I.A.L. Diamond Movies

In Fedora, Billy Wilder approaches Hollywood stardom in the same fashion as he did in Sunset Boulevard--with cynicism, regret, understanding, and awe. Fedora (Marthe Keller) is film's most intriguing movie queen. Rumored to be well into her sixties, the actress has remained a starlet for over four decades--retaining youth and radiance despite her advancing years. The mystery behind her numinous persona has never ceased to captivate audiences. Even now, as she lives in seclusion on the beautiful Greek island of Corfu, the public buzzes for her to return to the screen. When producer Barry Detweiler (William Holden) travels to Corfu, staking his faltering career on Fedora's return, he discovers the actress's tragic secret. Fedora's eternal loveliness may not be the result of defying her age, but of concealing her youth. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide

This enchanting yet dark romantic comedy stars Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills as a pair of mismatched lovers helplessly drawn into a series of seemingly hopeless but humorous situations as in Lemmon's The Out-of -Towners two years earlier. Lemmon is Wendell Armbruster Jr., an overbearing American business tycoon forced to travel to the beautiful Italian island of Ischia to claim the body of his recently departed father. What begins with a rather elementary premise evolves into a succession of somber twists and turns, as Armbruster meets Pamela Piggott (Mills), the daughter of his father's mistress, who, Lemmon is appalled to learn, died alongside Armbruster Sr., while zipping through the Italian countryside in his sportscar. Even worse, the family who owns the vineyard that his father's car crashed into has stolen the bodies in exchange for damages. Although plagued with a plethora of such problems, as well as an inability to enjoy life (and the ulcers to prove it), Wendell eventually falls in love with Pamela, almost exactly as his father did with her mother. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Goldie Hawn won an Oscar for her performance as a Greenwich Village free spirit in Cactus Flower. Middle-aged dentist Winston (Walter Matthau) is enjoying an affair with Toni (Goldie Hawn) but doesn't want to be hemmed in by marriage. He prevails upon his non-glamorous assistant Stephanie (Ingrid Bergman) to pose as his wife so as to keep from campaigning for a ring. Then, to justify his "infidelity," Winston talks his pal (Jack Weston) into pretending to be Stephanie's illicit lover. Flattered by all the attention, Stephanie begins to "doll up." Confronted by a newly gorgeous Stephanie, Winston realizes that his Dream Girl has been right there in his office all along. As for Toni, she ends up in the arms of a writer (Rick Lenz), who has loved her since Reel One. Cactus Flower was adapted by Billy Wilder's frequent collaborator I.A.L. Diamond from the play by Abe Burrows -- which in turn was adapted from a French farce. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Catholic League of Decency gave Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid! a "condemned" rating. The Moral Majority charged the picture with debauchery and movie theaters across the nation discontinued its run. The bed-trick comedy had America's panties tied in a knot; one could not imagine a story so distasteful. Dean Martin is Dino, a Las Vegas crooner, alcoholic, and celebrity playboy. Dino requires women like oxygen -- a companionless night leaves him with a headache. Ray Walston is Orville, a provincial piano teacher, aspiring songwriter, and jealous husband. Orville violently obsesses over his wife Zelda's (Felicia Farr) fidelity -- any man she encounters becomes his sworn enemy. When a chance detour brings Dino to Orville's hometown of Climax, NV, it is the perfect opportunity for the piano teacher and his songwriting partner, Barney (Cliff Osmond), to pitch their tunes. Yet, Orville predictably fears the possible combination of Dino's libido with Zelda's childhood crush on the singer. Before the two can meet, Orville deceitfully bullies Zelda out of their house and Barney hires local roadhouse prostitute Polly the Pistol (Kim Novak) to pose as Orville's wife. Zelda turns to drink for solace, ending up at the exact bar where Polly plies her trade and, eventually, in the call girl's empty trailer. By the next morning, Orville is with Polly and Dino (looking for a prostitute) finds his way to Zelda -- and husband, wife, hooker, and Barney will all reap the benefits of infidelity. This tale may be tasteless, but Kiss Me, Stupid! is now a cable favorite. Its modern rating? PG. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide

In his last starring film (it was supposed to be his last film, but Ragtime came along in 1981), James Cagney plays Coca-Cola executive C.R. MacNamara. Assigned to manage Coke's West Berlin office, MacNamara dreams of being transferred to London, and to do this he must curry favor with his Atlanta-based boss, Hazeltine (Howard St. John). Thus, MacNamara agrees to look after Hazeltine's dizzy, impulsive daughter, Scarlett (Pamela Tiffin), during her visit to Germany. Weeks pass, and on the eve of Hazeltine's visit to West Berlin, Scarlett announces that she's gotten married. Even worse, her husband is a hygienically challenged East Berlin Communist named Otto Piffl (Horst Buchholz). The crafty MacNamara arranges for Piffl to be arrested by the East Berlin police and to have the marriage annulled, only to discover that Scarlett is pregnant. In rapid-fire "one, two, three" fashion, MacNamara must arrange for Piffl to be released by the Communists and successfully pass off the scrungy, doggedly anti-capitalist Piffl as an acceptable husband for Scarlett. MacNamara must accomplish this in less than 12 hours, all the while trying to mollify his wife (Arlene Francis), who has learned of his affair with busty secretary Ingeborg (Lilo Pulver).

Seldom pausing for breath, Billy Wilder's film is a crackling, mile-a-minute farce, taking satiric scattershots at Coca-Cola, the Cold War (the film is set in the months just before the erection of the Berlin Wall), Russian red tape, Communist and capitalist hypocrisy, Southern bigotry, the German "war guilt," rock music, and even Cagney's own movie image. Not all the gags are in the best of taste, and most of the one-liners have dated rather badly, but Cagney's mesmerizing performance holds the whole affair together. Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond adapted their screenplay from an obscure play by Ferenc Molnár. Watch for Red Buttons in an unbilled cameo as a military policeman, and listen for the voice of Sig Rumann, emanating from the mouth of actor Hubert Von Meyerinck (the Count von Droste-Schattenburg). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The launching pad for Billy Wilder's comedy classic was a rusty old German farce, Fanfares of Love, whose two main characters were male musicians so desperate to get a job that they disguise themselves as women and play with an all-girl band in gangster-dominated 1929 Chicago. In this version, musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) lose their jobs when a speakeasy owned by mob boss Spats Columbo (George Raft) is raided by prohibition agent Mulligan (Pat O'Brien). Several weeks later, on February 14th, Joe and Jerry get a job perfroming in Urbana and end up witnessing a gangland massacre in a parking garage. Fearing that they will be next on the mobsters' hit lists, Joe devises an ingenious plan for disguising their identities. Soon they are all dolled up and performing as Josephine and Daphne in Sweet Sue's all-girl orchestra. En route to Florida by train with Sweet Sue's band, the boys (girls?) make the acquaintance of Sue's lead singer Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe, in what may be her best performance). Joe and Jerry immediately fall in love, though of course their new feminine identities prevent them from acting on their desires. Still, they are determined to woo her, and they enact an elaborate series of gender-bending ruses complicated by the fact that flirtatious millionaire Osgood Fielding (Joe E. Brown) has fallen in love with "Daphne." The plot gets even thicker when Spats Columbo and his boys show up in Florida. Nominated for several Oscars, Some Like It Hot ended up the biggest moneymaking comedy up to 1959. Full of hilarious set pieces and movie in-jokes, it has not tarnished with time and in fact seems to get better with each passing year, as its cross-dressing humor keeps it only more and more up-to-date. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gary Cooper more or less repeats his international-roue characterization from 1938's Bluebeard's Eighth Wife for the 1957 romantic comedy Love in the Afternoon (both films were co-scripted by Billy Wilder, who also directed the latter picture). Audrey Hepburn co-stars as the daughter of Parisian private eye Maurice Chevalier. Investigating the amorous activities of Cooper, Chevalier relates what he's discovered to cuckolded husband John McGiver, who declares that he's going after Cooper with a pistol. Overhearing this conversation, Hepburn rushes off to rescue Cooper. She keeps him far away from McGiver by adopting a "woman of the world" pose. Cooper quickly sees through this charade; still, she is fascinated by Hepburn and attempts to relocate her after she disappears. Meeting Chevalier one day, Cooper relates the story of the Mystery Woman, never dreaming that he is describing Chevalier's daughter. Equally in the dark, Chevalier offers to locate the elusive Hepburn. Once he's tumbled to the fact that his quarry is his own flesh and blood, Chevalier advises Hepburn against contemplating a relationship with the much-older Cooper. She, of course, fails to heed this warning, setting the stage for an ultraromantic finale. Love in the Afternoon is highlighted by a superb running gag involving a quartet of gypsy violinists, who insist upon dogging Cooper's trail wherever he goes-including a steam bath. Love in the Afternoon was adapted by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond from the novel Ariane by Claude Anet. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Howard Hawks hoped to capture the screwball comic fervor of his 1938 film Bringing Up Baby with his 1952 comedy Monkey Business. As in the earlier film, Cary Grant stars as an absent-minded professor involved in a research project. This time he's a chemist seeking a "fountain of youth" formula that will revitalize middle-agers both mentally and physically. Though Grant's own laboratory experiments yield little fruit, a lab monkey, let loose from its cage, mixes a few random chemicals and comes up with just the formula Grant is looking for. This mixture is inadvertently dumped in the lab's water supply; the fun begins when staid, uptight Grant drinks some of the "bitter" water, then begins cutting up like a teenager. A harmless afternoon on the town with luscious secretary Marilyn Monroe rouses the ire of Grant's wife Ginger Rogers, but her behavior is even more infantile when she falls under the spell of the youth formula. Everyone remembers the best line in Monkey Business: foxy-grandpa research supervisor Charles Coburn hands the curvacious Monroe a letter and says "Get someone to type this". Even better is his next line: after Monroe sashays out of the room, Coburn turns to Grant and, with eyes atwinkle, murmurs "Anyone can type." Likewise amusing is Monkey Business's pre-credits gag, wherein Cary Grant opens a door and is about to step forward when director Hawks, off-camera, admonishes "Not yet, Cary." Among the co-conspirators on Monkey Business's carefree script are Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer and I.A.L. Diamond, with an original story by Harry Segall (Here Comes Mr. Jordan) as their source. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Love Nest is a thoroughly likeable formula comedy with a most engaging cast. William Lundigan plays Jim Scott, an aspiring writer who, together with his wife Connie (June Haver), moves into the basement of an apartment building that they've bought. Scott's hopes to keep financially solvent are thwarted by the everyday travails of maintaining the building and ministering to the needs of the tenants. The episodic plotline settles on the activities of charming con artist Charley Patterson (Frank Fay), who targets tenant Eadie Gaynor (Leatrice Joy) as his latest victim. When Patterson is finally arrested, he generously offers to tell his life story to Scott, thereby launching the latter's writing career in earnest. Love Nest was frequently revived throughout the 1950s and 1960s because of the supporting-cast presence of future sex symbol Marilyn Monroe and TV talk host Jack Paar. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ronald Reagan plays a George Petty-type magazine illustrator who creates a "perfect girl" from a composite of the features of several models. While relaxing at the beach, Reagan meets a lovely young schoolteacher (Virginia Mayo) who is the living image of his imaginary girl. Sensing a terrific promotional angle, Reagan ingratiates himself with the girl and attempts to secure her services for a series of cheesecake poses. The film leads to a courtroom conclusion wherein Mayo must strut around in a bathing suit to win her case. Girl from Jones Beach is worth the admission price alone just to hear Ronald Reagan pose as a Czechoslovakian immigrant--complete with accent. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This cute film is Doris Day's film debut and in it she plays Georgia Garrett, a substitute traveller on an ocean cruise. Her friend Elvira Kent (Janis Paige) had scheduled the cruise but at the last minute cancels when she suspects that her husband is cheating on her and she decides to stay at home to check up on him. So she gets her friend Georgia to go on the cruise in her stead. Meanwhile the husband hires a detective to watch Elvira while on the cruise, because, he too, suspects cheating. Of course, the detective falls for the substitute Elvira (Doris Day), making a somewhat complicated scenario with many possibilities. This is a fun-filled spoof with lots of good tunes by Doris Day. ~ All Movie Guide

In this frothy, star-studded Warner Brothers outing, tightwad tycoon Jonathan Turner, believing himself at death's door, gives star-struck movie buff Jane Barker a million bucks. Problems begin when Jane's hubby, an aspiring writer, finds out about her new fortune. Marital turmoil ensues causing Jane to launch divorce proceedings. He in turn begins demanding alimony. The situation seems at a permanent impasse until the Turner miraculously recovers and decides he wants the money back. ~ All Movie Guide