Promise Her Anything ** (1966, Warren Beatty, Leslie Caron, Robert Cummings, Hermione Gingold, Lionel Stander, Keenan Wynn) – Classic Movie Review 6228

Director Arthur Hiller’s airy-fairy British made 1966 comedy teams Warren Beatty with Leslie Caron, but has the wit to throw in a large number of stylish character actors to make it a bit tastier and more palatable. They include Hermione Gingold, Lionel Stander, Robert [Bob} Cummings and Keenan Wynn.

Beatty stars as Harley Rummel, a bohemian young porno film-maker who focuses his attentions on his Greenwich Village neighbour, the pretty young French widow Michele (Caron). As she conveniently lives next door, he finds the way to her heart is looking after her infant son Baby John Thomas. At first though, Michele believes her wealthy psychologist boss Dr Phillip Brock (Robert Cummings), is a better prospect…

This New York-set (but shot in its entirety at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England) comedy romance is thin but bright and breezy, with the amiable leads and dependable support on pleasant form. It is basically just another average movie from Beatty’s career doldrums era before his triumph with Bonnie and Clyde.

Based on an original story by Arne Sultan and Marvin Worth, the screen story and screenplay come from a surprise source – William Peter Blatty, the Exorcist man! It is a surprise that before authoring one of the greatest horror novels of all time and adapting it into an Oscar-winning blockbuster, Blatty specialised in comedy.

Also in the cast are Cathleen Nesbitt, Bessie Love, Warren Mitchell, Ferdy Mayne, Sydney Tafler, George Moon, Libby Morris, Michael Kane, Riggs O’Hara, Jill Adams, Mavis Villiers, Margaret Nolan and Donald Sutherland (in an uncredited role as Autograph-Seeking Father).

It is shot in Technicolor by Douglas Slocombe, produced by Ray Stark and Stanley Rubin and scored by Lyn Murray.

The unmemorable title song, with music by Burt Bacharach and lyrics by Hal David, is sung by Tom Jones.

Two-year old Philip Barron’s film career came screeching to a stop when he cried every time he was near Warren Beatty, so Baby Michael Bradley was re-cast at the last minute as Baby John Thomas.

It opened at Paramount’s Plaza Theatre, Lower Regent Street, London, on 24 November 1966 but was released on the ABC circuit in February 1967 as the lower half of a double bill with Drop Dead Darling.

William Peter Blatty, who won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Exorcist, died on 12 January 2017, aged 89.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6228

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