The Pleasure Seekers
Director: Jean Negulesco
Year: 1964
Rating: 4.0
I expect
that this big fat glossy color film about three American women going to Europe
to look for love was considered a heart-beating romance. All these years
later, I thought it was cringeworthy. My skin wanted to crawl off somewhere
and die. I was hoping all the characters would do the same. But that clearly
wasn't the purpose back in 1964. Not with Ann-Margret, Carol Lynley and Pamela
Tiffin as the three Americans. These days the only time you hear about American
women going off on their own to foreign lands is when they are murdered.
If only this had turned into a giallo. It's Madrid. I love Madrid and they
take side trips to Toledo and Segovia. Both fabulous cities. If ever you
are in Spain, go to Segovia. It has a castle that literally brought tears
to my eyes. My friend who was with me, never lets me forget.
The cinematography and location shooting
are wonderful (though the castle is only seen from a distance). The women
are stunning. Their apartment is perfect. The men are wretched. The women
are idiots. The love affairs are putrid. But this was romance once upon a
time. Were we that creepy back then or just the movies? Perhaps one lesson
learned is that you don't hire old men to direct films about young women
and love. I am still having nightmares about The Swingers directed
by George Sydney attempting to be hip and cool. This is from Jean Negulesco
who had been directing since the early 1940s with some fine films to show
for it - The Mask of Dimitrios, Humoresque, Johnny Belinda, the mildly creepy
Daddy Long Legs and Three Coins in a Fountain. This is actually a remake
of Three Coin but set in Madrid rather than Rome. It has been a hundred years
since I saw Three Coins so I don't know if it would have the same icky effect
on me. Maybe I have just gotten too old with a fossilized heart to enjoy
a film like this.
The three lovely women are roommates in
a nice neighborhood where all the men stop and stare whenever they go by.
Ignored by the women because they are working class and they didn't come
to Spain for that. They want rich preferably with a title. Lynley works at
an American newspaper as a secretary and has fallen in love with her much
older boss (Brian Keith) who just happens to be married to the great Gene
Tierney in her last film. She deserved better. Pamela has just arrived in
Madrid eyes wide open and still a virgin. She doesn't really want to remain
one but will hold on to it like poker chips. Ann-Margret is a singer and
on the hunt.
Lynley tells Pamela that there are no good
unattached men in Madrid - they are either married or players. Especially
stay away from the character played by Anthony Franciosa she warns her. A
creep who has a thing for seducing American women and dumping them. Staying
away from Franciosa strikes me as good advice no matter what film. He has
the smug slime charm of a cobra in sunglasses. Of course, Pamela falls for
his well-practiced routine. Ann Margret is run into by a young handsome poor
doctor and wants to eat him up like pecan pie. In true Hollywood fashion
they all find happiness in literally the final five minutes of the film.
The men are all creeps and the women nitwits. Maybe they deserved each other.
But Segovia.
