Any Wednesday (1966)

Purely Joyful Movie!

Lack of good storyline.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I kept thinking of how the self-actualized Jane Fonda of today must look back on this trifle and blush. She plays Ellen, a ditsy bimbo with no discernible direction in life who allows her affections to be bought by the crass, self-satisfied user of a businessman, John Cleves (Jason Robards). This story is terribly dated and all of the characters overact -- down to an interior designer who is egregiously overplayed so as to seem gay. I suppose this film, which often plays like a sitcom, aspires to be a zany farce. But it drags and cries out for editing. (That extended scene in the car, with all the principals playing a silly clapping game...what drivel! Wasn't there any other way to advance this weak-kneed plot??) Fonda is pretty here but that's all I can say for her characterization of an intellectually challenged blonde. Dean Jones -- conjuring a young Jimmy Stewart -- does OK, despite all odds, as the kind of guy Ellen should have been dating -- a young man who could think beyond his own immediate gratification."I'm full of love," he tells his inamorata. "It's all right here -- just waiting for the right person to come along!" Fonda was still starting out in her career, but one wonders why the by-then respected Robards -- 44 when this was filmed but seeming much older -- accepted a gig like this!I know, someone reading this review will tell me to lighten up -- it's just a frothy comedy! Even when viewed through that tinted lens, this could have been way better.

In the days of dinner theater, many actors made a good living traveling the circuit with shows like "Any Wednesday," a Broadway play made into a film in 1966. These frothy sex comedies were all the rage on stage and in film -- Boeing Boeing, Mary, Mary, The Marriage-Go-Round, and of course, Any Wednesday.Jane Fonda plays Ellen, a young woman who is wooed and ultimately falls for an older married executive, John Cleves (Jason Robards) who makes her apartment an executive one, which is tax-deductible and enables her to live there after her roommates move out. One day, Cleves' unknowing secretary sends over a good-looking young businessman, Cass Henderson (Dean Jones) needing a place to stay for the night. It goes down a predictable path from there.The good cast makes this watchable, as it's a rather dated story. Rosemary Murphy is a delight as Cleves' wife, whom John is away from every Wednesday night on out of town business. Fonda is beautiful and sexy as the confused mistress, and Dean Jones is attractive as the frustrated Cass, who hated Cleves for business reasons but now finds that his reasons are personal as well.It's cute, and the story involves a New York blackout, though not the biggie from the early '60s.

This is upbeat and fun, as sophisticated New Yorkers find amoral happiness with various partners, inside and outside of marriage. One reviewer said it was five years out of date but compare it to the coy Sunday in New York or the rather dark and sad The Apartment and you can see the attitude is totally different. Fonda's character has no hesitation in telling two men about her great baby-making pelvis. While a bit bemused by Murphy's character's attitude she is cool with being friends with the ex. The wife seems to be relieved to become the Wednesday lover, instead of her role as business asset. Fonda and Robards' characters parted very amicably despite his lies. Jones's character has no problem about taking on a woman with what used to be thought of as a scarlet past. Everyone seems to come out of it with what suited them the best. Nobody is punished. Everyone lives happily ever after. It's very Broadway not Middle America but one assumes the fact that it took place in NYC allowed the rest of the country to enjoy it, even while shaking their heads at those immoral city people. I wouldn't imagine it was a movie that parents wanted their teenagers to watch.As for one reviewer's likening of the gay portrayal to the negative stereotypes of blacks in the movies, I would just say that in NYC in the arts there were people who behaved like that. My father had a cousin who was a musician and he acted like that. It's similar to the lesbians in early movies who are dressed in suits and look like men. There were women in sophisticated urban environments who did that at that time. I don't know if there are similar complaints on this site about the portrayals in La Cage aux Folles or The Birdcage, or if there are complaints about TV shows like Will and Grace but those are very similar. That doesn't imply that homosexuals who were, for instance, clerks in small towns would be anything like that. Probably most people in the arts in many major cities are at least a bit over the top, if not totally over the top and halfway down the other side. They don't want to blend in. They want to stand out.

Any Wednesday's a truly funny out-stage comedy, with an enjoyable '60s taste. Jane Fonda is sexy and adorable, the other characters are well drawn. I'm a bit surprised imdb users have such a low opinion of this film (a bit more than 5/10 as I'm writing), in my opinion it deserves a full 7/10 just for the balloon scene.