''Barefoot in the Park'' is a 1967 American
romantic comedy
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...
film directed by
Gene Saks
Gene Saks (born Jean Michael Saks; November 8, 1921 – March 28, 2015) was an American director and actor. An inductee of the American Theater Hall of Fame, his acting career began with a Broadway debut in 1949. As a director, he was nominated ...
from a screenplay by
Neil Simon
Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He has received mo ...
, adapted from his
1963 play of the same name,
starring
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the List of awards and nominations received by Robert Redford, recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Awards, Academy Award from four nomi ...
and
Jane Fonda
Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress, activist, and former fashion model. Recognized as a film icon, Fonda is the recipient of various accolades including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, sev ...
as a young newlywed couple. Paul, a conservative lawyer, marries the vivacious Corie, but their highly passionate relationship descends into comical discord in a five-flight New York City walk-up apartment. The supporting cast features
Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer (; 28 August 1899 – 26 August 1978) was a French-American actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found his success in American fi ...
,
Mildred Natwick
Mildred Natwick (June 19, 1905 – October 25, 1994) was an American actress. She won a Primetime Emmy Award and was nominated for an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.
Early life
Natwick was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Mildre ...
,
Herbert Edelman
Herbert Edelman (November 5, 1933 – July 21, 1996) was an American actor of stage, film and television. He was twice nominated for an Emmy Award for his television work. One of his best-known roles was as Stanley Zbornak, the ex-husband of ...
, and
Mabel Albertson
Mabel Ida Albertson (July 24, 1901 – September 28, 1982) was an American actress of television, stage, radio and film who portrayed Phyllis Stephens in the TV sitcom ''Bewitched''.
Early years
Mabel Ida Albertson was born on July 24, 1901, in ...
.
''Barefoot in the Park'' was released theatrically by
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
on May 25, 1967, to critical and commercial success, with critics praising its adaptation, light-hearted tone, and cast performances. The film grossed $30 million worldwide on a $2 million budget. For their performances in the film, Natwick was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and Fonda was nominated for the
BAFTA Award for Best Actress. Simon received a nomination for the
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
The Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay is one of the three screenwriting Writers Guild of America Awards, focused specifically for film. The Writers Guild of America began making the distinction between an original screenpl ...
.
Plot
Corie (
Fonda), a free-spirited young woman, and Paul Bratter (
Redford), a conservative, uptight man, are a recently married couple who move into a fifth-floor apartment in
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
. One of the film's running jokes alludes to the fact that everyone has to climb so many stairs to get to their apartment. Corie decorates the small, leaky space, turning it into a picturesque little home for the two. Among their many eccentric neighbors is the quirky Victor Velasco (
Boyer
Boyer () is a French surname. In rarer cases, it can be a corruption or deliberate alteration of other names.
Origins and statistics
Boyer is found traditionally along the Mediterranean (Provence, Languedoc), the Rhône valley, Auvergne, Limou ...
), who befriends Corie and even flirts with her. He lives in the building's attic, so he climbs through the Bratters' window to get to his apartment. He also helps Corie with her place, showing her how to work the seemingly broken heating and plumbing.
Corie sets up a dinner date with Paul, Victor, and Corie's mother, Ethel Banks (
Natwick), in a scheme to make her mother fall for Victor. Corie feels that her mother is lonely and in need of love now that she lives alone. Victor takes them all to an
Albanian restaurant on
Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...
, whose owner he knows. There the group drinks, and Corie and Victor dance with a belly dancer, while Paul and Ethel watch in embarrassment. Afterward, Corie and Victor return to their building in high spirits as Paul and Ethel drag themselves along in fatigue. As Victor escorts Ethel outside, Corie and Paul begin an argument over their different personalities. Corie feels that her adventurous spirit is impeded by Paul's cautious attitude, noting that he refused to go barefoot in the park with her one evening. His excuse was that it was freezing. Corie says she will kick Paul out and get a big dog to protect her from him. Paul quips that it will finally allow her to have someone who will go barefoot in the park with her. They eventually go to sleep, Corie in their tiny bedroom and Paul on the couch under a hole in the skylight on a snowy February night.
The next day, Paul comes down with a fever, but Corie still insists she wants a divorce. The two spend an awkward time together in their apartment until Corie kicks Paul out. She then receives a call from her aunt, who says that Ethel never came home. Corie panics, and eventually learns that her mother was at Victor's apartment. While Victor was escorting her to her home in New Jersey the previous night, Ethel slipped on icy stairs and fell. Victor and some neighbors took her back to Victor's apartment, where they spent the night. Strangely, Ethel was wearing nothing but her undergarments and Victor's Japanese kimono. It turned out that Victor had Ethel's dress dry-cleaned.
![Alexander Holley monument WSP jeh](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Alexander_Holley_monument_WSP_jeh.jpg)
Meanwhile, a drunken Paul skips work and sits in Washington Square Park. Heeding her mother's advice, Corie goes out searching for Paul and finds him drunk and running barefoot through the park. The once cautious Paul is now a fun-loving drunk while Corie cautiously chases after him in order to get him to sober up. Eventually, Paul says it is his apartment and he is going back home. Corie follows. Back at the apartment, Paul, still drunk, climbs onto the roof of the apartment. Scared he might fall, Corie begs him to come down while speaking to him through the hole in the skylight. He says he will only come down if she repeats after him. He wants her to admit that her husband is a crazy drunk, when a few nights before she scolded him for being so cautious and practical even when he is drunk. Meanwhile, realizing where he is, Paul becomes scared, and almost falls off the building. Corie asks Paul to sing an
Albanian folk song they had heard at the restaurant that Victor had taken them to calm himself down. While he sings, Corie climbs up to the roof to help him down. A crowd of onlookers starts to gather in the street, including Ethel and Victor. When Corie reaches Paul, they kiss and climb back down as the crowd cheers.
Cast
Reception
![Robert Redford Barefoot in the park](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Robert_Redford_Barefoot_in_the_park.jpg)
''Barefoot in the Park'' opened to positive reviews at the time of its release, although later reviews have been mixed. On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 83% based on 53 reviews, with an
average rating
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...
of 7.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "''Barefoot in the Park'' may strike some modern viewers as dated, but what it lacks in timeliness, it more than makes up with the effervescent chemistry between its stars". On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Bosley Crowther
Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...
of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote, "If it's romantic farce you delight in – old-fashioned romantic farce loaded with incongruities and snappy verbal gags – then you should find the movie version of ''Barefoot in the Park'' to your taste ... But if you are in for a certain measure of intelligence and plausibility in what is presumed to be take-out of what might happen to reckless newlyweds today; if you expect a wisp of logic in the make-up of comic characters, which is, after all, what makes them funny, instead of sheer gagging it up, then beware." Arthur D. Murphy of ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' called the film "a thoroughly entertaining comedy delight about young marriage."
Charles Champlin
Charles Davenport Champlin (March 23, 1926 – November 16, 2014) was an American film critic and writer.
Life and career
Champlin was born in Hammondsport, New York. He attended high school in Camden, New York, working as a columnist for the '' ...
of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' stated, "High-gloss, low-density comedy requires a special touch and Robert Redford and Jane Fonda handle themselves with a fine, deft charm ... As after a souffle, you may shortly be hungry for something more substantial but while it lasts it's very tasty."
Brendan Gill
Brendan Gill (October 4, 1914 – December 27, 1997) was an American journalist. He wrote for ''The New Yorker'' for more than 60 years. Gill also contributed film criticism for ''Film Comment'', wrote about design and architecture for Architectu ...
of ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' called the film "a funny adaptation by Neil Simon of his funny play." Leo Sullivan of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' wrote, "An excellent cast plays the light-as-air plot as coolly as possible. What's most important, it is as funny as ever it was and makes an ideal summer attraction."
''Barefoot in the Park'' spent a record 12 weeks at
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue and Theater (structure), theater at 1260 Sixth Avenue (Manhattan), Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The Showplac ...
in New York City grossing a house record $2.3 million.
Accolades
See also
*
List of American films of 1967
This is a list of American films released in 1967.
'' In the Heat of the Night'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
A-D
E-H
I-P
R-Z
Documentaries
Other
See also
* 1967 in the United States
External links
1967 filmsat the In ...
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barefoot In The Park
1967 films
1967 directorial debut films
1967 romantic comedy films
American films based on plays
American romantic comedy films
1960s English-language films
Films about marriage
Films based on works by Neil Simon
Films directed by Gene Saks
Films produced by Hal B. Wallis
Films scored by Neal Hefti
Films set in apartment buildings
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New York City
Films with screenplays by Neil Simon
Paramount Pictures films
1960s American films