GENE SAKS

Bil’s rating (out of 5):  BBB.  USA, 1967.  Wallis-Hazen, Nancy Enterprises Inc..  Screenplay by Neil Simon, based on his play.  Cinematography by Joseph LaShelle.  Produced by Hal B. Wallis.  Music by Neal Hefti.  Production Design by Hal Pereira, Walter H. Tyler.  Costume Design by Edith Head.  Film Editing by William A. Lyon.  Academy Awards 1967.  

Neil Simon’s hit play transfers to the screen with charming results, obviously maintaining its small scope of space but never feeling cramped. Jane Fonda is delightful as the new bride to young and handsome lawyer Robert Redford, the two of them madly in love on their wedding day. Following a sex-fest honeymoon, they move into their first apartment, a spacious but drafty (to say the least) dump high atop a six-floor walkup. Redford has no time for Fonda’s love-crazed antics, and after she meets the romantic artist (Charles Boyer) who lives in the loft above them, she is inspired to demand that her free-spirited nature be appreciated or else. Also thrown into the mix is Mildred Natwick as Fonda’s mother, quietly judgmental and straight-laced but eventually won over by Boyer’s charms as well. Simon reaches into his well-worn bag of tricks and comes up with the usual wry one-liners and simple complications, hardly managing to really nail your attention to the floor, but the actors are appealing and Fonda’s manic neediness is especially endearing.