How sad is this?

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Best movie ever!

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Jealous piano teacher Orville Spooner (Ray Walston) sends his beautiful wife, Zelda (Felicia Farr), away for the night while he tries to sell a song to a famous nightclub singer Dino (Dean Martin), who is stranded in town.The Catholic Legion of Decency strongly objected to the completed film and it was condemned, the second film to get such an honor -- the first being "Baby Doll" in 1956. One can easily see why, as while there is no nudity, there is plenty of humor revolving around prostitution, adultery and and Dean Martin being a "sex maniac".A. H. Weiler of the New York Times called the film "pitifully unfunny" and "obvious, plodding, short on laughs and performances and long on vulgarity." This seems unfair. While it is not among Billy Wilder's best work, even Wilder's average films are better than many other people's greatest attempts. I can only say now (roughly fifty years after the film debuted) that while it was not perfect, it had its moments and was quite bold in its own way.

From the time to film opens to the end credits; it oozes with the Wilder touch. The plot of this '60's picture was very edgy for it's time...and it turned out to be rather edgy for me too. It has a deeply cynical aspect to it; making it a little hard for me to take in. Dean Martin's performance was very Rat Pack-y and plays up the swinger image to quite an extreme; "...there couldn't be enough of you...baby." Novak, who was planning on a retirement, took a part in this picture for the sole purpose of being able to work with Wilder; I'm glad she did. Her character made me want to crawl up in a ball and cry my eyes out, all the while remaining delightfully funny. In a nutshell? It's really a rather vulgar film. It has moments of brilliance...yet, doesn't even start to compare with Wilder's own "The Apartment." Yes, it deals with basically the same subject matter, but the writing was more brilliant and much more subtle. I recommend only if you are a Wilder fanatic (like myself) or a Novak connoisseur. I enjoyed the film overall; I just felt that the writing was lacking.

Kiss Me Stupid was condemned, that is right, condemned when it was released ( now it gets a PG rating) and thus this fine film was released via a small subsidiary of United Artists called Lopert Pictures and forgotten on its initial release. Seen today Kiss Me Stupid is a daring and brilliant film.One should read both 'Kim Novak On Camera' and also 'Conversations With Wilder' concerning this movie. Kim Novak at the time was a huge international box office star and had a rough time with Henry Hathaway on "Of Human Bondage". MGM had to decide who to side with and MGM went with Novak and Mr. Hathaway was either fired or quit from 'Of Human Bondage'. Wilder offered the female lead in 'Kiss Me Stupid' to Novak but read Kim Novak the riot act saying if anyone left this film due to temperament it would be Kim Novak not Billy Wilder. What resulted was a mutual love fest and Wilder declaring in Crowe's book that Novak along with Audrey Hepburn were his two favorite actresses. (Ginger Roger, Jean Arthur, Shirley MacLaine, Paula Prentiss etc take note!) In the coffee table book 'Kim Novak on Camera' Wilder noted Novak's ability saying Kim was "Gorgeous to the Camera and read her lines like music." One wishes Kim Novak and Mr. Wilder would have worked together again for example Wilder was unhappy with Marthe Keller on 'Fedora', a part perfect for Ms. Novak.Kim Novak on Larry King Live said the picture would have worked better with Peter Sellars who left due to health, and the film had to re-shoot the Sellars footage. Wilder had to get a replacement quickly so after Danny Kaye, Bob Hope, turned the film down Wilder went with Ray Walston. Jack Lemmon a Wilder favorite was working elsewhere. Walston simply did not have the star charisma to work with real movie stars Dean Martin and Kim Novak.This film is a good film that should have been a great film. Wilder did a good job and Novak gives a great performance.

There is no sense to this story of a jealous husband (Ray Walston) who sets up a stranded singer (Dean Martin as "Dino Martini", an obvious parody of himself) with a barmaid (Kim Novak) posing as his wife after the real wife (Felicia Farr) flees in tears after the paranoid Walston sets her up for a fight in order to prevent an actual seduction by the sex-crazed Lothario. The film, photographed in a truly dreary version of fabulous black and white, has a hysterical opening in Las Vegas with Martin performing his stage act to Gershwin's "S' Wonderful", then getting stuck in the town of "Climax" where the big social scene is at a dive bar called the "Belly Button". Such character performers as Henry Gibson, John Fiedler, Alice Pearce and Doro Merande (as Farr's nasty witch like mother whom Walston refers to as "Godzilla") pop in and out of the supposed plot line for non-comic effect. Walston is a songwriter who is trying to get Martin to buy his songs (actually trunk songs by Gershwin which appear to have been trunk songs for a reason) for his upcoming musical special.This is a one joke movie (where the punchline really has the screenwriter deserving to be punched) that in spite of its truly raunchy story seemed to have some promise at the beginning but soon lead me into shaking my head much like the critics at the time did. There is no evidence as to why Martin would want to seduce a married woman inside her own house with the husband present or why Walston thought his wife was cheating on him in the first place. After the subtle sexualities of "Some Like It Hot", "The Apartment" and "Irma La Douce", director Billy Wilder would really hit rock bottom with this one.