Review: Promises! Promises!

Set on a cruise ship, the film follows two couples (Jayne Mansfield and Tommy Noonan, Marie McDonald and Mickey Hargitay) and their various issues. Mansfield is eager for a baby but writer husband is too stressed to hold up his end of the bargain so to speak. A subsequent meeting with the ship’s doctor (Fritz Feld) results in the latter giving Noonan an aspirin that he calls a fertility drug (!). T.C. Jones plays Babette, the ship’s hairdresser (!!), whilst Eddie Quillan has a small role as the ship’s bartender.

 

Wanna see Jayne Mansfield’s tits in a movie? This movie has that. Want anything else? This 1963 sex comedy from director King Donovan (his sole feature directing gig) has limited supply of anything else. I still think it might be worth seeing for the curious and cinephiles among you, but just be aware that this is not a good film. It’s a movie where you get to see Jayne Mansfield naked in a series of repeated shots sprinkled throughout. For what it is, I got what I was expecting and maybe a little more than that.

 

Scripted by the trio of William Welch (“The Brotherhood of Satan”), and Edna Sheklow (no other credits), and star Tommy Noonan a lot of your enjoyment level here may be decided on how much Noonan you’re willing to put up with in order to see Mansfield naked. Yeah, Noonan wrote himself as Mansfield’s love interest. Of course. Since you can readily see the goods on the internet these days, some may not be willing/needing to bother, especially given that Noonan’s comic stylings are an acquired taste. For me the film is wildly hit-and-miss. I was however, very appreciative that we get to see Mansfield naked twice in the first eight minutes. Mansfield is fun here (whether clothed or not), Noonan isn’t. He’s heavy-handed, has anti-charisma and isn’t remotely funny. Thankfully I found other things to interest me here and they weren’t just the mammaries. Fritz Feld gives an amusing performance as a ship’s thoroughly unprofessional doctor and Mickey Hargitay (Mansfield’s real-life husband at the time) is surprisingly amusing too. The best performances come from Eddie Quillan as a bartender and Marie ‘The Body’ McDonald as Hargitay’s wife, in her last film role before her untimely death at age 42 from a drug overdose. Whatever you make of the film’s quality, it’s a really interesting film in historical terms not just because of the nudity but also for an appearance by female impersonator T.C. Jones (whose Bette Davis impersonation at one point is rather good).

 

Let’s be perfectly honest, no one would see or remember this film if it weren’t for being the first non-pornographic American film since the implementation of the Production Code in the mid 1930s to feature female nudity. But it is what it is, and it’s worth seeing for what it is regardless of my not giving it a terribly high grade. It’s not a good film, but it’s a film with Jayne Mansfield’s tits (and more briefly her butt) and a couple of other bits of curiosity. Take it as a bit of a ‘nudie cutie’ or a curio and you might be amused.

 

Rating: C+