The Notorious Landlady (1962)

Truly Dreadful Film

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

I saw this film for the first time on Turner Classic Movies tonightA comedy set in England with this quartet of leads - Jack Lemmon, Kim Novak, Fred Astaire, Lionel Jeffries - a London cab full of great character actors, crisp and fully-toned black and white photography and a script from Larry Gelbert and Blake Edwards could not have been more pleasant. Gershwin's "A Foggy Day in London Town," washed it in additional wonderfulness. The sequences near the end of the film at a seaside resort in Penzance is wickedly choreographed with actors, camera moves and scoring for big laughs to a live band shell performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan ditty. Everything is spot on, silly to smart.

Jack Lemmon, Kim Novak, and Fred Astaire struggle to enliven minor mystery-comedy involving an American man working in London, renting a room from a sexy, shady lady who's under surveillance after her husband died rather suspiciously. First-half of the movie is lax, with a witless build-up of the characters; by the second-act, director Richard Quine turns the whole thing into mad slapstick, and the characters into ninnies. Novak's comedic timing is commendable, though Quine does his best to exploit her--and no actress could keep her dignity during a bathtub scene wherein she's required to cover her bare chest with her arms throughout a long conversation. Kinda tacky. ** from ****

This is an entertaining spoof on Hitchcock style,long before Mel Brooks' "high anxiety" (1978),and much more subtile at that.Diplomat Lemmon rents a room in a mansion whose owner(Novak) might be a man-eater.After a slow start,the movie quickly reaches its cruising speed and will keep it till the end.Many scenes in Novak's desirable mansion are nods in the direction of "rear window".All the neighbors are looking out their windows,secretly waiting for something to happen.A kid warns Lemmon:"My mother says you're next",and he later adds "And my father says so too".And the final is some kind of cross between the chase movies like" north by norwest" and the "symphonic" scenes of a " man who knew too much"(1956) in miniature,as the characters are in search for an old lady among many wheelchairs,during an outdoor concert .Jack Lemmon is wonderful,his comical expressions have influenced a lot of actors,Jim Carrey owes him a lot.Richard Quine's final crazy chase is much more successful than that of "sex and the single girl" ,two years later.POSSIBLE SPOILER********************Possible spoiler A small flaw:the scene between Kim Novak and her husband is so dramatic that it jars with the light tongue-in -cheek atmosphere of the rest of the show.The same goes for the pawnbroker's scene.

Look at the actors, the writing, the music! How can this film miss? Well, it does, and badly. Despite having a few marvelous bits and great support work by Astaire, Jeffries, and others, Lemmon gives his worst career performance. He doesn't seem to have a clue as to what his character is really about. And neither do we. One minute he's a naive simpleton, the next he is cunning and diabolic. When did he get transformed so dramatically? Quine doesn't give us a clue. This is the third movie where Quine works with Lemmon and Novak. All have their moments, but all are quite unevenly directed. Skip it.