Saturday, April 14, 2012

Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)


United Artists
Directed by Billy Wilder
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, MGM)

On the way home from Vegas, Dean Martin, essentially playing himself, gets stranded in the desert town of Climax, Nevada, when two aspiring songwriters tamper with his car. Ray Walston is a perpetually jealous husband, together with his partner that owns the gas station across the street, hatch a plan to audition their songs by switching his wife with a floozy from the Belly Button Bar to lure Dino. Instead, he ends up in bed with her while his real wife spends the night with Dino in her trailer. Littered with TV show rejects, it plays like a naughty episode of Peyton Place. Walston is almost unbearable as the lead, impossible to take seriously and unfunny as a comedian. The motivations for the mutual unfaithfulness committed by husband and wife are trite and unconvincing.

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