Customer Reviews

Ask Any Girl [VHS]

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Great comedy. Typical of the era. I have watched it at least 50 times. Each time you get a different perspective. David Niven and Gig young are brothers in a research firm David Niven (Miles Doughton) does all the work; while Gig Young (Evan Doughton) does all the researching mostly on female subjects. That is until Shirley MacLaine (Meg Wheeler) and David Niven applies the research to Gig Young. To this day, I can still use the proposition lines from Rod Taylor (Ross Tayford). He challenges Meg to have a mature relationship.
David Niven also plays similar characters in "The Statue" (1971), and "Prudence and the Pill "(1968). One of his best performances can be found on Amazon.com is "The Impossible Years"

The Statue ~ David Niven

Well, whatever African-Americans feel watching the "Bamboozled"-style blackface in "Holiday Inn," modern women are likely to feel while watching this 'Fifties relic. It's one of Shirley MacLaine's earliest films, and she is at her winsome best, absolutely magnetic and button-nose cute. It's the perfect look for this amazingly reactionary comedy about a small-town "career girl" who comes to New York City, mainly to bag herself a husband. Seeing the pre-feminist wolf-masher culture in blatant full swing, with its baroque distinctions between "good" and "bad" sexist behavior is like reading a book that was written in Dimension X. Having Sex Is Bad... well, kind of. You can make out with a well-behaved man (until you get really excited, and then you have to stop...) but a cad, a man who tries to "lure" you into having a fling, is Bad. Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad. Gig Young plays one of those geefy-looking frat boy-playboy types who were supposed to be dreamy back then; David Niven is his responsibly-minded older brother, who looks askance on Gig's good-natured carousing and happy-go-lucky ways. I guess I can't really encapsulate just how incredibly, jaw-droppingly sexist this film is, but if you want a window into our not-so-distant cultural past, check this one out. It's freaky.

Though like many Gen X'ers, I am uncomfortable with the term "feminist," there's no question I am one. I mention that because I LOVE THIS SILLY MOVIE. Yes it's sexist and caricatured, but it's also charming and funny, and it has more than a little truth in it. And, one way to read its message is distinctly feminist (or post-feminist), namely: don't buy the hype about the ideal packaging, your packaging is exactly right for the right "beholder." I can't say much more without "spoilers," but I will say that it delivers the goods in the Romantic Comedy fundamentals: people who fall in love earnestly and honestly because it happened before they noticed it happened; people who do so while they're lying through their teeth--though, and this is a MAJOR EXCEPTION--in this particular movie they're working together to lie to someone else rather than lying to each other; and, it delivers comedy as well as romance--in fact, mostly comedy while leading gently up to true romance. Finally, every major character makes a fool of themself in some way, but each also shows, at some point, a sympathetic vulnerability. It's definitely not for everyone, but if you love romantic comedies, you enjoy silly 60's sexual politics, and you are interested in the absurdity, artifice, and effort that goes into product marketing, you will find yourself "in the mood" for this little movie.