{"id":585,"date":"2011-07-20T11:15:36","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T15:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/?p=585"},"modified":"2011-07-27T21:59:05","modified_gmt":"2011-07-28T01:59:05","slug":"day-twenty-one-kiss-me-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/?p=585","title":{"rendered":"Day Twenty One: Kiss Me, Stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kiss<\/a>Billy Wilder’s twenty-first movie, Kiss Me Stupid<\/em><\/a>, starring Dean Martin and Kim Novak, was released in 1964. Billy was 58 years old.<\/p>\n

Kiss Me, Stupid<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> was released.<\/p>\n

Author Ed Sikov (who wrote the definitive biography of Billy Wilder, \"On On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder<\/em><\/a>), notes the low-brow nature of Kiss Me, Stupid<\/em> on page 478 of his book:<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

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

Principle Cast:<\/strong>
\nDino………………………………………………Dean Martin (1917\u20131995)
\nPolly the Pistol………………………………..Kim Novak (1933- )
\nOrville……………………………………………Ray Walston (1914\u20132001)
\nMr. Pettibone…………………………………..Howard McNear (1905\u20131969)
\nRev. Carruthers………………………………..John Fiedler (1925\u20132005)<\/p>\n

Kiss Me, Stupid<\/em> was written by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, based on the play “L’Ora della Fantasia” by Anna Bonacci.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[153,34,154,53,157,114,161,155,160,156],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":866,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions\/866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}