who was that lady

July 6 movie: Who Was That Lady. This movie was horrible. Well, let me qualify that. If you like the ugly misogynist humor of the early 60s, you may like this movie. Tony Curtis plays a college professor caught kissing a student by his wife (real-life wife Janet Leigh). She walks out on him, because she's "insanely jealous," so Curtis turns to buddy Dean Martin for help. Martin concocts this ridiculous story that they're both members of the FBI, and the girl is a foreign agent Curtis has to spy on. Martin uses his job as a writer for a TV network to get a realistic-looking gun and ID card, and they convince the poor woman that her philandering husband is really a super agent protecting America.

I found both these characters so loathsome that when they get their comeuppance, it wasn't nearly enough. And then when they're forgiven and everything works out in the end? Made me want to throw something at the screen. And I enjoyed Boys Night Out. I don't know why, but I did. This movie, I couldn't stand. (Maybe it's the difference between James Garner and Dean Martin.)

It wasn't all bad. There's a funny scene at the end where Martin and Curtis wake up in the boiler room of the Empire State Building, see all the equipment and think they're on a foreign submarine, and decide to scuttle it. They open all the valves on the boilers and then start singing "God Bless America." And the title song, sung by Martin of course, is pretty good because it's so sleazy. The chorus actually goes "That was no lady, that was my wife!" I have it on an album somewhere, maybe I should play it next week.