The Man Who Understood Women ** (1959, Henry Fonda, Leslie Caron, Cesare Danova, Conrad Nagel) – Classic Movie Review 11,391

‘That Gigi girl was never ‘gigier’ than in the arms of The Man Who Understood Women’ (1959).

Writer/ producer/ director Nunnally Johnson’s 1959 20th Century Fox American Hollywood satirical comedy drama film The Man Who Understood Women is not one for the feminists. It is based on the novel The Colors of the Day by Romain Gary.

Henry Fonda for once plays a totally unsympathetic character, Willie Bauche, a Hollywood producer movie mogul chauvinist who doesn’t have a clue where women are concerned.

Fonda seems uncomfortable and Caron is not at her best either as his wife Ann Garantier, a French actress Bauche is so obsessed with turning into the sexiest star in Hollywood that he neglects her real needs. Ann returns to France and finds herself attracted to handsome pilot Major Marco Ranieri (Cesare Danova), prompting Bauche to start raging and hire hitmen to kill him.

Patchy and irritating, it doesn’t really work, and is a rather unappealing and unattractive, forgotten movie, though it is still kind of interesting, both for the oddball story and the performers, and as a work by the talented Nunnally Johnson.

Cesare Danova as Marco, Conrad Nagel as Brody, Myron McCormick as the Preacher, Marcel Dalio, Harry Ellerbe, Edwin Jerome, Bernd Hoffmann, Frank Cady, Ben Astar, and Renate Hoy.

Leslie Caron celebrated her 90th birthday on 1 July 2021. She made her film debut in An American in Paris (1951), followed by The Man with a Cloak (1951), Glory Alley (1952), The Story of Three Loves (1953), Lili (1953) and The Glass Slipper (1955).

Films directed by Nunnally Johnson: Night People (1954), Black Widow (1954), How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955), The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957), The Three Faces of Eve (1957), The Man Who Understood Women (1959), and The Angel Wore Red (1960).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,391

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com