Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4298 in VHS

Customer Reviews

So-so comedy with two great actors
A slow-moving, dry-humored, rather predictable comedy about a divorced couple who get back together after they realize how compatible they actually are with each other. It's one of the first feature roles for a young Jack Lemmon (who already had his sad-sack schtick pretty well polished...) and the not-quite-so-ditzy, not-quite-so-dumb blonde bombshell, Judy Holliday, in one of her lesser roles. It's not a great film, but it is fun to see the two of them, also interesting to see how consistently she upstages Lemmon, right from the start. (Originally released in 1954.)

Divorce, American-style
PHFFFT! is an oddly titled, quaint romantic comedy that handles the sticky subject of divorce most delicately.

As Walter Winchell's gossip column reports, the Traceys, Nina (Holliday) and Robert (Lemmon) are 'Phffft!" after an eight-year marriage. Nina cites "incompatibility" and "mental cruelty" as grounds only because they're the most commonly used reasons.

Robert moves in with Navy buddy Charlie Nelson (Carter) while Nina's mom (Gear) influences her daughter by redecorating the bedroom and making unsolicited suggestions.

Concerned for his friend's social well-being, Charlie sets Robert up with gorgeous college girl Janis (Novak as a Monroe type), but when they're alone Robert freezes, confesses to being depressed and sends Janis home.

He would try dating her again, but first some mambo lessons (Nina meanwhile is learning the same dance at Arthur Murray's). Robert takes Janis to a club for dinner and dancing. Nina is by coincidence also there with a co-worker. The two couples mambo and somehow Nina and Robert end up together. Their flamboyant dance moves clear the floor.

The next day, Robert finds a pretext for visiting his ex, but they quarrel and he leaves. When Robert later learns that pal Charlie is with Nina at his old Westchester home, he dashes off to confront the cad. After quietly entering the house, Robert picks up the ringing phone and hears Nina tell her mom that she kicked Charlie out. Then Nina laments how she never should've divorced her husband. It WAS the 1950s after all. You know how the story ends.

(Watch for Head Mousketeer Jimmie Dodd in a cab driver cameo.)


"Phffft!" is available on DVD as part of THE JACK LEMMON FILM COLLECTION.

Related item:
Jack Lemmon's first credited big screen role came a few months before "Phffft" was released. He again appeared with Judy Holliday in George Cukor's IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU. (VHS) (DVD)


Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 viewer poll rating found at a film resource website.

(6.3) Phffft! (1954) - Judy Holliday/Jack Lemmon/Jack Carter/Kim Novak/Luella Gear/Donald Randolph (uncredited: Jimmie Dodd/Merry Anders)