Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) - film review

Once his tour of Las Vagas is over, star singer Dino takes to the road and heads for Hollywood, where a film crew anxiously awaits his arrival.  On the way, he stops at Climax, an inconsequential small town in Nevada.  He is instantly recognised by the petrol station attendant, Barney Millsap, who, a budding songwriter, sees an opportunity to sell his songs and become instantly rich.  With the help of his friend Orville J. Spooner, a music teacher who composes the music for his songs, Barney sabotages Dino’s car, forcing the singer to spend the night in Climax.  Dino accepts Orville’s offer of a room in his house, but Orville gets anxious when he learns that: (a) his wife Zelda is a big fan of Dino and (b) the singer has a voracious appetite for women.  For these reasons, Orville gives his wife the bad husband treatment, driving her back to her parents, while Barney collects a prostitute named Polly the Pistol from a local night club.  By getting Polly to pose as his wife, Orville hopes to lure Dino into buying his songs.  Naturally, things do not go quite as planned...

Kiss Me, Stupid is generally regarded as one of Billy Wilder’s weaker comedies, although to dismiss it as a minor work of marginal interest would be to do it something of an injustice.  Certainly, it does lack something of the crispness, focus and maturity that we find in Wilder’s better film comedies, such as Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960).  The film was ill-received on its first release and, thanks partly to a severe condemnation from the Catholic League, it was one of the director’s biggest box office failures.   Yet, whilst it may not be perfect, Kiss Me, Stupid, is still a highly enjoyable piece of Wilder farce.  It is also a film which offers a perceptive and rather cynical portrait of American society in the early 1960s, and therein lies its main interest.

The film deals with two themes which were dear to Wilder’s heart - celebrity culture and marital infidelity.  In its depiction of characters who are desperate to break away from their present milieu, at whatever cost, the film serves as a dark parody of the American dream.  One of the characters – the music teacher Orville J. Spooner – is willing to destroy his marriage (and comes perilously close to giving his adoring wife the full James Cagney grapefruit treatment) so that he can advance his career.  Success for the individual at any price – is this the true spirit of America?

The irony is that whilst Orville and his sidekick Barney are busy conniving to win fame for themselves, they hardly fail to conceal their contempt for those who are currently basking in the tender glow of celebrity.  To Orville, Dino – a brilliant self-parody by Dean Martin – is no more than a self-absorbed, skirt-chasing nonentity who thrives by exploiting others.  Yet Orville and Barney are no better than Dino – they ensnare the hapless singer and contrive the most outrageous scheme to con him into offering them a lucrative contract.  They are doomed to become the thing they despise, and so the back-stabbing celebrity maelstrom perpetuates itself.

Meanwhile, whilst these machinations are afoot, the two women in the drama have their part to play and, ironically, it is they who resolve the drama, without the male characters knowing anything about it.   Polly the Pistol realises her dream by chance and by the kindness of others, not by deceit; she is probably the only character for whom the happy ending is real.  Orville’s wife Zelda appears willing to kiss and make up when the crisis is over, but who knows what marital strife lies ahead for the couple as Orville continues to slither up the greasy poll of celebrity.

Kiss Me, Stupid has its flaws - it is at least twenty minutes too long and some of the humour tends towards the juvenile – but it is by no means a bad film and is worth watching just to hear the hilarious songs provided by the Gershwin brothers.  If you can forgive Kim Novak her slightly irritating New Jersey accent, the performances will both delight and entertain.  Ray Walston and Cliff Osmond form one of the most successful double acts of any Wilder film, virtually relegating Dean Martin, for all his evident on-screen charisma, to the role of a mere supporting character.  It may not be as slick or as intelligent as other Wilder comedies, but Kiss Me, Stupid is still highly enjoyable – and with its darkly acerbic underbelly, it offers one of cinema’s most scathing critiques of contemporary attitudes towards marriage and celebrity.

© James Travers 2008

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