Bedtime Story (1964)

the audience applauded

Sadly Over-hyped

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Great movie. Is this public domain? Who owns the rights? There must be a reason this never made it to DVD. The DVD that's out there was made from a VHS tape. But the movie shows Brando could do comedy. Of course if you are familiar with Niven you know he had a natural comedic gift. Please, someone put this out in high def. I think I actually bought the paperback book that came out when this movie first came out. I'll have to check my bookshelf. I was watching Send Me No Flowers the other night. I know it was remade but I think it's time for another version. Rock Hudson was great. And also another remake of My Favorite Wife. Didn't like the 60's remake.

I was ten when the movie came out, my dad encouraged me to watch it years later when it played on television. I was hooked...Brando is uproarious as the American GI in Europe, an egotist, sometimes crude, a hustler, preying on gorgeous woman through sympathy, his good looks and his almost pathetic hilarious charm....David Niven is the slick, cool, rich charming Englishman and yes, he's also as conniving as Brando. Though Niven is a bit smarter than "Freddy" (Brando) - It makes for a weird but funny and brief partnership between Niven and Brando, to seduce & fleece some very rich, sometimes beautiful, but always naive, trusting & very willing women.And thus begins an even funnier competition between Brando and Niven, as the movie really gets rolling along...as each character underestimates the other in cons and setups, then untimely outwits the other...all the way until the final twist of an ironic and funny ending to the film.Yes, there are indeed a couple of silly and corny scenes...but overall the movie is a very funny farce, as enjoyable & well written comedy to come out of that early 60's era, (1964) or any era for that matter....Brando is truly terrific - Accept no substitutes, i.e., "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels"!

David Niven was the quintessential English gentleman. Dapper, suave, without ever being pushy. He glided through his many roles with consummate ease. I can understand Marlon Brando's reactions. The whole film depended on the viewer believing that Niven could get away with the confidence trickery. And, of course, he could, just as Brando as the brash American, was the perfect foil. In the 1988 travesty, the viewer could never believe in Michael Caine being an aristocrat. A barrow boy, yes; a gangster; yes - but a smooth confidence trickster, able to con his targets in the South of France - never. Sorry.I would give "Bedtime Story" 9 +I would give "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" zero -.Both titles are inept & the former is confusing. I wonder whose idea it was?It was rather like renaming Les Valseuses ('Balls' in French argot) "Going Places".

If you saw Stanley Shapiro's other movies you will notice that this is a variation on the same theme. But it's still enjoyable. This movie could be considered very misogynous if it weren't so misanthropic. Unlike previous Shapiro productions, in this one, women are described as the stronger gender, but depicted as almost another species, gullible beyond belief. In previous films women were smooth operators in their own right. But the comparative paleness of one gender in this one, is probably the result of so much time being devoted to tarring and feathering the other gender. Shapiro is the master of compassionate cynicism. Niven's character is just preposterously wonderful: an urbane, slightly world-weary crook who has really "arrived" and whose exquisite taste prompts him to be a patron of the vanishing arts and crafts! Brando's is upstart, uncouth vulgarity personified. There may be geopolitical implications here. The happy ending is of course, obligatorily contrived, something out of "The Tender Trap", to satisfy the censors. This is a most delightful farce for connoisseurs. I haven't seen the remake, but can it be better than this?