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THE APRIL FOOLS
Though it definitely gets an "A" for effort, the 1969 comedy-drama The April Fools doesn't quite measure up due its troublesome mixture of "mod" 1970's sensibilities and old fashioned 1950's melodrama.
Jack Lemmon plays a recently promoted investment banker who goes to a party at his boss' lavish Manhattan apartment and finds himself drawn to a woman (Catherine Deneuve) and begins an affair with her, unaware that the woman is his boss' unhappy wife.
Director Stuart Rosenberg and writer Hal Dresner must be applauded for a relatively adult screenplay that makes some surprising moves for a comedy about infidelity that we really don't see coming. We don't see it coming because movie's favorite everyman is at the center of the story and we are absolutely sure that Jack Lemmon would never have an affair with a married woman under any circumstances, even though we know it's just a movie character.
The problem is that Rosenberg and Dresner have written a 50's style romantic comedy and tried to dress it up with 1970's trappings...the movie is filled with outrageous sets and outlandish costumes and some very dated ideas about love, romance, and men and women's roles that would never survive in politically sensitive 2017. There is a scene near the beginning of the film that takes place at a restaurant called The Safari King, where the male patrons are crowned with pith helmets and get the waitresses' attention by shooting them in the ass with popguns...seriously?
What the film does have going for it is a terrific lead performance from Jack Lemmon. Deneuve is beautiful, but her empty performance and lack of chemistry with Lemmon are a problem. Peter Lawford, Sally Kellerman, Jack Weston, Myrna Loy, Charles Boyer, and Harvey Korman do make the most of thankless roles and there is another terrific Bacharach/David/Dionne Warwick collaboration with the title song, but the film has to work extremely hard to overcome its dated elements.
Though it definitely gets an "A" for effort, the 1969 comedy-drama The April Fools doesn't quite measure up due its troublesome mixture of "mod" 1970's sensibilities and old fashioned 1950's melodrama.
Jack Lemmon plays a recently promoted investment banker who goes to a party at his boss' lavish Manhattan apartment and finds himself drawn to a woman (Catherine Deneuve) and begins an affair with her, unaware that the woman is his boss' unhappy wife.
Director Stuart Rosenberg and writer Hal Dresner must be applauded for a relatively adult screenplay that makes some surprising moves for a comedy about infidelity that we really don't see coming. We don't see it coming because movie's favorite everyman is at the center of the story and we are absolutely sure that Jack Lemmon would never have an affair with a married woman under any circumstances, even though we know it's just a movie character.
The problem is that Rosenberg and Dresner have written a 50's style romantic comedy and tried to dress it up with 1970's trappings...the movie is filled with outrageous sets and outlandish costumes and some very dated ideas about love, romance, and men and women's roles that would never survive in politically sensitive 2017. There is a scene near the beginning of the film that takes place at a restaurant called The Safari King, where the male patrons are crowned with pith helmets and get the waitresses' attention by shooting them in the ass with popguns...seriously?
What the film does have going for it is a terrific lead performance from Jack Lemmon. Deneuve is beautiful, but her empty performance and lack of chemistry with Lemmon are a problem. Peter Lawford, Sally Kellerman, Jack Weston, Myrna Loy, Charles Boyer, and Harvey Korman do make the most of thankless roles and there is another terrific Bacharach/David/Dionne Warwick collaboration with the title song, but the film has to work extremely hard to overcome its dated elements.