Product Description

Dean Martin is full of charm wit and snappy one-liners in this "sly irreverent brash and daring comedy" (The Film Daily) from the legendary team of Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond (Some Like It Hot The Apartment)!When the world-renowned singer "Dino" (Martin in a hilarious self-parody) passes through Climax Nevada he doesn't count on meeting two would-be songwriters with a plan to trap him there and serenade him with their songs. But then again they weren't counting on Dino's insatiable appetite... for wine and women! And when one of the men learns that his own wife was once president of Dino's fan club he hires a replacement wife (Kim Novak) to help lure the carousing star into a song-buying mood!System Requirements:Starring: Dean Martin Kim Novak Felicia Farr Cliff Osmond Ray Walston Directed By: Billy Wilder Running Time: 126 Min. Color Copyright 2003 MGM Studios.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 027616887627 Manufacturer No: 1004722

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53903 in DVD
• Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
• Released on: 2003-07-15
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 125 minutes

Amazon.com
In 1964 director Billy Wilder was at the top of his game. Following a string of hits that had begun in 1959 with Some Like It Hot, he now intended to direct a bawdy boudoir farce in the grand tradition of the French theater. The contorted plot involves one Orville J. Spooner, an aspiring song writer (originally to be played by Peter Sellers, but replaced by Ray Walston after Sellers suffered a heart attack, which he partly blamed on Wilder), and his crazed lyricist, buddy Barney Milsap. Together they toil away in the town of Climax, Nevada, Orville working as a piano teacher and Barney pumping gas across the street. Along comes Dean Martin, playing a thinly veiled caricature of himself, who just wants to fill up his tank. Instead, the songwriting duo rig his car so he's forced to spend the night at Orville's, giving the dolts a chance to pitch their songs. But Dino also wants Orville's wife. No problem! They hire Polly the Pistol (Kim Novak), the local prostitute, to masquerade as her. Thus begin the high jinks. The film plays like an extended dirty joke that could have been told around the office water cooler in 1960. It was a colossal failure both critically and commercially, and was banned by the Catholic League of Decency, to boot. Nonetheless, the film has aged well and was ahead of its time (think of it as the grandfather of Caddyshack and the great-grandfather of There's Something About Mary). Wilder eventually renounced the film and moved on. --Kristian St. Clair

Customer Reviews

A rare misfire for Wilder, but not an uninteresting one
Kiss Me, Stupid is an interesting misfire, but despite a promising and outrageous setup - Ray Walston's would be songwriter tries to keep Dean Martin's promiscuous crooner in the small town he breaks down in long enough to buy his songs by using his wife as bait: but, being insanely jealous, he hires Kim Novack to pretend to be his wife only to still find himself becoming jealous - it never really delivers the laughs. Walston, replacing Peter Sellers after he dropped out because of a heart attack, is too broad and Novak's Marilyn-with-a-cold impression too artificial, while Dean Martin's gleeful self-parody as a drunken lecherous and very superficial crooner called Dino sometimes seems a little too sidelined. Only Cliff Osmond really comes up with the goods with a performance that's often as theatrical as the patently phoney soundstage sets. Some nice moments, but this time Wilder and Diamond seem too enamoured of the censor-baiting premise to make it really work.

a perverse little comedy
Sex runs rampant throughout Billy Wilder's films. One can only wonder what they would have been like if he had continued past the sexual revolution of the late sixties. As it is, this little set piece of the swinging sixties shows a tolerance, if not sanction, of the stray, recreational encounter, while celebrating the bond of devotion.

Dean Martin and Kim Novak are dead on as the swinging idol and the experienced escort, but the centerpiece of the movie is a loving couple. Ray Walston has been criticized as being too serious and energetic as the jealous husband, a part originally created for Peter Sellers just before a heart attack forced the casting change. Sellers would have added the right comic touch to keep the early jealousy scenes from getting uncomfortably realistic. But this character requires Walston's strong emotional depth to make his sudden love and protection of an imposter wife hired for the id-driven singer believable. Plus, Walston's broadway musical background doesn't hurt when he ends up singing the unfamiliar Gershwin tunes he has supposedly written and is trying to sell to the lusting Dino.

Felicia Farr has the pivotal role of the beautiful wife with a healthy enough spirit to tolerate and correct her husband's foibles, and find a way to support him by indulging in some recreational fulfilment. She is the embodiment of early sixties sophistication.

Good, not great. Better than any sex comedy you are likely to encounter any time soon.

One heck of a hilarious comedy movie
This movie may raise some eyebrows but one must admit its one heck of a hilarious comedy. Very funny script and surprising still funny and not outdated after all these years.
Simply loved it for its superb humor!