The Pad (and How to Use It) * (1966, Brian Bedford, Julie Sommars, James Farentino) – Classic Movie Review 11,208

Director Brian C Hutton’s 1966 comedy The Pad (and How to Use It) stars Brian Bedford, Julie Sommars and James Farentino, who won the Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer – Male.

Ah, the Sixties, when trendy young swingers had pads instead of loft apartments!

Bedford repeats his stage role in this disappointing, over-done Americanised version of Peter Shaffer’s one-act play The Private Ear, in which the sensitive hero, shy bachelor boy Bob (Bedford), loses his girl Doreen (Sommars), with the woman he met at a classical music concert, to his smarmy best friend Ted (Farentino) during his first date in his pad.

The performances are game but the farcical tone is quite wrong for a study of loneliness, and the LA setting and additional scenes to drag it out from a short playlet to movie length are drawbacks.

The title supposedly recalls The Knack… and How to Get It.

The other half of Shaffer’s theatre double bill, The Public Eye, was filmed in 1972 as Follow Me.

Also in the cast are Edy Williams, Nick Navarro and Pearl Shear.

Clever word play in the sell line though: ‘The story of a square who gets caught in a triangle!’

The Pad (and How to Use It) is directed by Brian C Hutton, runs 86 minutes, is made by Ross Hunter Productions, is released by Universal, is written by Thomas C Ryan and Ben Starr, based on Peter Shaffer’s one-act play The Private Ear, is shot by Ellsworth Fredericks (Technicolor), is produced by Ross Hunter and is scored by Russ Garcia.

It is shot at Universal Studios, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California.

James Farentino died at 73 on January 24, 2012 in Los Angeles.

Brian G Hutton 1935 – 2014.

Brian Bedford died at 80 on January 13, 2016 in Santa Barbara, California.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,208

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