'The Perfect Furlough' is two-thirds of the way through before it finally stops wasting our time, and the romance we've been anticipating all along between real-life lovebirds Tony Curtis & Janet Leigh finally blooms; although there are still the usual irksome misunderstandings to be surmounted before the final clinch.
Two decades after this film Blake Edwards returned to glossy sex farce availing himself of the far more relaxed censorship of the seventies, eighties and nineties, but with not much more stimulating results. Shot in colour & 'scope to compensate for the fact that although set in Paris, the production never leaves California; there's the usual "ooh la la" nonsense about how romantic Paris is, and plenty of talk about sex, but none actually takes place during the film's running time, and most of the narrative tension derives from the film's attempts to sound raunchy while still adhering to Eisenhower-era censorship. When one of the characters is revealed to be pregnant the audience (but not the cast), for example, is already fully aware that the young lady was already safely married at the time of conception.
Although given little to do, Elaine Stritch shines in the sort of role Eve Arden would have played in the forties.
Two decades after this film Blake Edwards returned to glossy sex farce availing himself of the far more relaxed censorship of the seventies, eighties and nineties, but with not much more stimulating results. Shot in colour & 'scope to compensate for the fact that although set in Paris, the production never leaves California; there's the usual "ooh la la" nonsense about how romantic Paris is, and plenty of talk about sex, but none actually takes place during the film's running time, and most of the narrative tension derives from the film's attempts to sound raunchy while still adhering to Eisenhower-era censorship. When one of the characters is revealed to be pregnant the audience (but not the cast), for example, is already fully aware that the young lady was already safely married at the time of conception.
Although given little to do, Elaine Stritch shines in the sort of role Eve Arden would have played in the forties.