BOYS’ NIGHT OUT
US, 1962, 115 minutes, Colour.
James Garner, Tony Randall, Howard Duff, Patti Page, Janet Blair, Fred Clark, William Bendix, Jessie Royce Landis, Oskar Homolka, Howard Morris, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jim Backus.
Directed by Michael Gordon.
Boys’ Night Out is an amusing American style comedy about sexual manners and mores. It is very much a film of the early sixties - the wry social comment of American male-female relationships, marriages, the tone that boys take on their night out. It reflects the kind of writing of Paddy Chayevsky in such films as 'Bachelor Party'. It also has overtones of the sociology of sexuality which derives from the Kinsey Report. Another film at this time with more serious tones. was 'The Chapman Report'.
The film is a blend of the serious, the comic the glossy comic soap opera. James Garner and Kim Novak are
at home in this type of role. Direction is by Michael Gordon who has made a wide range of films from Cyrano do Bergerac to a number of Doris Day comedies.
1. How entertaining a comedy? The emphasis on comedy, sex innuendo, social observation on the American male? The light touch, the values?
2. What comedy conventions did the film use? Characters, situations? Ambiguities? Sexual ambiguity? How subtly. How cleverly?
3 The importance of widescreen colour, the atmosphere of New York? The light musical background?
4. How credible was the plot? Is this how this kind of man behaved? How credible a character was Kathy? Her relationship with her doctor? How credible was it to show the four men discussing the accident of being able to rent stich an elaborate apartment? Kathy utilising these men for her research, the role of the wives?
5. How attractive were Kim Novak and James Garner as the hero and heroine for this kind of comedy? How credible a character was Fred? The bachelor, his relationship with his mother and her advice to him about marriage? His relationship with his three friends, work, train commuters, the nature of his fantasy about sex? The humour of his being able to rent the apartment? Ambiguity of his encounter with Kathy? His falling in love with her, the ways in which she tested him? How credible a woman was Kathy? Her arrival at the apartment, her pretending to be the kind of blonde they were after, her research, her discussions with the doctor?
6. How interesting were the characters of the other three men? Drayton and his telling of stories, his relationship with his wife and her finishing his sentences etc? Jackson and his family? The other men and their wives? How typical of American families and their backgrounds? what comment on family life and its quality was the film making?
7. How easily were the audience led into the situation of the boys’ night out? The song and the title and its emphases? How involved did the audience get in wanting them to find a flat? Sharing their crises and their moral risks? The humour of the final boys' night along with the girls night out? How well did the film build up to mini crises? The points being made in these?
8. Were there any memorable sequence or was this merely conventional comedy?
9. The themes of' American masculinity, femininity? The relationship of the sexes? The city and suburbia? Men’s fantasies? Was it appropriate for this kind of film to have a happy conventional ending between Kathy and Fred? Would it have been more pointed to have had an ironic ending? Does this kind of film give insight into the problems and situations it portrays?
