27 Days With Billy Wilder And Me

Every Movie He Directed…From Mauvaise Graine to Buddy Buddy

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Day Twenty One: Kiss Me, Stupid

July 20th, 2011 · 2 Comments · 1964, Adaptation, Dean Martin, Ed Sikov, Howard McNear, IAL Diamond, John Fiedler, Kim Novak, Peter Sellers, Ray Walston

Kiss Me StupidBilly Wilder’s twenty-first movie, Kiss Me Stupid, starring Dean Martin and Kim Novak, was released in 1964. Billy was 58 years old.

Kiss Me, Stupid opens with Dean Martin on stage, essentially, playing himself — Dino, a lecherous Vegas singer. In between puffs on his cigarette, and swigs from his glass of bourbon, he sings and laughs about performing with Sinatra, Bishop, and Sammy…then cracks a joke about Bing Crosby (“I don’t know why he works so hard. He’s got 21 million dollars…on him”) before leaving the stage.

In one early scene, Dino encounters a police road block and asks, “What’s the matter — is that Sinatra kid missing again?” That now-obscure reference is to Frank Sinatra, Jr., who had been kidnapped the year before Kiss Me, Stupid was released.

Author Ed Sikov (who wrote the definitive biography of Billy Wilder, On Sunset Boulevard On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder), notes the low-brow nature of Kiss Me, Stupid on page 478 of his book:

The script Billy and Iz produced is full of entendres so overtly coarse they can’t be said to be double any more. The comedy of Kiss My, Stupid is purposefully low. Penises, breasts, pubic hair, religion, marriage, American small-town life — Billy holds everything in equal contempt.

What is the movie about? It’s hard to say. And hard to care. The lead characters are unlikeable. The dialogue is too much, which is saying something since Wilder and Diamond are usually adept at tweaking the maxim meaning and cleverness from their scripts. (I can see the actors’ mouths moving. I can hear them saying something. But it’s coming out as blah, blah, blah to my ears.) And the plot is ridiculous and overwrought.

In short, this is incredibly boring stuff; the flip side of One, Two, Three. Whereas the Cagney picture was raucous and irritating because too much is going on, Kiss Me, Stupid is boring because too little is going on. Too little of substance, anyway.

Principle Cast:
Dino………………………………………………Dean Martin (1917–1995)
Polly the Pistol………………………………..Kim Novak (1933- )
Orville……………………………………………Ray Walston (1914–2001)
Mr. Pettibone…………………………………..Howard McNear (1905–1969)
Rev. Carruthers………………………………..John Fiedler (1925–2005)

Kiss Me, Stupid was written by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, based on the play “L’Ora della Fantasia” by Anna Bonacci.

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2 Comments so far ↓

  • Ed Sikov

    Thanks for the plug!

    • Bill

      Thanks for the book!

      Speaking of which, i couldn’t tell from reading it if you liked Billy Wilder or not — as a person, I mean. You painted a rather unflattering picture of him — gifted, yes. But flawed. Nothing wrong with that. Nobody’s perfect. I understand that. He may have actually been as big a turd as you portray him to be.

      I guess I was surprised by your book’s rawness. And honesty. That’s why I couldn’t tell if you were a fan of Billy’s, or if your book was more like a Hollywood tell-all.

      Or both.

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