The Notorious Landlady ***½ (1962, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Fred Astaire, Lionel Jeffries) – Classic Movie Review 5,112

Loveable Jack Lemmon squeezes in a juicy comedy performance in Richard Quine’s amusing and stylish 1962 screwball comedy-cum-mystery The Notorious Landlady. Lemmon partners with Kim Novak, who designed her own gowns.

Bill Gridley (Jack Lemmon) looking at the fog: ‘Are you sure this country isn’t on fire somewhere?’

Loveable Jack Lemmon squeezes in a juicy comedy performance in co-writer/ producer-director Richard Quine’s amusing and stylish enough 1962 screwball comedy-cum-mystery about Bill Gridley (Lemmon), an American junior diplomat,  renting a flat in a London house from a fellow American woman called Carly Hardwicke (Kim Novak). The snag is that she is suspected by Scotland Yard of murder, after her husband has gone missing.

Lemmon is told by Scotland Yard detective Inspector Oliphant (Lionel Jeffries) and his US State Department head Franklyn Ambruster (Fred Astaire) to investigate, but of course he promptly falls for Novak.

Though written by the masterly American writers Blake Edwards, Larry Gelbart and Richard Quine, the screenplay is surprisingly patchy and their English clichés and caricatures, replacing actual characters, are of course painful.

However, the film is saved by its many witty one-liners, Lemmon’s zestful acting, the lovely Lemmon and Novak partnership, appealing performances by Astaire and Jeffries, the good support cast from both sides of the Atlantic, Quine’s energetic direction and just enough style all round to see it through.

The script, originally by Blake Edwards, is based on Margery Sharp’s 1956 Collier’s magazine story The Notorious Tenant. Quine asked Larry Gelbart to work on Edwards’s script. Gelbart wrote a draft and said that S N Behrman was brought in to rewrite it.

Despite the London setting and the many Brit actors in the cast, the film was entirely shot in Hollywood.

Also in the cast are Estelle Winwood, Maxwell Reed, Philippa Bevans, Henry Daniell, Ronald Long, Doris Lloyd, Richard Peel, Florence Wyatt, Frederick Worlock, Dick Crockett, Scott Davey, Jack Livesey, Tom Dillon and Queenie Leonard.

Unusually, the costumes designs are credited as ‘Miss Novak’s gowns designed by… Herself’.

Quine playfully uses Astaire’s classic George and Ira Gershwin tune ‘A Foggy Day in London Town’ from Astaire’s 1937 film A Damsel in Distress as background music for a foggy London night scene.

Lemmon and Novak had established their reliable movie partnership previously with Phffft! (1954) and Bell Book and Candle (1958).

Filming started on 15 May 1961 and it was released on 26 July 1962. The opening London scenes in ‘Gray Square’ were filmed on the Columbia Ranch (now the Warner Bros Ranch), Burbank, California. The end scenes set on the cliffs of Cornwall were shot at Point Lobos Reserve State Park, Carmel.

It was the end of an era for Novak, paid $600,000 for her last role for Columbia Pictures after eight years with the studio. That pay was great, as the film took $2.7 million at the US/Canada box office. She then made an independent five-picture deal, with producer Martin Ransohoff and Filmways Pictures

Novak starred with James Stewart in Richard Quine’s Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and with Kirk Douglas in Quine’s Strangers When We Meet (1960). Novak was engaged to Quine in 1959 but their wedding never occurred, and The Notorious Landlady was the last film they made together.

The cast are Kim Novak as Carly Hardwicke, Jack Lemmon as Bill Gridley, Fred Astaire as Franklyn Ambruster, Lionel Jeffries as Inspector Oliphant, Estelle Winwood as Mrs Dunhill, Maxwell Reed as Miles Hardwicke, Philippa Bevans as Mrs Agatha Brown, Doris Lloyd as Lady Fallott, Henry Daniell as the Stranger, Ronald Long as Coroner, Richard Peel as Sergeant Dillings, Dick Crockett as Detective Carstairs, Ottola Nesmith as Flower Woman, Bess Flowers as Courtroom Spectator, Scott Davey as Henry, Ross Brown as Boy, and Mary O’Brady as Mrs Oliphant.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5,112

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