Wives and Lovers (film)

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Wives and Lovers
Wives and Lovers (film).jpg
Directed by John Rich
Written by Edward Anhalt
Based onThe First Wife (play)
by Jay Presson Allen
Produced by Hal B. Wallis
Starring Janet Leigh
Van Johnson
Shelley Winters
Martha Hyer
Cinematography Lucien Ballard
Edited by Warren Low
Music by Lyn Murray
Production
company
Hal Wallis Productions
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release dates
  • August 28, 1963 (1963-08-28)(New York) [1]
  • September 25, 1963 (1963-09-25)(Los Angeles) [2]
Running time
104 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Wives and Lovers is a 1963 comedy film based on the play The First Wife by Jay Presson Allen. Directed by John Rich, it stars Janet Leigh, Van Johnson, Shelley Winters and Martha Hyer. [3] It was nominated for an Academy Award in 1964 for costume design. [4]

Contents

Plot

Husband and wife Bill and Bertie Austin and their daughter live in a low-rent apartment. He is a struggling writer, at least until agent Lucinda Ford breaks the news that she has sold his book to a publisher, including the rights to turn it into a Broadway play.

A new house in Connecticut is the first way to celebrate. When Bill is away working on the play, Bertie befriends hard-drinking neighbor Fran Cabrell and her boyfriend Wylie, who plant seeds of suspicion in Bertie's mind that Bill and his beautiful agent might be more than just business partners.

Bertie jealously retaliates by flirting with Gar Aldrich, an actor who will appear in her husband's play. Bill travels to Connecticut for a heart-to-heart talk, finds Gar there and punches him. But when the play is a success, Bill and Bertie decide to give married life one more try.

Cast

Reception

In a contemporary review for The New York Times , critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "It's incredible that a screenplay as hackneyed and witless as this one could get past a first front-office reading in this rigid day and age, and it is pathetic that it should be directed as woodenly as this one has been by John Rich ... It is simply without style or humor, totally flat, and it is laboredly played by Miss Leigh, Miss Hyer, Mr. Johnson, and Shelley Winters and Ray Walston as a couple of drunks—the usual tireless and tedious gag-makers—who are always popping in from next door. Oh, yes—with over-time labor by Jeremy Slate as the Hollywood star. The only difference between this endeavor ... and those of the nineteen-thirties is that the latter were usually better and more—more sophisticated. That's the word I believe they used to use." [1]

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, critic Philip K. Scheuer wrote: "'Wives and Lovers'—title included—might be relegated to the familiar classification of Just Another Sex Comedy, Hollywood Style, but for one rather rare (for Hollywood) distinction. It probes a bit deeper and comes up with a still fundamental, ingrained characteristic of most Americans: Although they may make a great outward show of being 'sophisticated' and morally promiscuous, the Puritan in them usually waggles a warning finger when the sheets are really down." [2]

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References

  1. 1 2 Crowther, Bosley (1963-08-29). "Screen: 'Wives and Lovers' in Debut". The New York Times . p. 36.
  2. 1 2 Scheuer, Philip K. (1963-09-26). "Comedy, Sex Mixed in 'Wives and Lovers'". Los Angeles Times . p. 7, Part IV.
  3. ↑ "Wives and Lovers (1963) - Trailers, Reviews, Synopsis, Showtimes and Cast - AllMovie". www.allrovi.com. Archived from the original on 17 January 2013. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  4. ↑ "Wives and Lovers". IMDb.com. 4 October 1963. Retrieved 2016-08-26.


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