Married couple Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward play opposite each other in this frothy comedy from the 1960s. After watching it, I read a few reviews and was quite surprised to see some of the vitriol directed towards this film, with it being described in some places as Newman’s worst film. I suspect there are a few reasons for such animosity; (1) Anyone who thinks this is Newman’s worst film has clearly not seen The Silver Chalice – which Newman himself was not a fan of! (2) Paul Newman was in some iconic and wonderful films, and any that fall somewhat short of those standards may receive short shrift, and (3) Admittedly, this film is not very Newman-esque. Anyway….I liked it quite a lot more than I expected to.
Woodward plays Samantha (Sam) Blake, a buyer for a clothes store, who is constantly being mistaken for a man, due to her short haircut and masculine clothes. She travels with Paris with her boss and colleague in order to look at the new fashions, so that her store can copy them. Newman is Steve Sherman, a womanising sports journalist who disgraces himself with his boss’s wife, and gets sent to Paris, basically so that he is out of the boss’s way! They meet each other, and there is an instant antagonism between them. When Sam has a makeover, Steve fails to recognise her and mistakes her for a call girl, who he decides to interview in order to write a column about her profession.
It’s a nice little comedy, with both stars seeming to have a lot of fun with their roles. The storyline is pretty bonkers, and not particularly credible, but I’m not sure that it’s supposed to be. Actually the film reminded me a lot of some of the comedies from the 30s and 40s. There were plenty of witty lines, and it was colourful and fun, and Thelma Ritter provided excellent support. I did think that Woodward looked FAR more attractive before her makeover – and whatever the script said, she did not look like a man at all – but the story still kind of worked, because she could not have been mistaken for a call girl before the makeover. I’m not sure what that says about makeovers – probably, just be careful where you go for one!
Strangely, there was not a whole lot of chemistry between Newman and Woodward, unlike in The Long Hot Summer, where their chemistry was positively sizzling. However, this may have been because they were antagonistic and untruthful to each other for much of A New Kind of Love. The ending was somewhat predictable, but no less fun for that.
Ultimately, it is a forgettable film, but it is fun and well worth watching.
Year of release: 1963
Director: Melville Shavelson
Producer: Melville Shavelson
Writer: Melville Shavelson
Main cast: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Thelma Ritter, Eva Gabor, George Tobias
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