-and-white cinematography that seems to emphasise the bleakness of not just the character's surroundings, but their entire lives, and it's not easy to successfully translate this mood of dispirited ennui into a serviceable comedy. The screenplay is scattered with one-liners that, although they raise a smile on occasion, don't really belong in a film like this. It probably works best as a satire of the pursuit of the American dream and the lengths that ordinary people will go to obtain that dream, but offers little in the way of redemption for the lead character's by the end of the film. In fact every character is soiled in some way by the story that unfolds, and only Polly the Pistol comes across as a sympathetic character simply because her aspirations are more modest than those of the other characters. She wants what they already have, and what they are too selfish and blinkered to enjoy.

Martin comes across as pretty sleazy in this one. Playing up his boozing, womanising image, he comes across as a sleaze with no redeeming qualities and a total disregard for those around him. You kind of wonder what prompted him to take the part of such a nasty character – especially as it is so clearly based on him. It's difficult to believe he wasn't aware of the despicable nature of his character. Perhaps, as another reviewer has suggested, he didn't care, or perhaps he simply wanted to thrust a finger in the face of the moral majority that criticised his way of life. Either way, if another actor parodied a celebrity like that today, the producers would find themselves with a libel suit on their hands before the film even saw the light of day. Brave or stupid, Martin gives a decent performance anyway.

Apparently Peter Sellers was slated to play Spooner, but lost the role when he suffered a series of heart attacks shortly after filming began. Although a grave misfortune for Sellers, this can only be good for this film. The role is annoying enough without being saddled with Sellers' self-indulgence. At least Walston does a pretty good job with a difficult role that tries hard to alienate the audience for most of the movie. Behaving the way Spooner does, he wouldn't hold onto a pretty young thing like Zelda for five months, let alone five years. Novak gives it her best shot as Polly the Pistol (no pun intended) but her range really is limited, and she too often falls into the breathy-Monroe style of acting (apparently her role was originally intended for Monroe). Her big scene with Zelda near the end of the movie is truly awful, which is a shame because Polly is a wholly likable character and the true heart of the story.

I don't think this is the undiscovered classic that some are trying to make it out to be, neither do I believe it deserves the tarnished reputation it has. The fact is, even great directors fire off the occasional blank and this film is one of Wilder's. KISS ME, STUPID isn't good and it isn't bad, and if it had been directed by anybody else it would have been forgotten a long time ago.

In January 1965, I remember reading a TV Guide article bemoaning the immorality depicted in recent Hollywood films. Two movies, in particular, were singled out. The first, THE CARPETBAGGERS, was based on Harold Robbins trashy novel and KISS ME, STUPID, referred to as out and out'smut'by various film critics at the time.

The much maligned and savaged KISS ME,STUPID has aged far better than the previously mentioned title, thanks in large part to director Billy Wilder's razor sharp satiric barbs at the expense of small town America's morals and mores, in this case, Climax, Nevada.

Dean Martin portrays himself or rather a ratcheted up version of his 'Dino' persona. From his killer opening monologue at The Sands in Las Vegas surrounded by a bevy of beautiful showgirls, Martin establishes himself as the ultra cool embodiment of 'The Ratpack.' His comic timing is impeccable throughout this flick.

Kim Novak as 'Polly the Pistol' a cocktail waitress-cum-whore delivers a knock out sympathetic performance. Her physical presence in this film represents girlie magazines of the era such as 'Dude,'Gent,''Rogue,'and 'Nugget' i.e. big dames who are well proportioned. Another of the more interesting aspects watching Kim Novak on screen throughout her career is her facial expression which usually looks like she's in the midst of having sex.

When Martin and Miss Novak are on screen together, the sexual tension is palpable. In one scene, 'Dino' is sitting next to 'Polly' who is wearing a several sizes too tight dress, when he removes one of her high heels and starts lecherously tickling her foot. He then pours a long stemmed beaker of chianti into the high heel stiletto and proceeds to drink from it. During a period when an American sex comedy meant serving up Rock Hudson & Doris Day to titillate audiences, KISS ME,STUPID arrived on the scene like a ribald slap on a pretty girl's primly skirted derrière.

The movie has an alluringly seedy look about it. Debauchery plays much better in black & white than in Technicolor. Ray Walston(already a household name,thanks to "MY FAVORITE MARTIAN") portrays a manic version of a frustrated songwriter who imagines himself to be cuckolded up to a third of the way through the film. Even Walston's hair looks taut, almost spiked to add to his on the brink behavior. Felicia Farr as Walston's wife ,Zelda, provides a perpetually smiling, sometimes naive outlook on her life as one of the residents of Climax. (She was married to Jack Lemmon at the time, a Wilder favorite). Yet she does have the final word in this movie.

In the midst of adulterous affairs with impunity(in itself shocking four years before the MPAA codes were brought in) ultimately,KISS ME,STUPID is a love story. Miss Novak as 'Polly'explains in her husky yet nurturing voice "A woman without a man is like a trailer without a car." Who knows, maybe we can hitch a ride to "The Belly Button" where we can "Drop In And Get Lost."

let me say at the outset: Dean (DINO) Martin fans will love it...DEan gets off a surprisingly nuanced and often very funny self-parody!

he has a great line when an unsuccessful songwriting team fling their best tune at him > he has been forced by a detour into a small town, where he has been manipulated to stay the night: "just what I need...another Italian love song!".

problem is that his self parody has a seriously "dark" side > he is not the wine-women-song man but a leering letch, anxious to jump on Ray Walston's wife (actually KIm Novak, the small town hottest barmaid, playing proxy - SEE THE MOVIE). what was needed was a lot of great one liners and ad-libs (it's been said Wilder was against that).

I did not particularly enjoy Walston's performance...and the black and white lighting gives him a crazed, sinister look, at times.

Felicia Farr does very well but the constraints of the storyline call for her to physically resemble her overnite replacement...it gets just a little weird.

and so...here it comes...shoulda been Curtis as the Top 40 phenom, Lemmon as the totally paranoid, jealous hubby and Monroe as the outrageously sexy lust interest. okay, that means this film should have been made in 1960-61.

some viewers may find some of the sexual stuff very disturbing..young viewers today, used to the oversexed sitcom, may find it amusing. at the time, it was considered a rather immoral exercise.

Billy Wilder directed several of the greatest movies in Hollywood history: Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity, and The Apartment, among others.

With Kiss Me, Stupid he diversified his resume by directing one of the most awful debacles ever to litter the screen.

This movie isn't just bad, it's excruciatingly painful to sit through. There's so much wrong with it that it's hard to know where to start, but seeping through it all is a mean-spirited cynicism that drains whatever goodwill we might have otherwise granted the director even in his worst moments.

Whether through bad casting or spectacularly misguided direction, Wilder summons forth performances from his lead actors that are uniformly humiliating. They're the kind of roles that could ruin an actor's career, and probably did for several of the performers. Ray Walston's turn as piano teacher Orville J. Spooner is a sad spectacle that sours the memory of his great role in The Apartment. Watching Cliff Osmand's gas station attendant is akin to rubbing two pieces of styrofoam together, the kind of useless torment that is made more aggravating by its pointlessness. Kim Novak is transformed into a pitiful dumb broad, and Dean Martin plays himself, or, more pointedly, he plays the version of himself that his worst enemy might have imagined in a feverish bout of spite.

Walston's role originally belonged to Peter Sellers, who suffered a heart attack and was forced to withdraw from the picture. It's interesting to speculate whether Sellers' peculiar brand of genius might have redeemed this mess, if somehow his presence at the center of things would have given the production an object around which to revolve. On the other hand it's more plausible that he took one look at the first set of dailies and keeled over in his own best interests.

Some people still consider this movie a flop. Having just re-watched this movie for the first time in years, I can't see why. Perhaps Walston is a bit weak in a leading role (Sellers would have been fantastic), but the script is first rate, both funny and touching.

Dean Martin and Kim Novak are seriously under-rated actors in my opinion; here Dean sends himself up as 'Dino' and is not afraid to play himself as un-likable. Novak is, as always, wonderful. Sadly Kim never seems to get the appreciation she deserves, her performances in such movies as 'Vertigo' and 'Bell, Book & Candle' are never less than first class. While the lesser-known Felicia Farr comes across very well (she was also the wife of Wilder's frequent star, Jack Lemmon, I wonder how this film would have worked with Lemmon in the Walston role?)

This is a gem of a movie and one of Wilder's best.

Billy Wilder is a master of filmmaking and storytelling. I love his movies.

This rare gem is in the shadow of his successful movies, because it's a grim and dark tale of people and their motivations to fulfill their dreams.

Ray Walston is a great and very underrated actor. Here he shows what a great actor he really was, very emotional, very loving but also very selfish. His performance grips and touches me, makes his character loveable and hateful at once and this is a rare quality.

Dean Martin plays a tribute, parody and clichée of himself. He's more of the supporting actor than in the lead here. His openig scene is great.

Kim Novak is a great surprise in this movie showing what talented and masterful actress she was. Her performance is touching, more in the silent parts, where no words say more than the dialogues. She's the soul of this movie. Stunning.

Where Kim Novak is the soul, she's the heart of the movie: Felicia Farr. What a great actress and her character is so subtle, empathic and makes the whole movie work. Thank you.

Cliff Osmond plays his character flawlessly and is already well-known from other Billy Wilder movies (e.p. The Fortune Cookie). He's very shakespearian, the spark of all the grim drama and fuels the darkness in each character.

But with fuel comes fire and fire is purification in its core.

Although the performances a top notch, the characters are mercilessly shown with their flaws and the more the story prolongs the more is dislike the characters who are full of lust and greed and deception just for their own advantage.

It's a rare quality and a great movie, but it's also a little bit to constructed, too formulaic about the motivations of the characters.

At the end nothing is as it was, everybody got some spots on their soul, but the big winner is hope and love.

Recommended.

Loving husband with his jealoussy.

A legend goes a s far as pretending that "kiss me stupid" is subpar.As far as Wilder comedies are concerned it's only one notch or two under the two Monroe ones and probably the underrated "avanti",and probably superior to "apartment" "one two three" or "stalag 17" Reductio ad absurdum that love between husband and wife is laudable,playing with every cliché you can think of and creating absolutely stunning scenes out of them.

This is a movie one can only dream of ,nowadays ,when comedies are vulgar,not funny at all and gamble on audience's stupidity (!)Once again,once more ,Wilder 's screenplay is exciting,witty,now delirious-the parrot watching the telly-,now almost dramatic -the scene when Walston throws a loaded Martin out of his home,this admirable sequence when Novak thinks that it would be great to be a housewife .

Wilder plays with his characters ,no one is in the right place,no one acts as if he's supposed to do,and,that's the miracle,everything will turn right.Invention is everywhere ,in every scene,in every line of dialogue,even in these silly songs the hero and his pal want Dean Martin to sing (check the words:" when I'm without you,I'm a Yorkshire pudding without a roast beef(sic))

Wilder was a director who used to dare ,provocation was his forte :from the name of the one-horse town (Climax) to the holier-than-thou woman who set up a petition against the "belly button" ,this den of iniquity. And however,in the end ,his movie is more "moral" than one hundred of these sanitized contemporary comedies .As I said, reductio ad absurdum. God bless Billy Wilder for the fun he gave to the world!

Dino (Dean Martin) , the good looking and lecherous Las Vegas singer, stops for gas on his way to Hollywood in Climax, Nevada. The oily gas station attendant is Barney Millsap (Cliff Osmond) , a would-be lyricist who writes pop songs with Orville Spooner, the local piano teacher. By disabling Dino's car, Barney contrives a scheme to have charming Dino sing one of their songs on an upcoming TV special. Possessively jealous piano teacher Orville Spooner (Ray Walston) , a local songwriter, wants Dino to hear his tunes but knows the cad will seduce his pretty wife, so he hires a floozy (Kim Novak) to pose as the tempting spouse. Meanwhile, Barney sends his beautiful wife (Felicia Farr) , Zelda, away for the night while he tries to sell a song to famous nightclub singer Dino, who is stranded in town. There Was This Girl in Climax, Nevada!. It happened in Climax, Nevada !. Dino...he came to dinner...Polly the Pistol - she stayed for breakfast...Beethoven - he cooked up the whole mess...This picture is for adults only !.

An enjoyable film with funny, amusing script by the compelling tandem LAL Diamond and Billy Wilder. A roguish, vulgar and thorny issue at the time by passing off a local prostitute as the complacent wife of one of them. Chance and infidelities mix in this uninhibited sitcom, one of the director's best. The attack on 'good customs' and the dominant puritanism in broad sectors of North American society complicated the dissemination of the film at the time. It gets better as it goes along, but the whole thing suffers from staginess, being an adaptation of an Italian play ¨L'ora della fantasia¨by Anna Bonacci. However, one condemned as smut, this lesser Wilder effort now seems no worse than a TV sitcom. Rightly agreeable with plenty of sly bits of business and fun-filled , milestone comedy which neatly combines humor , mirth , entertaining situations , a feeling romance and bitterness . Notable direction render this stunning story more funny than usual. Giving a jaundiced vision leavened by a tender sympathy for the frailty of human motives. Dean Martin basically plays himself as a horny Vegas crooner stranded in the boondocks. Drawing heavily on Martin's offscreen persona, this sees him as a sex-crazed, arrogant crooner stranded in a remote Californian town and feigning interest in a songs composer -nicely played by Ray Walston who steals the show- in return for the sexual favours of the latter's wife -attractively played by Felicia Farr.

The motion picture was well directed by Billy Wilder who includes several punchlines . Being one of Wilder's most inventive and furious screen adaptations .Billy was one of the best directors of history . In 1939 started the partnership with Charles Bracket on such movies as ¨Ninotchka¨ , ¨Ball of fire¨ , making their film debut as such with ¨Major and the minor¨ . ¨Sunset Boulevard¨ was their last picture together before they split up . Later on , Billy collaborated with another excellent screenwriter IAL Diamond . Both of them won an Academy Award for ¨Stalag 17¨ dealing with a POW camp starred by William Holden . After that , they wrote/produced/directed such classics as ¨Ace in the hole¨ , the touching romantic comedy ¨Sabrina¨ , the Hickcoktian courtroom puzzle game ¨Witness for the prosecution¨ and two movies with the great star Marilyn Monroe , the warmth ¨Seven year itch¨ and this ¨Some like hot¨. All of them include screenplays that sizzle with wit . But their biggest success and highpoint resulted to be the sour and fun ¨The apartment¨. Subsequently in the 60s and 70s , the duo fell headlong into the pit , they realized nice though unsuccessful movies as ¨Buddy buddy¨ ,¨Fedora¨ , ¨Front page¨ and ¨Secret life of Sherlock Holmes¨, though the agreeable ¨Avanti¨ slowed the decline . The team , Wilder-Diamond , had almost disappeared beneath a wave of bad reviews and failures . Rating : 6.5/10 . Above average , essential and indispensable watching ; extremely funny and riveting film and completely entertaining .It's the kind of movie where you know what's coming but , because the treatment , enjoy it all the same .

KISS ME, STUPID might have failed in 1964 for no better reason than the dreadful title (remember 1967's sublime THE HONEY POT?), but the film, drawn from an Italian play, "L'Ora della Fantasia" (filmed earlier as "Moglie per una Notte" or "Wife For A Night" with Gina Lollobrigida unexpectedly in the Felicia Farr role of the wife!) was essentially one long dirty joke about a jealous husband willing to sacrifice SOMEONE's virtue to get ahead, just not his wife's...except that it had Billy Wilder, who found something special there.

In 1964, Billy Wilder's production, the script lovingly crafted with frequent collaborator I.A.L. Diamond with excellent songs recrafted from the Gershwins' trunk by Ira (it's only the NON-song background music which was by Andre Previn), suffered from every problem imaginable. First Marilyn Monroe (slated for the Kim Novak role) died pre-production, then Peter Sellers (in the Ray Walston part) had a heart attack once it began. The Catholic League of Decency (never known for having any sense of humor) condemned it for daring to suggest that there was more to fidelity than mere form. One wonders if Wilder's earlier (and just as problematic) film "The Apartment" would have won its Best Picture Oscar in 1961 had the group been as vociferously narrow then.

The final insult came when U.S. exhibitors forced Wilder to re-shoot "the trailer scene" (included as a bonus track on the DVD) for U.S. release to imply that "nothing happened" - undercutting the finely crafted balance of the film - and then United Artists dropped the U.S. distribution anyway, putting a subsidiary's name on the film so as not to give "corporate offense" to U.S. bluenoses. U/A's back on the credits - as "An MGM Company" - for the DVD release, which is of the superior ORIGINAL print released abroad.

Commercial success was not to be for KISS ME, STUPID in 1964, and while many view the film today as an undiscovered masterpiece it remains a basically flawed piece - but it does have some amazing virtues - and mysteries. Key to the virtues is the canny casting of Dean Martin and Kim Novak in parodies of their public images: "Dino" the hard drinking, womanizing singer, Kim the actress of limited non-physical virtues specializing in trollop portrayals. Dean, of course delivers as the singer Ray Walston's piano-teacher/composer (with his mechanic/lyric writing partner Cliff Osmond) is desperate to sell a song to, making vintage and rewritten Gershwin songs ("Sophia" was originally "Wake Up, Brother, And Dance," cut from "Shall We Dance") sound as fresh as 1964 - but the key to the film is perhaps the ONLY near great performance of Kim Novak's career.

Under Wilder's direction (something not even Hitchcock could do), Novak makes "Polly the Pistol" a fully rounded character that the audience can care deeply about and be rewarded when Wilder and Diamond give her a genuinely hopeful happy ending - something they do for *everyone* in this unexpectedly warm film, unlike the possibly more realistic "...Apartment." Novak's brief scene with excellent second tier actress Felicia Farr as the wife (why did she never find the roles to make her a bigger star?), is a minor masterpiece and worth the whole film.

Those too shallow to understand why an artist like Wilder would choose to film in the more detailed visual vocabulary of black & white (or who miss Hays Code "morality") will probably never be the ideal audience for KISS ME, STUPID, even 'though the poorly chosen title might seem geared to that sort of "lowest common denominator" comedic taste. There are laughs aplenty here, but the essence of a Wilder comedy is its intelligence and heart.

If there is a problem of *craft* in the film (mainly flawed by the husband's basic attitude toward "his" wife - he does grow during the film - although many will still have problems with the method of surrogate teaching), it is the minor matter of Broadway star Ray Walston's voice when he is demonstrating his songs for "Dino." It is clearly NOT Walston singing and one can't help but wonder why. No one felt it necessary to dub him in 1958 when he recreated his London role (Luther Billis) in the film of "South Pacific" or his Broadway role (Mr. Applegate) in "Damn Yankees." One suspects that the obvious dubbing was in the service of an "in joke" in the Wilder/Diamond script where the wife insists to "Dino" that the song "Sophia" would be better suited to the voice of pop singer, Jack Jones. Walston's singing voice in the film sounds suspiciously like that of Mr. Jones!

Whatever the problems, this KISS ME, STUPID, is ripe for reevaluation and well worth a look. The famed "Wilder Touch" has never been more in evidence, giving essentially problematic material an undeniable warmth and lingering satisfaction for any audience sufficiently sophisticated to give it a chance. The performance Wilder gets from Kim Novak alone may leave people wondering how he could have won *only* six Oscars! A little film with a very big heart.

Okay, so it's Wilder. Forget all the other movies he's made. By itself - this one's got a plot, a funny one at that and Ray Walston's ability to replace Peter Sellers may not be possible - unless you never knew Peter Sellers had the part before him. Not a bad film at all - watched without any knowledge of Peter Sellers role or caring about what Billy Wilder had done previously (or since). I liked it - and the storyline fits the everyman dream of finding success (for almost everyone). Love those movies with happy endings. Whenever you see a movie it isn't always the people playing the characters that matter, it's the story being told and the craft with which it's told. This one fits now - may not have in 1964, but it does now.

The brilliant Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond created some of the screen's most memorable films. This, sadly, is not one of them. In the 1950s Wilder tried very, very hard to make delightful sex comedies in imitation of his idol, Ernst Lubitsch.

But Wilder and Diamond's acidic cynicism could not be further from Lubitsch's affectionate, sophisticated farces. Lubitsch loved his charming cuckolds and adulterers and made us love them too. Wilder and Diamond seem to HATE every one of the crass, tacky characters in this movie.

Walston's deluded husband and his grease monkey friend are repellent and the women are degradingly portrayed as trashy sex objects or mindlessly compliant Stepford wives. The tone is as far from Lubitsch as A is from Z.

The misanthropy that proved so effective in the underrated ACE IN THE HOLE is totally wrong for this sex farce, whose characters act in ways that bear little resemblance to human behavior.

When the innocent wife peeks through a window and sees her husband embracing a prostitute, what does she do? Barge in and ask what the heck is going on? No. She repairs to the local brothel and gets blind drunk. HUH??? Similarly, the husband tries to drive his loving wife out of the house, so he can implement his money-making scheme, by being gratuitously cruel to her -- in a long scene so cringe-worthy it makes you feel like taking a shower after watching it. How could Wilder and Diamond possibly have thought this was funny? In place of Lubitsch's witty, risqué repartee, we get smutty one-liners that would be rejected by a third-rate burlesque comic.

Is KISS ME STUPID a neglected masterpiece? Some think so, but every bad movie has its passionate defenders. I've read that Wilder later came to his senses and disowned this mean-spirited misfire.

Lubitsch loved all his characters, even the ones who behave the worst. He never patronized or looked down on them. KISS ME STUPID is so filled with disgust, you can't help wondering what its creators were going through at the time that made them so bitter about love, marriage, and women.

"What would Lubitsch do?" read the sign Wilder kept over his desk. I'll tell you what Lubitsch NEVER would have done: KISS ME STUPID. Every genius is off his game from time to time. KISS ME STUPID is to Wilder's oeuvre what A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG is to Chaplin's. I bet Wilder wished in later years he could make it disappear.

(P.S. to the poster who wonders whether Dean Martin could act. See RIO BRAVO and you'll see with the right director he could. Dino is terrific in that late Howard Hawks masterpiece.)