Boeing, Boeing (1965)

Best movie of this year hands down!

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Tony Curtis has a tight schedule keeping track of the airline stewardesses or hostesses, as they call them here, that are coming and going at his bachelor pad, so the last thing he needs is a roommate, but he gets one when Jerry Lewis shows up in "Boeing Boeing." Even Jerry picks one out for himself. A fast paced, almost frenetic time you will have if you spend any time here. Just ask Thelma Ritter, the cook and maid, who has to know the delicate palate of each and when to show whose picture when, as the picture in the frame is changed constantly. Tony is a news reporter, but that really plays hardly any part of the plot at all, when Tony is always at odds with keeping up with the revolving door. But he tells Jerry that three is just the right number. Four would be too much, and two would be too repetitive. Yes. Three girls to have and bed is just right. He says he's engaged to them, but he secretly has no plans to change the status quo. Despite the ever-changing roster of activity, Thelma Ritter supplies much of the film's humor with her usual delivery of witty one-liners. She does add a degree of respectability to this film, that, without her, would probably feel a bit sleazy. For a non-stop parade of young ladies in Tony Curtis' pad, check out "Boeing Boeing" and see if he and Jerry Lewis ever settle down!

1965's "Boeing Boeing" is a dated but mildly amusing film starring Tony Curtis, Thelma Ritter, Jerry Lewis and Dany Saval. Curtis is a swinging bachelor living in Paris who is juggling three flight attendants at one time, all of whom live with him, and all of them are his fiancees. He's able to do this with the help of his able housekeeper (Ritter) and his carefully worked-out airline schedules. Unfortunately, the new fast planes are goofing up the schedules. Adding to the confusion is a visit by his friend Robert (Lewis), a reporter. The two men and an exhausted Ritter try to keep the women from running into one another at the apartment as their arrivals overlap."Boeing Boeing" was originally a play that had a very brief run on Broadway in the 1960's and went on to become the mainstay of dinner theaters throughout the U.S. After a very successful run in London, it has recently been revived on Broadway starring Christine Baranski as the maid, Bradley Whitford in the Tony Curtis role, Gina Gershon as an Italian flight attendant and Maureen McCormack as a German one. Not having seen the original play, it's hard to know what if anything in the film was changed from the play. In the current Broadway production, the Jerry Lewis character, done to great acclaim on both continents by Mark Rylance, is totally different - he's a shlub who's never seen a woman before. Lewis would have been perfect playing it that way - instead, in the film, the character of Robert is very against type, quite serious. The handsome Curtis does comedy well and is a perfect playboy. Baranski currently does the Ritter role with a French accent, which wrecks most of the dry humor that Baranski, like Ritter, brings to a role. Ritter is very funny as she changes the photograph on the desk, cooks sauerkraut for the German flight attendant, tosses it when the French flight attendant arrives and makes a soufflé instead and basically wears herself out."Boeing Boeing" is pleasant and fun to watch as an example of that great comedy form, the farce.

A prime example of cookie-cutter 60's sex comedy. Tired, banal, limp, lukewarm, strenuously forced drivel who's only source of real humor is the wonderful Thelma Ritter, and the laughs she gets come much more from her persona than from the dry well of the script she had to work with. Curtis tries, but his efforts are in vain. Lewis is actually quite good in a very restrained performance, which is a shame in that it's wasted in this wasteland. None of the characters, save Ritter's, behave in a fashion even beginning to resemble a human being, let alone an intelligent human being. The resulting "humor" is numbingly artificial and contrived. In an outlandish situation genuine humor comes from realistic reactions and behavior. Something you need not expect from the cartoons that populate this sad, inane excuse for comedy.

I saw this play in a 99-seat theater tonight in Sierra Madre, CA. I came to the same conclusion; the guys could have been anyone else. Berthe was the star of the show here, too--a really superb actress. The girls were good, But TWA was obviously anorexic. Luftansa was, well, Ruebenesquely cast.The men were not slick enough for this phenotype, and they tended to garble and fall over the laughs. Most of the laughter came from this mostly SBNN (straight but not narrow) audience, who laughed at the self-delusion and naiveté of both the lead and his foil. They also wanted to know Berthe's cell number.