dougdoepke Too bad comedic talent Jim Garner is wasted in a straight role that a hundred lesser actors could have managed. The movie's only fitfully funny, bordering instead on the plain silly. Three bored suburban husbands get bachelor Garner to rent and stock a love nest, so each can dally one night a week away from pestering wives. Trouble is Garner stocks the snazzy apartment with curvy blonde Novak who's got her own agenda.The two hour run-time unfortunately stretches a difficult storyline that lacks the snap it needs. I suspect that's why the finale is so frenetic. Anyway, as others point out, the material reflects a time when Hollywood sex was all leering innuendo and nothing more, as Rock and Doris proved over and over. And what 50's silliness it is, keeping all the rendezvous's with the curvy Novak utterly chaste, the three husbands preferring talk, repair, and food, respectively. It may be 1962, but restrictive 50's norms still prevail. For old movie fans, it's a good chance to catch familiar faces from the 1940's—Blair, Jeffries, Page, & Duff. However, Novak comes off more as a presence than a personality, her scenes with Garner never getting beyond the contrived stage. Now, I'm ready to suspend disbelief in the interests of entertainment. But, not when contrivances are underlined rather than blended, as is the case here. Maybe snappier pacing could have finessed the bumpy parts. That seems the secret of many sex farces—keep events moving so audiences barely notice. Perhaps with a revised script and better direction-editing, this movie could have managed in Pillow Talk (1959) fashion.

abcj-2 Boys' Night Out (1962) is one of those easy breezy comedies that comes on TCM a few times a year. I record it, watch it a few times, then delete it thinking I'll buy it, but then it comes on again to my delight:) It's about a group of 4 men, 3 married with children and one divorced and living with his mother, who cook up a zany scheme to secure and share a NYC love pad with a young beautiful blonde to break the boredom in their lives. Little do they know, they are the subject of their ideal beautiful 25 year old blonde's own scheme, and she willingly agrees to be available for each "boys'" night out. If you are thinking it's a love-fest, remember this was distributed in 1962, so there are lies and innuendo, but Kim Novak, in a role easily played by Doris Day just a few years before, maintains her virtue and the wives get their chance to get even. Novak shines in one of her best comedic roles. She and leading man James Garner have great chemistry. He's so handsome and hilarious at the same time. If you've never seen his comedies before his star of television days, then keep your eyes peeled for his movies. He's a charmer who always delivers a great performance. Tony Randall and Jessie Royce Landis lead the supporting cast. They always add tremendously to a picture. This film is on the tail end of the really tastefully cute comedies, and it's a great film to enjoy when you want pure rom-com escapism. One more thing, it gets better with repeated viewings. Some new lines pop out each time that make it even more enjoyable. I didn't love it the first time as much as I have each time since.

bkoganbing Through an incredible combination of circumstances way too bizarre for me to relate, psychology graduate student Kim Novak has found four human lab rats for her thesis on the mating habits of the American suburban male for professor Oscar Homolka. The four specimens are James Garner, Howard Duff, Howie Morris, and Tony Randall and they have some fantasies too. Yearning for the days of carefree bachelorhood, they get Garner, the only single one in the group, to rent a really nice apartment on the Upper East Side on East End Avenue that will come complete with Kim Novak. They all have different assigned days with her. Each one has his Boy's Night Out.By the way for those of you not from New York or familiar with it, East End Avenue is about as high rent as you can get. What our would be Lotharios get for $200.00 a month, a steal because real estate agent Jim Backus can't get it off his hands because a notorious murder was committed there would go for between $5000.00 and $10,000.00 now. Although there are some very funny moments including an anarchic climax when wives, Janet Blair, Patti Page, and Anne Jeffreys, meet up with the men in the ideal pad with private detective Fred Clark and a crazy eavesdropping neighbor Ruth McDevitt, Boy's Night Out falls short of a classic by about five lengths. It really needed a director like Leo McCarey or Gregory LaCava or even a more cynical guy like Billy Wilder to bring it off. The material itself was getting kind of out of date by then. At times it was like a long episode of Three's Company. Still with as bright and talented a cast as this, you can't go too far wrong watching Boy's Night Out.

Daniel Karlsson This film is quite similar to "Let's make love" by Billy Wilder starring Marilyn Monroe. Just like in that movie, the married men are so boyish one could wonder how they got married in the first place. Of course, that is part of the comedy in this "sex" farce. The contextual environment and the mentioning of the word "sex" are the only aspects that by any means are "dirty" and could have been questionable in the American cinema of the 50s. However, graphically there is nothing arousing except for a short kissing scene. Although the film starts off entertainingly and promising, it drags out way too long and the ending is nothing but corny. To that comes weak dialog without a single memorable line. I would suggest checking out the Monroe film instead, unless one is a fan of Kim Novak.