Phffft!

An early entry in the ’50s cycle of American movies, all seemingly set in New York, written by Axelrod, and channeling the anxiety of the film industry through professional men at sea in a world of self-sufficient women and young people speaking an incomprehensibly hip new language; a couple of years later Lemmon and buddy Carlson would be on Madison Avenue but for now they are tax lawyer and (irrelevantly) playwright. Arbitrarily, Robert and Nina get divorced, but he finds himself too timid to play the field, even with so eager a partner as Novak; his wife is ready to give singledom a go, but the men always blow it. Lemmon plays his regular unsympathetically dithering schtick and the result would be dated dross were it not for Judy Holliday, even given far too little to do, smart and scatterbrained, riveting and wonderful – her mambo is out of this world, and only she could make tax-time cute.

d Mark Robson p Fred Kohlmar sc George Axelrod ph Charles Lang ed Charles Nelson ad William Flannery m Frederick Hollander cast Jack Lemmon, Judy Holliday, Jack Carson, Kim Novak, Luella Greer, Donald Randolph, Donald Curtis
(1954, USA, 88m, b/w)