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There's a Girl in My Soup
The late Peter Sellers is probably best remembered as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, but was given the opportunity to go straight romantic leading man in a slightly dated but saucy little battle of the sexes called There's a Girl in My Soup, which was also one of the earliest film appearances for future movie icon Goldie Hawn.
The 1970 comedy finds Sellers playing Robert Danvers, an arrogant, womanizing television star who meets his match in a 19 year old party girl named Marian (Hawn, in her second leading role), whose no nonsense approach to sex and romance alternately baffles and fascinates Robert, leading to a no-strings relationship with Marian, that is complicated by her unresolved feelings for ex-boyfriend, a cheating musician who wants Marian back even though he has already moved another woman into his home.
Terence Frisby's screenplay, adapted from his own stage play, attempts to be hip and contemporary, utilizing a lot of English slang for sex that not only appears dated now, but even Hawn seems a little confused about it. The story is completely British, but there didn't appear to be any changes in the story to accommodate Hawn's casting as the leading lady. Hawn was the hottest thing in Hollywood at the time, having just been nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Cactus Flower. As a matter of fact, Hawn was unable to accept the Oscar she won because she was in London making this film.
Hawn is her usual bubbly self and gives her character an unexpected intelligence, providing a leading lady who has more in common with her leading man than he originally thinks. It's fun watching the initial sexual foreplay that begins the story, but it soon degenerates into standard predictable movie romance, climaxing in an ending that would set the feminist movement back about 500 years. Roy Boulting's stilted direction doesn't help either, keeping the film trapped in its stage origins.
Most of the pleasure that the film still provides after all these years comes courtesy of Sellers, who is actually quite charming in a role unlike anything he had been seen in up to this point and with the addition of some mod 1970's trappings and scenery, it is the performance of Sellers that still makes this one worth a look.
The late Peter Sellers is probably best remembered as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, but was given the opportunity to go straight romantic leading man in a slightly dated but saucy little battle of the sexes called There's a Girl in My Soup, which was also one of the earliest film appearances for future movie icon Goldie Hawn.
The 1970 comedy finds Sellers playing Robert Danvers, an arrogant, womanizing television star who meets his match in a 19 year old party girl named Marian (Hawn, in her second leading role), whose no nonsense approach to sex and romance alternately baffles and fascinates Robert, leading to a no-strings relationship with Marian, that is complicated by her unresolved feelings for ex-boyfriend, a cheating musician who wants Marian back even though he has already moved another woman into his home.
Terence Frisby's screenplay, adapted from his own stage play, attempts to be hip and contemporary, utilizing a lot of English slang for sex that not only appears dated now, but even Hawn seems a little confused about it. The story is completely British, but there didn't appear to be any changes in the story to accommodate Hawn's casting as the leading lady. Hawn was the hottest thing in Hollywood at the time, having just been nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Cactus Flower. As a matter of fact, Hawn was unable to accept the Oscar she won because she was in London making this film.
Hawn is her usual bubbly self and gives her character an unexpected intelligence, providing a leading lady who has more in common with her leading man than he originally thinks. It's fun watching the initial sexual foreplay that begins the story, but it soon degenerates into standard predictable movie romance, climaxing in an ending that would set the feminist movement back about 500 years. Roy Boulting's stilted direction doesn't help either, keeping the film trapped in its stage origins.
Most of the pleasure that the film still provides after all these years comes courtesy of Sellers, who is actually quite charming in a role unlike anything he had been seen in up to this point and with the addition of some mod 1970's trappings and scenery, it is the performance of Sellers that still makes this one worth a look.