Post #28737 by Kim on Mon, Mar 31, 2003 12:14 PM

Under the Yum-Yum Tree—Welcome to the Sin Bin!

Classic 60’s silliness! (But be warned, the tiki-content is scant at best!)

Jack Lemmon, who we all know and love from his many wonderful (and frequently absurd—How to Murder Your Wife, for example! A good choice for Lemmon fans!) movies, is the delightfully sleazy swinging bachelor-landlord of a glorious apartment complex. Lemmon, who is “cursed with too much money” rents the beautiful pads in his building out to attractive single women, and proceeds to charm (or sleaze, depending on your interpretation) his way into their—ahem—“apartments”. (This is 1963, so sex is implied, not explicitly admitted.)

Mr. Hogan (Jack Lemmon), who urges his tenants to call him “Hogan” (though the three recurring tenants—the single-lady-with-the-cat, the attractive-gymnast, and the woman-who-is-always-just-stepping-out-of-the-shower-or-going-to-bed—all call him “Hogie”) has just ended an affair with a recently-divorced college professor (Irene Wilson, played by Edie Adams). Ms. Wilson’s perky young niece, Robin Austin (played by Carol Lynley), discovers that her aunt is giving up her “dreamy apartment”, and rushes over to secure the place for herself. The catch (and source of the central comic dilemma) is this—Robin wants the apartment to conduct a “non-conjugal cohabitation” experiment with her fiancé, Dave Manning (Dean Jones, of, among other things, The Love Bug fame!), to determine if they have “true compatibility” before she agrees to get married (and start conjugal cohabitation!). “Too many young people these days are carried away by their hormones!”—Robin

Hogan agrees to rent the vacant apartment to Robin and her “roommate”, under the impression that the “roommate” is another young lady. When Hogan discovers that Robin’s roommate is, in fact, a young man who is not amused by Hogan’s frequent unannounced visits and abundance of “charm”, classic 60’s misadventure ensues. Hogan employs a number of ill-advised ruses to estrange Dave and Robin, and seduce the “sweet young thing”. (Hogan refers to Robin almost exclusively as “you sweet young thing”, rather than using her name—a prime example of the classic 50’s-60’s social convention of avuncular sexism. If you’re inclined to get your panties on a knot over things like that, this movie might not be for you—it’s pretty-well peppered with it, along with references to “woman’s work” and traditional gender roles. If you can take it in the “harmless fun” spirit that it was probably meant in, however, it’s amusingly-awful!)

The prime tiki-enticement of this movie is the setting. Disappointingly, Hogan’s bachelor pad, while definitely sleazy-60’s cool, is not especially tikified. Lush red walls, a remote-controlled fireplace and bedside wall sconces, and automated violins make Hogan’s apartment a wonderfully-ridiculous Seduction Central, but the single psuedo-Africana sculpture does not, in my opinion, make the place tiki. Hogan’s apartment is solidly cool, though, as is Robin’s apartment. (I’d move in in a flash, especially for $75 a month!) The building—the Centaur Apartments—provides a lovely setting, and the plant-filled courtyard is generally tropical—though, again, without being especially tiki.

Overall, I’d say if you’re a Lemmon fan, it’s worth watching. It’s a movie in which Jack Lemmon’s character doesn’t really have any redeeming characteristics—he’s just a charming sleaze-ball, which is fun to see (if you’re like me, you’re used to Lemmon being a truly good guy, even if it’s underneath the sleaze, in most movies). If you’re just looking for tiki, though, you might want to look elsewhere. There are some nice settings, but nothing spectacular, and if tiki is all you want, you’ll be disappointed. But for silly 60’s fun starring a wonderfully-goofy actor, order a pizza, make a Mai Tai, and rent it!

[ Edited by: Kim on 2003-03-31 13:49 ]