ptb-8 This lush Ross Hunter film of 1962 which attempts to patch together some BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S New York romantic sex comedy imagery and fashions (and scenes) along with a PILLOW TALK / LOVER COME BACK farce script almost succeeds in being enjoyable in 2011 by the fact it is well made. BUT and it is a massive BUT, it is miscast and relies on twee marriage drivel to put across some risqué (at the time) script and situations. Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin might have been a screen team du jour but are not of the calibre of actual adults. Had this been an Elvis Movie instead of Bobby Darin then we might have been in a soon to be classic 60s movie, as he would have the screen charisma Darrin lacks. Dee is fine fun and well dressed, her father the silly sort of role Eddie Albert plays better, and the art direction and set design terrific. But overall it is trite and sexist and really contrived. It is likable but you really have to be kind to it and accept the mentality of the time. The music has the foghorn sounds of forced farce and the silly xylophone tinkling of sitcoms like Bewitched, a TV show this precedes but points to. It gets some good sex talk across by the dubious method of having a French mother sexually prep her ripe daughter!

tavm Okay, before I review this movie, I have to complain about some of the pixelating messiness of some of the scenes. While I managed to rewind some scenes I had to skip because of this, I still wish I could have seen the whole movie proper. Even without those technical problems, I don't think I was too enamored of the story with Sandra Dee as a daughter of a French mother and a Boston-bred father having to get married soon so she can give up her gallivantin' ways. Then after she moves to New York, she meets Bobby Darin as a model photographer who wants her in his pictures. She'll only agree to them if he marries her. He does but doesn't want her in them anymore! The rest of the picture has Dee trying to get her husband to pay more attention to her instead of new model-and former friend-Stephanie Powers by using a dog manual to treat him like a pet and then using a "made up" former lover of her mom to get Darin jealous. The performances, from Sandra and Bobby-who's quite hilarious in the beginning-to Powers, John Lund and Micheline Presle as the parents, and Cesar Romero as the guy portraying Dee's "paramour" aren't bad but the whole thing just fell apart after the marriage. I think I would've preferred to see the real-life married couple at the time try to balance their careers with him trying to please both Dee and Powers in whatever demands they give him. As it is, I think I'd only recommend If a Man Answers if you want to see Dee and Darin on-screen together. P.S. The animation at the beginning was probably the best part of the picture. P.P.S. I've now seen the whole movie after wiping the back of the disc. While a little better and I'm upping my rating from 3 to 4, some of my material objections still stand.

mrmproductions A lot of cute fun with some wonderful moments. Sandra Dee is adorable and Bobby Daren is even better. The actress who plays Dee's mother, Micheline Presle, is the highlight of the film. Just like in Molly Hewitt's contemporary humor book "Men Are Dogs: In the Best Possible Sense!", she advises her daughter that if you think of a man as a completely different species from women (i.e. that they're dogs) then you will understand why they behave very differently from women. But the point of both the movie and the book, it's okay, men and women just aren't the same thing, and it's the little differences that are so funny. And if you haven't seen "Beyond the Sea" check it out. It's the Bobby Darin bio pic that will be in theaters soon.

Neal99 Films from earlier times reflect values that are contemporary to the makers – this is a given of artistic evaluation. But it is hard to believe that people of the early 1960s were as sexist, stupid and shallow as this film portrays them. No wonder some people don't like old movies! Sandra Dee plays a young woman who takes her mother's bizarre, manipulative 'advice' and quickly lands a husband, played by Dee's real-life spouse Bobby Darin. The plot revolves around such infantile ploys as inventing a lover to make your spouse jealous, using a dog-training manual as a guide to 'train' your spouse and interfering in the marriage of your adult child. The only thing to be said in favor of this film is that it is definitely glossy in typical Ross Hunter style – beautiful, glamorous people in gorgeous clothes and picture-perfect settings. Otherwise, it is useful only as an example of how not to live one's life!