The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom (1968)

That was an excellent one.

Fresh and Exciting

A Major Disappointment

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Shirley MacLaine stars as the wife of brassiere magnate Richard Attenborough. Happily married if somewhat lonely, she ends up sleeping with James Booth, a fellow who works for her husband who swings by to help her fix the sewing machine. Now he won't leave. He moves into the attic, and she has to juggle a husband and a lover under one roof. A bit of a relic of it's era with lots of whacky swinging sixties visuals. It's an amusing film that largely loses it's way during it's repetitive final act. Freddie Jones dominates the film in his handful of appearances as a very eccentric cop investigating Booth's disappearance. John Cleese and Barry Humphries appear in very small roles.

I found the film extremely hard to watch. I saw it on Netflix and I kept stopping it after fifteen or twenty minutes and resuming it the next day until I got through the whole thing.I generally like Shirley Maclaine and Richard Attenborough and I like splashy British psychedelic 60's movies like "Casino Royale" and "What's New Pussycat" However, Maclaine was unexpectedly listless and dull and Attenborough, despite a brave attempt, could not bring a spark of life to the movie. The great sets are wasted in a movie that seems to want to be hip or hippie, but doesn't know how.Someone named James Booth is the real star. It was a surprise to see such an unknown actor actually given more screen time than big stars like Maclaine and Attenborough. I kept thinking he was going to disappear from the movie, but instead his part just grew bigger and bigger to the point of pushing the other stars out. To be fair, He apparently did star in five or six movies low budget, moderately successful films in the 60's, but then went into playing mostly guest star television roles for the next 40 years. He plays a part that desperately needs the zaniness of Peter Sellers. One feels as if the part of Ambrose Tuttle, a crazy spaced out genius was written with Sellers in mind. Booth is much too laid back for the absurd cartoon style of the character and the work.The movie is visually quite interesting, but it pitches, rolls and jumps all over the place. Sadly, the director seems to know nothing about directing actors or scenes. The actors seem to be talking directly to the audience and not each other. This has the effect of making the movie seem like a long episode of the 1960's television show "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in," but without any jokes. The wonderful time that all the characters appear to be having is not infectious, but annoying.Anyways, I give the movie one star for Maclaine, one star for Attenborough and one star for the sets, but everything else is a gigantic bore in the film. If you're heavily stoned when watching, as the filmmakers appear to have been when putting this mess together, you can add another three stars.

Robert Blossom, an English brassiere manufacturer, is a perfectionist. His designs are always being updated so that ladies buying the product will get the best use of it. He is married to Harriet, an American from Ohio, who is clearly bored with her life. She spends all her energies in decorating her suburban London home in what could be taken for a modified psychedelic style, so prevalent from that era. In addition, she is a painter and she likes to create her own clothes.When Harriet's old sewing machine breaks, she asks Robert for help. Mr. Blossom sends Ambrose Tuttle, a mechanic to his home to repair the damage. Ambrose, who has been with the firm for only a short while, is dazzled by the beautiful woman he meets. Harriet, a kind hearted woman has a soft spot for the man that tells her he is an orphan who never knew his parents. Harriet, who has a spare bed in the attic, invites Ambrose to have it. Well, Ambrose goes a bit further, he decides to move in.Suddenly, Robert begins hearing strange sounds in the house. He is a man that loves conducting the musical recordings in the evening. As the annoying noises keep waking him up, he decides to have a detective look into the matter. Detective Dylan, and his assistant, arrive on the scene, but they never suspect someone like the missing mechanic is right there carrying an affair with Mrs. Tuttle.This British farce, directed by Joseph McGraw, is based on a short story by an American writer, Josef Shaftel, which evidently was turned into a play by Alec Coppel, who co-adapted his own material. The comedy was probably a vehicle for its star, Shirley MacLaine, who is seen as Mrs. Blossom. The copy which was presented on cable recently, had a pristine quality and even though it is just a piece of fluff, the great production design by Assheton Gorton and the art direction of Bill Alexander and George Lack, take the viewer to that era of where London was the center of the Mod fashion and a style that was imitated by everyone. Geoffrey Sheldon photographs all the vivid colors contrasting with the stark white paint of the interior of the house. Riz Ortolani contributed the music score.A subdued Shirley MacLaine proved to be a nice surprise. In contrast, the energetic James Booth is all over the place as Ambrose. Richard Attemborough plays the perfectionist Robert Blossom. Freddie Jones is detective Dylan. John Cleese and Patricia Routledge are seen in small supporting roles.

I only saw this movie once, around 1982. Sorry to admit, I was still doing some of the 60s things at the time, like smoking pot, and so my recollections are not so vivid of the movie (except for laughing too much, and a giant bra), but it is remarkable that even now when I see Shirley McLaine movies I always wonder why Ihave never seen Mrs. Blossom again. I looked it up on Internet just now and came here, because "What a Way to Go!" came on, and it is another even older (1964) Shirley McLaine movie. She's So CUTE! Hmm, now that I recall, I was also in a love triangle at the time. Maybe that's why it seems so poignant.