User Reviews

"The Art of Love" is a good comedy and not so subtle satire, with a slightly dark side. It has a cast of top stars of the day. James Garner plays Casey Barnett, Dick Van Dyke is Paul Sloane, Angie Dickinson is Laurie Gibson and Elke Sommer is Nikki Dunnay. Among a very good supporting cast are Ethel Merman as Madame Coco La Fontaine, Carl Reiner as Rodin, and Miko Taka as Chou Chou.

The time is the md-1960s, and Barnett and Sloane are expatriate American artists living in Paris. Sloane is serious about panting, and is a good painter but has only been able to sell an occasional piece. Barnett is a writer who hasn't been able to sell a book. But he's more interested anyway in the night life and ladies than in writing. The two bachelors share a flat, which is paid for by an allowance that Sloane receives from his family back home.

Sloane decides to chuck it in and go back home, where his fiancé is waiting for him. That means Barnett will lose his only means of support. But then, something happens that changes everything and turns their world into a hilarious, somewhat dark and even illegal existence.

After Sloane jumps in the Seine to save Nikki whom he thought had jumped in to commit suicide, he is presumed dead himself. Barnett then starts to sell his paintings which, in the art world of the film were valuable now that the artist was dead. When Sloane turns up alive, Barnett convinces him to stay in hiding so they can reap the profits. He hides out at Madame Fontaine's house of women entertainers. When fiancé Laurie comes to Paris looking for Paul, Barnett meets her and gives her the sad news.

When Sloane finds out that Barnett has swept his fiancé off her feet, he plans to get even. So, he arranges details to make it appear that Barnett may have bumped him off. It works so well that Barnett is about to be guillotined. Only Sloane can save him, but will he be in time before the blade falls?

The darkness in this comedy is obvious. Director Norman Jewison said later that he regretted the implication of the film that an artist's works would be worth more when he was dead than alive. Yet that is the very core around which the humorous and tangled plot develops.

The humor here is mostly in the situations, which are a hoot at times. There are some antics, but mostly it's clever directing and shooting with a screenplay that creates the funny situations. It's not a comedy of dialog. And, while entertaining for many, it's not a family film or even one for impressionable teens.

In 1938 Rene Clair directed a movie called BREAK THE NEWS where Maurice Chevalier and Jack Buchanan are in the shadow of an egotistical female star, and stage Buchanan's disappearance, and possible murder by Chevalier to build up publicity for both men - only to have the scheme blow up in their faces when Buchanan gets arrested on a capital charge himself, and is prevented from showing up in court to rescue Chevalier. Both men are almost executed - but saved at the last moment by the egotistical star who learns the truth. So she gathers all the good publicity in the end.

There is also a short story by Mark Twain entitled "IS HE DEAD?" about a plot to make a reputation for a prominent 19th Century artist, Gustave Courbet, by him pretending to be dead, and his paintings being sold for larger and larger amounts of cash so that the still living Courbet and his friends make a huge profit.

Those are possible keys to the plot genesis of THE ART OF LOVE, a 1965 film that starred James Garner, Dick Van Dyke, Elke Sommer, Angie Dickenson, and Ethel Merman. There are some interesting supporting roles for Carl Reiner and Roger C. Carmel, as a French defense counsel and a questionable art dealer too. Garner gets the idea that Van Dyke's paintings are quite good, but would sell for more money if he was to be thought to be dead. Garner announces that Van Dyke has disappeared, and is believed to have committed suicide. But the janitor (Jay Novello) has seen Garner disposing of a dummy. Novello sees the legs being put into the furnace, and thinks it could have been a body.

Van Dyke's existence is known to only two people: Elke Sommer (his girlfriend) and Ethel Merman, his landlady. He has to keep a low profile, dressing in disguise all the time. And he notices that Garner is living in luxury from the sale of the paintings by Roger Carmel (an art dealer who may have collaborated with the Nazis). Angered at the lack of interest by Garner, and the latter's opportunistic romancing of his former girlfriend Angie Dickinson, Van Dyke suddenly realizes that Garner has left himself open for suspicion of the "murder" of Van Dyke.

So Van Dyke carefully sets up "evidence" of his murder by Garner, complete with bloodstained clothing and broken teeth (and Novello's witnessing of the incident with the furnace). Motive is there - Garner is benefiting from his dead friend's paintings, and he has taken the dead man's girlfriend. So Garner is arrested (as is Carmel, who is soon willing to assist the prosecution). And Van Dyke, in disguise, watches the criminal trial with glee. Reiner, Garner's lawyer, is more concerned with not being associated too much with Garner than with defending him.

The end is a race to the guillotine, complete with a clone of Madame Defarge, and Marcel Hillaire as the public executioner who abhors the death penalty.

It is a moderately entertaining comedy, with some funny moments. You will never hear the words "Don't touch!" again without thinking of Reiner's attorney. Not a great film, but good enough for a rainy afternoon.

(Spoiler Alert!) A romantic comedy of errors, set in (1965) Paris, starring James Garner, Dick Van Dyke, Elke Sommer and Angie Dickenson. Nice sets and locations provide an interesting time-piece. Starving artist ( Van Dyke ), and best friend ( Garner ) conspire to fake Artist's death so his paintings will become more valuable and sell. Their Plot inevitably goes awry due to misunderstandings and jealousy involving their love interests ( Sommer and Dickenson ), and Garner almost goes to the guillotine in a very funny scene, before everything is all straightened out in the end. Any fan of any of these actors will enjoy this quite funny film. James Garner and Dick Van Dyke are hilarious. Angie Dickenson and Elke Sommer are gorgeous. An overlooked picture that needs to be released on DVD.

Norman Jewison is a top director with many credits. This is one of his least known films. Carl Reiner wrote the script and has a role in the film. James Garner and Dick Van Dyke are together in one of the rare times they would be. Garner's Cherokee Productions is involved here in this Universal Film. Elke Summer, Angie Dickinson, and Ethel Merman are all here. Even Roger C. Carmel is here just a year before he would do Star Trek and The Mother's In Law.

Yet, this movie was destined to bomb with a large B. It is hard to understand why until you watch it. The plot is a bit of a stretch, and the ending goes beyond the pale. I love looking at this cast, but it is so difficult to understand why there is so much slap stick here and so little verbal comedy. Maybe Carl Reiner was writing too many other scripts for this one to get the dialog it needed.

The opening credits, Animation from Freleng (Pink Panther) is cute. I just think that for one time too much talent got together and produced something that just did not click for audiences. The slap stick of the arrival just in time to save Garner from the guillotine at the end of the movie is a stretch here.

At least the movie is short, and fans of this great cast should enjoy the short run. It is funny, but the dark comedy which dominates this one is done much better than this in other films. I do envy Garner making out with Angie Dickinson, and Van Dyke getting to know a really hot Elke Summer. Ethel Merman gets the only musical number.

The dead artist theme is actually proved here, too much slap stick comedy is dead, in 1965. It could have been so much better.

Two of the most likeable actors of the 1960s, James Garner and Dick van Dyke (fresh off "Mary Poppins") headline this dog of a movie.

The promising premise: Garner, a struggling writer, and van Dyke, a struggling painter, share digs in Paris.

Van Dyke, living cheaply off his American fiancee (Angie Dickenson), decides to chuck painting and go home. Garner, sponging off him, desperately comes up with a scheme where van Dyke pretends to commit suicide so the price of his paintings will skyrocket (to be fair, their characters are drunk at the time).

But when van Dyke, in the fog, sees Elke Sommer actually try to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, he doffs his coat and hurls himself in to rescue her. They end up floating away on a barge while Garner, clutching his chum's coat, believes he actually killed himself--and loses no time putting his scheme into action, making a mint with a bent art dealer (a scene-stealing Roger C. Carmel).

But what will happen when van Dyke bobs back up alive, unaware Garner has instituted his scheme (which will constitute fraud)? And what will Garner do with Dickinson, who shows up out of the blue?

What a great idea for a 1960s-era comedy. And an uber-charming cast.

Unfortunately, charm doesn't carry the day, or the movie. It has a strong story, the first requisite of a good movie; but the writers forgot to put in any laughs. A movie of this period can also get by on being light-hearted, but it's not really that, either.

Then there's the astringent Ethel Merman, another of those Broadway favorites who never had a good foothold in the movies because she does every performance like she's trying to reach the cheap seats. A palpable hit in "it's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," where she dominated a slate of comedians accustomed to stealing scenes, here she's merely loud and unpleasant.

The one performer determined to make this movie work is Elke Sommer at her most winsome. It's always nice to see a beautiful actress who knows how to use her God-given attributes without seeming to. Even with her accent Sommer turns in a fine performance and is utterly likeable and believable.

Garner, half-way between his characters from "The Great Escape" and Maverick," is also solid, as usual. Van Dyke is still in his pratfall phase, but he's good at that. Like Sommer, he knew how to use his body as well as his acting talent.

Angie Dickinson gets sort of lost in the shuffle. She simply can't compete with the others.

Sommer, Garner and van Dyke are all fine and don't coast on their charm. And the movie has a good story and suspense. So what happened?

It's behind the camera where the trouble lies. I mentioned the writing. As a writer myself I can spot its weaknesses. The script should have gone through more drafts and another writer or two should have been brought in to punch up the script, laugh-wise. Garner, van Dyke and Sommer were all adept at comedy (in one of the all-time great 1960s comedies, "A Shot in the Dark," Sommer held her own, up against no less than Peter Sellers). But even the best actors and comics need good material to work with.

Then there's the direction. Norman Jewison was still a novice director. Like Spielberg in "1941" he displays no great flair for comedy early on. Both directors used comedy to good effect elsewhere, but what this movie begged for was a Blake Edwards (who was hitting his stride about this time) or even a Frank Tashlin, stepping up from Jerry Lewis flicks. Jewison, not one of my favorite directors anyway, was not, IMHO, able in his youth to cope with the material, which wasn't that good, anyway.

A heartbreaking, monumental waste of talent; and worse, for Hollywood, of a great idea, which they have a paucity of.

Just to show you, I dozed off at about the two-thirds mark. I don't think I ever snoozed during a Garner movie, and certainly not one with Sommer. It's one of those movies where you really wish they could get a Mulligan, not counting this one but assembling the same cast (maybe dumping Merman and replacing her with Hermione Gingold or Elsa Lanchester) and taking another shot at it.

Obviously ripped off by the hit Broadway musical and its non-musical film version, "Irma La Douce", this is a fairly amusing but empty farce that has all the ingredients except for the fizz. It's about the phony suicide of struggling artist Dick Van Dyke who pretends to be dead to increase the value of his paintings. Hiding out at the bordello of Madame Coco (Ethel Merman!), Van Dyke becomes jealous when his scheming pal James Garner romances his grieving fiancée (Angie Dickinson) but is comforted in the presence of Elke Summer, a suicidal girl he rescued from the river after he took his drunken fall.

Starting off with cartoon credits that reminds me of a "Pink Panther" short, this seems all too familiar in its plot devices, especially when Garner's scheme lands him on trial for his pal's murder. The performances are exactly what you expect them to be, with rubber legged Van Dyke doing his typical schtick. While it's obvious that the singing and dancing girls working for Merman do more than wear colorful costumes, the script never confirms it.

There were dozens of French set films involving artists in the 1960's, so this is nothing too spectacular, but there are some funny moments especially from the multi color haired Merman. She even gets a musical number (music by Cy Coleman) complete with can can girls. It's colorful and sexy yet generic, the type of film that haunted neighborhood movie theaters on their first run rather than play the big movie houses, and would ultimately end up haunting the late show where I first saw it back in the mid 1980's. A lot of 60's clichés abound, but professionally directed by Norman Jewison, it's amusing fun that won't bore you but won't stimulate your brain either.

I was just talking to my wife about this hilarious movie from the mid-sixties and decided to look it up on the web. I first saw it on an afternoon movie show, "Dialing for Dollars" from the Bay Area of California.

The premise is nothing short of genius - an artist (Dick Van Dyke) pretends to commit suicide in order to make his paintings more valuable. His best friend (James Garner) helps him pull it off, but horns in on Van Dyke's girl. When Van Dyke finds out about it, he decides NOT to surface after his disappearance starts to look like a murder. His buddy is implicated and Van Dyke decides to let his "friend" sweat it out through a trial (where Van Dyke shows up in an "old man" disguise" a la his old man character from Mary Poppins) where Garner is sentenced for murder.

Others on this forum seem to remember the old lady who likes to watch be-headings murmur "Guillotine. GUILLOTINE!" while Garner is being led to his execution.

My favorite scene, though, is where Van Dyke is trying to make it to the execution in time to reveal he is not really dead in order to save his friend at the last minute.

He's riding in a cab and there is a traffic jam in a small town on the way there. Van Dyke nervously tells the cab driver to hurry because he has to get to his best friend's execution. The driver pulls the cab to a sudden stop, exits the cab, pulls Van Dyke to his feet by the lapels exclaiming, "What kind of a ghoul are you?", throws him on a dirt pile and drives off.

The hilarity of this scene is Van Dyke running around with his long lanky legs trying to find a way to the prison where Garner is about to be executed.

Kudos to the writer, director and actors in this madcap, scream of a movie!