It is not the greatest comedy in the world, nor the greatest film of either it's two stars (nor it's two lead supporting players), nor the best film it's two stars made together, nor the best film script of George Axelrod. But PHFFFT is a good comedy about marriage and divorce, and in it's point of view resembles a film made a decade earlier in England called VACATION FROM MARRIAGE, about how their experiences in World War II separately rejuvenate the love and affection in Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr's doldrum like marriage. Fortunately Jack Lemmon and Judy Holiday don't need anything so desperate.
Lemmon is a former naval officer who is a tax lawyer and has met Holiday, an employee of a major network, in the waning days of World War II. They start dating, and end up marrying just at the point that his career in the Navy ends (and he hooks up in a good law firm) and her career zooms as the author of a major radio soap opera (which in 1954 was still quite a big thing). But as they are both prospering in their careers, they tend to drift a bit apart. We see Lemmon (after dinner with Holiday) getting sexual excitement reading a "Mickey Spillaine" type novel (how Ensign Pulver would have understood that), and a slow simmering Judy watching him for some kind of action towards her. Finally she asks him for a divorce. Surprisingly he agrees, as he feels there is nothing left in their marriage at this point.
She gets a divorce very quickly (by the way - small note - her taxi driver taking her away from the courthouse is Jimmy Dodd of the Mickey Mouse Club fame: this is the first time I have seen him in anything except the Mickey Mouse Club). But soon Judy (under the wing of her mother, Luella Gear) finds she is not finding any fulfillment in her new freedom. Her first date is with an actor from her soap opera, who instead of romancing her starts discussing writing a rival character (actually the central character!) out of some of the scripts. Her attempts at foreign language studies (she is planning a trip to France) does not work. And her mother's redecoration (a round bed) is not really great.
But Jack is not doing well either. Setting up with his old navy buddy, Jack Carson (mentally I compared their relatively easy relationship to Jack's classic problems with Walter Matthau in later films), and finding that Carson's solutions are not all great. He wants Jack to jump back into the dating game - and volunteers Kim Novak for that. Novak is playing her part like a clone (except in terms of hair style) to Marilyn Monroe. She has the wide eyed naiveté mixed with a large dollop of common sense about what she is around for. But it is a clone performance, and one welcome later performances of Novak in both comedy (BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE) and drama (VERTIGO) to see what she would turn out to be capable of doing.
Jack does lighten up - he first buys a sporty little Austin to drive around in, and he does take dance lessons (as does Judy). The latter leads to the real highlight of the film: when both arrive at a night spot with dates, end up on the dance floor doing the rumba and the mambo, and managing to transform their dancing into a momentary charge of sexual attraction between them. From that point one realizes it is only a matter of time before they return together.
Carson has one major scene as well. He decides (erroneously, as it turns out) that since Jack and Judy are divorced, he can date Judy. As this is an Axelrod script, there is a bit of THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH here, as Carson tells Judy of his noticing "types" who are dating. It reminds one of Tom Ewell talking or thinking of sexual problems or matters in the other film.
It is a neat little time capsule in many ways. Made today, the sexual aspect would be more outspoken, but it was made in the quieter (perhaps too quieter) Eisenhower Era. Even the title is a bit of a time capsule artifact: "Phffft" (pronounced with a bit of air in the voice as "fitt") was a term used by Walter Winchell in his gossip column to say that a loving celebrity couple was splitting. It's brief, final sound (like a rip or a whistle of air) suggested that these romances were brief things. But who remembers Winchell these days - his columns are useful in doing research for books on old celebrities. Still the movie itself was a nice romantic comedy, and worth watching.
Lemmon is a former naval officer who is a tax lawyer and has met Holiday, an employee of a major network, in the waning days of World War II. They start dating, and end up marrying just at the point that his career in the Navy ends (and he hooks up in a good law firm) and her career zooms as the author of a major radio soap opera (which in 1954 was still quite a big thing). But as they are both prospering in their careers, they tend to drift a bit apart. We see Lemmon (after dinner with Holiday) getting sexual excitement reading a "Mickey Spillaine" type novel (how Ensign Pulver would have understood that), and a slow simmering Judy watching him for some kind of action towards her. Finally she asks him for a divorce. Surprisingly he agrees, as he feels there is nothing left in their marriage at this point.
She gets a divorce very quickly (by the way - small note - her taxi driver taking her away from the courthouse is Jimmy Dodd of the Mickey Mouse Club fame: this is the first time I have seen him in anything except the Mickey Mouse Club). But soon Judy (under the wing of her mother, Luella Gear) finds she is not finding any fulfillment in her new freedom. Her first date is with an actor from her soap opera, who instead of romancing her starts discussing writing a rival character (actually the central character!) out of some of the scripts. Her attempts at foreign language studies (she is planning a trip to France) does not work. And her mother's redecoration (a round bed) is not really great.
But Jack is not doing well either. Setting up with his old navy buddy, Jack Carson (mentally I compared their relatively easy relationship to Jack's classic problems with Walter Matthau in later films), and finding that Carson's solutions are not all great. He wants Jack to jump back into the dating game - and volunteers Kim Novak for that. Novak is playing her part like a clone (except in terms of hair style) to Marilyn Monroe. She has the wide eyed naiveté mixed with a large dollop of common sense about what she is around for. But it is a clone performance, and one welcome later performances of Novak in both comedy (BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE) and drama (VERTIGO) to see what she would turn out to be capable of doing.
Jack does lighten up - he first buys a sporty little Austin to drive around in, and he does take dance lessons (as does Judy). The latter leads to the real highlight of the film: when both arrive at a night spot with dates, end up on the dance floor doing the rumba and the mambo, and managing to transform their dancing into a momentary charge of sexual attraction between them. From that point one realizes it is only a matter of time before they return together.
Carson has one major scene as well. He decides (erroneously, as it turns out) that since Jack and Judy are divorced, he can date Judy. As this is an Axelrod script, there is a bit of THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH here, as Carson tells Judy of his noticing "types" who are dating. It reminds one of Tom Ewell talking or thinking of sexual problems or matters in the other film.
It is a neat little time capsule in many ways. Made today, the sexual aspect would be more outspoken, but it was made in the quieter (perhaps too quieter) Eisenhower Era. Even the title is a bit of a time capsule artifact: "Phffft" (pronounced with a bit of air in the voice as "fitt") was a term used by Walter Winchell in his gossip column to say that a loving celebrity couple was splitting. It's brief, final sound (like a rip or a whistle of air) suggested that these romances were brief things. But who remembers Winchell these days - his columns are useful in doing research for books on old celebrities. Still the movie itself was a nice romantic comedy, and worth watching.