‘Kiss Me, Stupid’ or — Intolerable Cruelty?

“Isn’t Dean Martin brave!” we might find ourselves thinking. “Look how mercilessly he allows himself to be mocked.” And ‘Kiss Me, Stupid’ (1964) certainly mocks Dean Martin and everything he represents mercilessly. Although notice Wilder and Diamond are also mocking us, his audience, too so ask yourself if you’d rather be paid to be made fun of or be the ones shelling out for the privilege because Martin might be laughing but he’s laughing all the way to the bank while we’re just sitting there like giggling chumps.

There’s a bitterness against everything here — fame, men, women, America, low culture, high art, society, love, sex, marriage — that runs almost as deep as in Wilder’s ‘Ace in the Hole’ (1951) and when we realise what struggling song writers Ray Walston and Cliff Osmond have in mind for Kim Novak we want to vomit.

But will we laugh? Hell, yes! This is an extremely funny comedy with both plot and gag construction to marvel at. The only problem is we can also hear Shirley MacLaine’s lament ringing in our ears that Wilder frequently loved his jokes more than his characters.

There’s a telling image at the beginning where a line of bus-boys are howling with laughter at Dino’s nightclub shtick… all except one who’s standing there unimpressed at the barrage of corny one-liners. It’s almost as though Wilder and Diamond are warning us — “Get ready, because we’re going to push things so far that part of you may be repulsed.” Now I’m no prude, and I love an acidic slice of bitterness running through my humour, but I’d sacrifice 50% of this film’s gags for even one iota of charm.

Apparently Ray Walston’s Orville Spooner was originally set to be played by Peter Sellers and thank god that didn’t happen because Walston’s natural warmth brings a much needed humanity that Sellers completely lacked, so the thought of the former Goon in the role is hideously unthinkable.

Yet the most compelling character is Felicia Farr, Spooner’s wife. She might get the least screen-time but it’s her predicament that’s the most interesting, as well as having something genuine to say about the sexual forces climaxing about all over America. She also begs us to imagine the film differently — to imagine if Spooner, rather than enlisting Novak’s Polly the Pistol to be sexually available for Dino, had convinced his own wife to reluctantly pay the part and get in on the scheme instead? I’d have liked to have seen that.

‘Kiss Me, Stupid’ is a snap-shot of America in such a state of change and in possession of such new found freedoms that it doesn’t seem to quite know what to do with itself. It’s fast and funny but if you’ve ever heard people talk about Billy Wilder’s mean streak and wondered what they meant then this is where you’ll find it.