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| Tookey's Review |
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| Pro Reviews |
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| Mixed Reviews |
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| Anti Reviews |
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| Cast |
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| Released: |
1960 |
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| Genre: |
DRAMA
UNDERRATED
ROMANCE
COMEDY
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| Origin: |
US |
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| Colour: |
BW |
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| Length: |
125 |
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Clerk (Jack Lemmon, pictured left) lends apartment to boss (Fred MacMurray) for adulterous assignations, then falls in love with boss's girl-friend (Shirley MacLaine, pictured right).
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Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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One of the cinema's comic masterpieces: so charming, brilliantly written and touchingly acted that it's hard to believe how many critics found it shockingly sleazy, cynical and amoral on release. Despite some very hostile reviews, it was voted the best picture of 1960 not only at the Oscars, but also by the Directors' Guild of America, the British Film Academy, and the annual poll of reviewers and writers of the US trade publication Film Daily.
Addendum, written in 2008: As I grow older, the characters seem to be getting seedier and less sympathetic. Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) seems more of a doormat, and Jack Lemmon’s clerk becomes more and more an unprincipled social climber, who doesn’t truly deserve the girl. But maybe that’s just me getting more moralistic.
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, Shirley Maclaine 
