Honeymoon Hotel

Honeymoon Hotel came on my TCM channel today via Hulu. I was answering email when I looked up. My jaw dropped. The apartment swinging bachelors, Robert Goulet and Robert Morse, are sharing is the exact same set used in an MGM movie a few years earlier: Sunday in New York (a far better film). The efficiency kitchen is a step-down from the living room, and the spiral stair case leading to the bedroom. Check. There's even a brief moment with a look inside the living room closet where Jane Fonda hung her mother's bathrobe to ward off amorous suitors. Only a year separates the two films. I purposely went to the "Did You Know?" section of Honeymoon Hotel page to see if anyone else noticed, and indeed they have. Only one year separates these two movies--Sunday in New was released in 1963. MGM must have really felt a budget crunch by then.

Anyway, this film just gets more tired and predictable as it goes along. Poor Robert Goulet--this was his film debut. Robert Morse had already made one prior film to this. I'll bet both wish they hadn't landed in this picture. I love Jill St. John. She's gorgeous, and can play the dumb redhead in her sleep. (she has a fantastically high IQ). But this movie doesn't ask anything more than to wear tight dresses and act like a really dumb readhead. The wink-wink gay subtext is offensively applied with a trowel here.

Just one of oh so many of those not so funny comedy capers where the guys (Robert Morse, Robert Goulet and the big boss Keenan Wynn) are trying to enjoy some harmless cheap flings and cheat on their significant others, all the while their significant others seem to always be a step behind these clumsy men.

Eventually the three (3) men and their significant others (Nancy Kwan, Elvia Allman, and Chris Noel) all end up in the same hotel suite with a very tipsy and very hot looking Jill St. John and the boys have some explaining to do.

The movie is quite boring and with very plastic acting. I wouldn't recommend it even though everyone seems to end up happy at the Honeymoon Hotel.

A 5 out of 10 rating

Hen-pecked Jay Menlow (Robert Morse) is marrying Cynthia Hampton. He and his womanizing friend Ross Kingsley (Robert Goulet) are caught commenting on other women. She cancels the wedding. Ross convinces him to go on the honeymoon anyways. The two guys arrive at the Boca Roca Hotel, but it's strictly for honeymooners only. The hotel insists on it. Ross is taken with social director Lynn Jenley (Nancy Kwan) and refuses to leave. She happens to be Cynthia's friend. Jay starts to crack, but Ross sabotages his reconciliation with Cynthia. Ross needs more time chasing Lynn.

I really like this movie until a certain point in the middle. I don't like what Lynn does after finding out Ross. There are many ways to get revenge on him. She picks the wrong path. It's not vicious enough. I would suggest stealing his big black book and start wrecking havoc on his life. It goes down the wrong path and the story thread comes to a dead end. This has some fun as a screwball sex comedy. More importantly, it has an inter-racial romance without making a big deal out of it. It does have some issues, but it is still good light fun.

Only the silliest of the silly need register at the Honeymoon Hotel, a ridiculously dated 1964 comedy starring Robert Goulet and Robert Morse, two entertainers who only made a handful of movies. Neither one of them sings in it, but even if it had been turned into a musical, it still probably wouldn't have been saved. I sat through it for Nancy Kwan, Goulet's main love interest.

Jilted before his wedding, Morse and his best man Goulet decide to go on the honeymoon anyway, since it's all been paid for. At the very least, they'll have a good time and pick up a girl or two - but they failed to realize it was a honeymoon-only hotel. Every couple besides them (cue endless '60s jokes about two men sharing a room) are married, so good luck finding any women. There is Nancy, though, a fitness instructor, and Goulet catches on quick. She's very cute with her "Kwan bob" and shows off her figure with swimsuits and minidresses. Determined to show her up (but failing to do so) is Jill St. John, once again playing an unbelievably stupid bimbo. Whenever I see her in a movie, I stifle my frustration at her terrible acting and focus on the greater problem at hand: that Hollywood continued to write such characters she could play. Why hasn't every feminist in the country written her dissertation on St. John's insulting piece-of-meat characters and how they set back women's rights for years? Even Marilyn Monroe played more realistic roles.

But, if you absolutely love St. John, Kwan, both Roberts, Keenan Wynn, Elsa Lanchester, and Anne Helm, you can try this movie. You might not get all the way through it, but you can try it.

A couple of Broadway names, Robert Goulet from Camelot and Robert Morse from How To Succeed In Business, star in Honeymoon Hotel in an attempt to make film stars of both. The two never did become box office together or separately.

Poor Bobby Morse gets jilted at the altar, but best man Goulet decides since we've got our reservations at a Honeymoon Hotel in the Carribean. Of course in those days before same sex marriage they have their problems. Goulet has an agenda, he's pursuing his boss's side dish Jill St. John. The boss is Keenan Wynn and you can't blame him for his indiscretion being married to harriden Elvia Allman.

Bob and Bob try an awful lot to get that Bing and Bob effect, but it doesn't go over quite so well with them. The Dorothy Lamour of the piece is hotel recreation director Nancy Kwan who has some real nice moves on the dance floor.

But one should never pass up an opportunity to see Jill St.John playing one of her patented bimbos.

Nice film, but Goulet and Morse will never be Crosby and Hope.