Dean Martin, Kim Novak, Ray Walston

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 ...( read more  read more... )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

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20 critics

PG-13, 126 min.

Directed by: Billy Wilder

Release Date: December 22, 1964

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DVD Release Date: July 15, 2003

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  • January 27, 2009
    The plot description as it is currently written is correct to say the plot is contorted. Kim Novak is totally seductive with her low smoky voice and cleavage exposing wardrobe. Her character Polly is supposed to have a cold so her voice is even more nasally and syrupy. Ray Wal...( read more)ston's wife as played by Farr is also just as attrative. Walston plays Orville Spooner as an extremely jealous and paranoid piano teacher who has a Betthoven sweater, a Mozart sweater, and a Brahms sweater. He's another square character in a Billy Wilder movie of the swingin' sixties. Osmond works a gas station across the street from Walston's character and plays an amateur lyricist partner to Walston's composer. Dean Martin plays Dino, or himself, if not slightly more drunk and more of a womanizer than he may have been in real life. Dino passes through the little desert town of Climax and is stranded. The song writing duo want to take advantage of the opportunity to sell a song or two and set up a scheme to try and make Dino feel comfortable. Spooner gets his wife out of the house and hires Polly from a local Hooters type bar to pretend to be his wife so he doesn't feel guilty about offering her to Dino to sweeten the deal on buying a song. They have their fantasy marriage for a night and Spooner is such a gentleman he realizes he can't even let Dino have an affair with his fake wife. Spooner treats her honorably eventually, so she won't take payment and they feel like they really were husband and wife for this one night. Meanwhile Spooner's wife ends up drunk at the bar and is taken to sleep in Polly's trailer. Dino thinks all along that Polly was Spooner's wife and shows up at the bar later. He finds out from the bartender that Polly is what he's looking for and heads to the trailer where he thinks Spooner's real wife is Polly. Now there was an alternate scene on the DVD I saw, so maybe something happened in the trailer or maybe it didn't. Well, the writing and performances aren't of the best quality, but it seems everyone involved is having fun.
  • September 19, 2008
    Not that bad at all. "Dino" portrays himself (which is a bit unusual considering his character is basically a drunken ass-bag in the film) getting stuck in small town Nevada for a day with a song writer and his fat pal trying to pitch him a few piano musical numbers on the sly. O...( read more)bviously, the big shot can't be bothered since he was originally passing through, so the fat-ass pretends he has to work on the famous fuck's car for a day or so while the star spends a night in town. Only problem is, the writer's wife has been an insane fanatic of the singer since highschool, Dean claims he can't spend a night without snatchin' up a broad, and the pianist is always terrified of his wife being with somebody else because apparently she's the "hottest damn dame there"...

    Despite his pal's desire to invest in an eighth chin, the husband vetos the initial get-rich-quick scheme, so the friend then convinces the song writer to kick his attractive wife out and get some sexy waitress to pretend being her instead so that the piano man can persuade D to hear and purchase some songs before inevidibly... plowing his pretend wife during their actual anniversary. This works like a charm and the husband even makes up some excuse to leave so the two can more acquainted, before the plan is ruined when the song writer throws Dean Martin out for assuming he can just have any married woman... then decides to do her himself!

    Meanwhile, Mister Martin screws the real wife during the last hour of her anniversary in exchange for taking the song called "Sophia" and SOMEHOW this does not affect their marrage nor any of the other characters, as if Superman time traveled away his problems yet still got to sex up Lois Lane.
  • September 17, 2008
    Has its ups and downs. Way ahead of its time (in the U.S.). Sometimes aggravating, but worth at least one watching.
  • August 13, 2008
    Condemned by the Catholic League of Decency when it premiered, "Kiss Me, Stupid" touches on immoral subjects with comedy. Good performances, but a rather weak story makes up an average entertaining movie.
  • August 6, 2008
    Billy Wilder, the ultimate master of comedy!
  • June 20, 2008
    Oddly enough -- painfully unfunny. Even director Billy Wilder disliked it.
  • April 16, 2008
    I thought it would end as a cliché but it turned out everyone got what they wanted.
  • April 13, 2008
    I must watch it!!!It's a Billy Wilder film!!
  • October 26, 2007
    Raising intriguing questions on the nature of fidelity, celebrity and identity, this under-seen Wilder film had within it the potential t be one of his best. Had the film gone forward with original lead Peter Sellers that would have been the case, unfortunately due to numerous r...( read more)easons Sellers left and was replaced with Walston. Walston is good but tends to overplay. Dean Martin is great as himself (or more of a rougish heel version of himself) and Vertigo fans will be shocked to see Kim Novak playing the uncouth hooker with a heart of gold. Worth checking out, especially for Wilder fans.

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