Good Neighbor Sam (1964 David Swift)

Good to finally see this, copy from Spain, as the US version that I had bought twice was in fact Operation Mad Ball, despite the packaging!

On the cusp of pop art and Sgt Pepper, film is quite wacky, with mad inventions and paintings on top of a sort of sneaky double-affair plot which Hollywood is so good at, involving ad exec Jack Lemmon (with several classic Lemmonisms), wife Dorothy Provine, neighbour Romy Schneider and her ex Mike Connors.

Film is fun but too long though e.g. dinner scene with client Edward G Robinson doesn't add anything, mad drive around San Francisco is well filmed but irrelevant sub-plot. Plus painting over ads could have led to even funnier payoff with agency (if they'd turned out really popular).

Edward Andrews - Lemmon's boss - is familiar to us from Avanti.

Music de Vol, ph. Burnett Guffey, ed Charles Nelson (incredible credits, looks like was long at Columbia).

And the interesting looking hotel is the Bradbury, which crops up in all sorts of films, such as Chinatown, The Artist, (500) Days of Summer, DOA and even Blade Runner!