Boeing, Boeing (1965)

A sex-comedy with no sex and very little comedy.Tony Curtis is an American philandering bachelor living in France, who keeps three airline stewardesses on a string, each thinking they are his fiancé. With their worldwide flying schedules, they are never in town at the same time, so through the simple practice of changing their mantle pictures and their underwear drawer, he keeps these simpletons believing that each is "the one and only." Until Boeing introduces its faster jets, totally screwing his screwing schedule.Jerry Lewis is Curtis's friend who discovers his secret and plays along, helping Curtis keep the three bims separated. Curtis's housekeeper, grouchy Thelma Ritter (old as a redwood and twice as gnarly), is in cahoots with him - disapprovingly, mind you - providing those snare-hit punchlines for the blondies carouseling through the apartment.Yes, this is one of those farces where people speak fast and loud to desperately create comedic situations. But comedy is culled from real-life situations gone awry, and when characters don't in the least behave "realistically," the harder it gets to cull the comedy. The less realistically the characters react to their increasingly-ridiculous situations, the less comedy, the more "forced" the farce.And after all the skulking around, we discover that each girl has a separate bedroom anyway! They aren't even sleeping with him! So after the movie pumps itself with sexual innuendo, telling us this guy is so amoral, we find out these shallow skanks are not even sleeping with him in what is supposedly "their" home.And one of the girls - after spending five minutes in a cab with Jerry Lewis - falls for him. Some kinda fiancé! And the big reveal - between all three girls finding each other in the same room, with Curtis and Lewis stuttering their way through explanations - is ridiculously infuriating.Actually, Jerry Lewis does a great job as a semi-straight man. If you completely suspend your disbelief (which is impossible), there are a few mild laughs to be had. But on the whole, the social mores of 1965 really put a damper on this supposed comedy in this age of pop star supersluts who dress and behave like whores.

1965's "Boeing Boeing" is a dated but mildly amusing film starring Tony Curtis, Thelma Ritter, Jerry Lewis and Dany Saval. Curtis is a swinging bachelor living in Paris who is juggling three flight attendants at one time, all of whom live with him, and all of them are his fiancees. He's able to do this with the help of his able housekeeper (Ritter) and his carefully worked-out airline schedules. Unfortunately, the new fast planes are goofing up the schedules. Adding to the confusion is a visit by his friend Robert (Lewis), a reporter. The two men and an exhausted Ritter try to keep the women from running into one another at the apartment as their arrivals overlap."Boeing Boeing" was originally a play that had a very brief run on Broadway in the 1960's and went on to become the mainstay of dinner theaters throughout the U.S. After a very successful run in London, it has recently been revived on Broadway starring Christine Baranski as the maid, Bradley Whitford in the Tony Curtis role, Gina Gershon as an Italian flight attendant and Maureen McCormack as a German one. Not having seen the original play, it's hard to know what if anything in the film was changed from the play. In the current Broadway production, the Jerry Lewis character, done to great acclaim on both continents by Mark Rylance, is totally different - he's a shlub who's never seen a woman before. Lewis would have been perfect playing it that way - instead, in the film, the character of Robert is very against type, quite serious. The handsome Curtis does comedy well and is a perfect playboy. Baranski currently does the Ritter role with a French accent, which wrecks most of the dry humor that Baranski, like Ritter, brings to a role. Ritter is very funny as she changes the photograph on the desk, cooks sauerkraut for the German flight attendant, tosses it when the French flight attendant arrives and makes a soufflé instead and basically wears herself out."Boeing Boeing" is pleasant and fun to watch as an example of that great comedy form, the farce.

A lot of fun. BOEING BOEING is not exactly a jewel in the Jerry Lewis canon, but it's still highly enjoyable. Tony Curtis stars as a crafty foreign correspondent in Paris juggling three fiancés. His troubles go from big to huge when rival newspaper man Lewis shows up to cause even more chaos. Curtis is very funny and Lewis is remarkably restrained, playing what is essentially the straight-man. The three woman playing Curtis's harem are quite fetching and Christiane Schmidtmer, as the German stewardess, is really funny. It's all silly, very glossy and totally entertaining. Thelma Ritter is a big plus as Curtis's not so patient housekeeper.

A prime example of cookie-cutter 60's sex comedy. Tired, banal, limp, lukewarm, strenuously forced drivel who's only source of real humor is the wonderful Thelma Ritter, and the laughs she gets come much more from her persona than from the dry well of the script she had to work with. Curtis tries, but his efforts are in vain. Lewis is actually quite good in a very restrained performance, which is a shame in that it's wasted in this wasteland. None of the characters, save Ritter's, behave in a fashion even beginning to resemble a human being, let alone an intelligent human being. The resulting "humor" is numbingly artificial and contrived. In an outlandish situation genuine humor comes from realistic reactions and behavior. Something you need not expect from the cartoons that populate this sad, inane excuse for comedy.