Friday 25 July 2014

The Notorious Landlady (1962 Richard Quine)

Lemmon moves into London home of suspected husband killer Kim Novak, and not unnaturally they fall for each other in Blake Edwards and Larry Gelbart (best known for TV's MASH, and Tootsie) adaptation of Margery Sharp's 'The Notorious Tenant'. Quine moves things along briskly with Arthur Arling on camera and some nimble operating (uncredited) cut together by Craig Nelson, evident in silent movie style finale involving Gilbert & Sullivan and a lady in a wheelchair (Estelle Winwood). (Cruelly, I would have liked to have seen the lady fly off the cliff edge, though as sagacious Q points out, the open end leaves anything possible.)

Again, vastly unknown / underrated Columbia Lemmon vehicle has much to recommend it. With Fred Astaire, Lionel Jeffries, Phillipa Bevans.




I liked the story of the woman who made her lover help her brick up her husband; then two weeks later leaves the lover for the brick salesman.

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