Sex and the Single Girl (1964)

• Year: 1964
• Released: 25 Dec 1964
• Country: United States
• Adwords: 1 nomination
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058580/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sex_and_the_single_girl
• Metacritics:
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: Not Rated
• Genre: Comedy, Romance
• Runtime: 110 min
• Writer: Helen Gurley Brown, Joseph Heller, David R. Schwartz
• Director: Richard Quine
• Cast: Lauren Bacall, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood
• Keywords: fake identity, magazine, deception, police chase, breaking the fourth wall, screwball comedy,

	6.4/10
	50% – Critics
	55% – Audience

Sex and the Single Girl Storyline

Those at Stop Magazine pride themselves in how depraved their minds and thus their associated articles are. The more depraved the articles, the higher the readership. The head depravee is its managing editor, Bob Weston. Bob is most proud of a recent cover story they ran on “Sex and the Single Girl” author, twenty-three year old Dr. Helen Gurley Brown, the story questioning her own sexual experience or lack thereof. Helen prides herself on being both a noted academic and a doctor who gives practical, sage and useful advice for the single woman, and as such detests the story for what it’s done to her reputation – and that of the institute for which she works – and her now dwindling patient base. Bob wants to do a follow-up article with information straight from her mouth, but knows that Dr. Brown obviously won’t agree to the story or grant an interview. So Bob poses as a patient, specifically using his always bickering but in love neighbor Frank Broderick, a hosiery manufacturer, as a cover. The nature of Frank’s arguments with his wife Sylvia Broderick stem from Sylvia’s jealousy since Frank is always looking at other women’s legs, which Frank counters is only a professional interest. As Helen’s sessions progress with Bob posing as Frank, Helen starts to fall in love with him, and Bob starts to fall in love with her. As such, Bob may have second thoughts about doing the story, which may put him at odds with the Chief, his editor and publisher. Complications ensue when Helen wants to speak with Sylvia, who has no idea what Bob is doing. As Helen does manage to contact Sylvia, Bob tries to conjure up a fake Sylvia of his own. Throw in a couple of cabbies who are working on their own agendas and a highway patrolman who just can’t seem to pick up any speed and the misunderstandings between Bob, Helen, Frank and Sylvia start to pile up, as do the traffic incidents.—Huggo

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Sex and the Single Girl Movie Reviews

A Game Cast Keeps This Screwball Sex Comedy Afloat and Then Some

I actually find this scatterbrained 1964 comedy a surprisingly amusing screwball farce all these years later despite its titillating title. So apparently does director Peyton Reed since he based most of his 2004 comic pastiche, “Down with Love”, on the storyline of this movie and less so on any of the Doris Day/Rock Hudson romps of the same era. Regardless, they all have the same brew of conjugal misunderstandings, mistaken identities and leering though never explicit sexuality because those were the days when a woman’s virtue would never be compromised for anyone but the right man. Directed by the heavy-handed Richard Quine (“Paris When It Sizzles”) and written by Joseph Heller (later the author of “Catch-22”) and David R. Schwartz, this ridiculous comedy benefits from a game cast headed by Tony Curtis still riding high from “Some Like It Hot” (which is referred to for easy laughs in the story) and Natalie Wood who shows her comedy chops with dexterity here.

Curtis plays Bob Weston, a sleazy magazine writer for a men’s magazine whose editors are intent on exposing Dr. Helen Gurley Brown as a fraud as a sex expert. Author of the best-selling “Sex and the Single Girl”, Brown is not at all the clench-jawed celebrity author who wrote the real book and appeared on “The Tonight Show” constantly. Instead, she is a gorgeous, intellectually prodigious 23-year-old who extols female empowerment in the bedroom. Showing off his moral depravity, Weston steals the marital woes of her next-door neighbors, pantyhose magnate Frank Broderick and his acerbic wife Sylvia, and comes to see Dr. Brown as a patient. The rest is predictable but still a good amount of fun. Curtis was still at the top of his game here showing how he can easily elicit laughs from such a vile manipulator, but it’s Wood who surprises as Brown. Displaying a nervous but infectious energy that feeds nicely into the two sides of the doctor, she is funny and sexy in a way that she could never quite balance as well again in her career. Witness the hilariously conflicted drunken scene in her apartment for evidence of her talent.

Quine was smart to cast three sharp stars in the key supporting roles – Henry Fonda as the put-upon Frank browbeaten into a sad man by Lauren Bacall pulling all the stops as the shrewish basket case Sylvia is, and Mel Ferrer as Brown’s somewhat ambiguous colleague. Add a sultry Fran Jeffries who performs two numbers (including the title tune) for no apparent reason except to sell records, an even sexier Leslie Parrish (“The Manchurian Candidate”) as Weston’s secretary, and a genuinely funny extended car chase scene, and you have the makings of an under-appreciated sex comedy. The 2009 DVD, part of the six-disc “The Natalie Wood Collection”, includes a Warner Brothers cartoon (“Nelly’s Folly”) and the original theatrical trailer.

It tries to be hip and funny but comes off as dated, boorish and smarmy.

This film is a product of its times. In 1964, film standards and society’s standards in general had changed dramatically from the so-called ‘good old days’. Folks were now talking more openly about sex and the success of Helen Gurley Brown’s book “Sex and the Single Girl” led to this completely fictionalized film of the same name. While Natalie Wood supposedly plays Brown, this is a movie version–one that looks gorgeous, not scary. And in this film she is a writer AND psychotherapist. Her nemesis is the editor of a sleazy rag (Tony Curtis) and he wants to get to know her better in order to write some sexy exposee. At the same time, his neighbors (Henry Fonda and Lauren Bacall) fight constantly and they give him an idea–pretend to be his neighbor and see Dr. Brown for therapy–and eventually seduce her.

This film tries to be edgy and the word sex if used 1832413 times. However, if you strip away all the edginess, you are left with a bad film–with a plot that seems amazingly dated and silly. Additionally, the dialog is equally horrible–ridiculous and dated. An embarrassing film that tries to be hip but just seems dated, boorish and a bit sleazy.

Natalie, You’ve Been Punked

I was reading in the Citadel Film Book Series The Films Of Lauren Bacall that the real Helen Gurley Brown was less than thrilled with the film made of her work which was a landmark in feminist literature. Turning it into a poor man’s version of a Rock Hudson-Doris Day sex comedy she probably never envisioned.

The Rock and Doris roles are taken by Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood. Tony plays a writer for a Confidential style magazine, today it would be the National Enquirer. He’s already done articles debunking her credibility as far as being an expert on sex. Now Curtis proposes to publisher Edward Everett Horton to really get to know this person and embarks on a campaign to seduce the sex expert with all the cunning of Ashton Kutcher on the punk. But as what happens in all these films he actually falls for her.

Of course it doesn’t help that he gets in to see her pretending he’s hosiery manufacturer and neighbor Henry Fonda and using his marital problems with Lauren Bacall as his entry to the pop psychologist’s office. In this film Helen Gurley Brown is not the editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine, but a Joyce Brothers type psychologist.

I wish I could remember who said it, but I read a review of this film once where the reviewer said that the parts Fonda and Bacall played in cheaper productions years ago would have been played by Edgar Kennedy and Dot Farley. I should only have said something that brilliant. Watching Fonda I did see traces of the slow burn and Bacall is certainly more chic than Dot Farley. Nevertheless the way they bicker at each other could be the best thing about Sex And The Single Girl. Neither Fonda or Bacall is terribly proud of Sex And The Single Girl. I wonder what could have induced them to appear in this film?

It’s not the worst film that any of the leads or an exceptionally talented name cast of character players ever appeared in. Still these kind of films were being turned out regularly in the late Eisenhower- Kennedy years and this one dates real badly.

Helen Gurley Brown’s name and real contributions to feminism have stood the test of time better than this film has.