''Sex and the Single Girl'' is a 1964 American

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

directed by

Richard Quine Richard Quine (November 12, 1920June 10, 1989) was an American director, actor, and singer. He began acting as a child in radio, vaudeville, and stage productions before being signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in his early twenties. When his acting ...

and starring

Tony Curtis Tony Curtis (born Bernard Schwartz; June 3, 1925September 29, 2010) was an American actor whose career spanned six decades, achieving the height of his popularity in the 1950s (Kansas Raiders, 1950) and early 1960s. He acted in more than 100 f ...

Natalie Wood Natalie Wood ( Zacharenko; July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress who began her career in film as a child and successfully transitioned to young adult roles. Wood started acting at age four and was given a co-starring r ...

Henry Fonda Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor. He had a career that spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. He cultivated an everyman screen image in several films considered to be classics. Born and rai ...

Lauren Bacall Lauren Bacall (; born Betty Joan Perske; September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014) was an American actress. She was named the 20th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute and received an Academy Honorary Aw ...

, and

Mel Ferrer Melchor Gastón Ferrer (August 25, 1917 – June 2, 2008) was an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He achieved prominence on Broadway before scoring notable film hits with ''Scaramouche'', ''Lili'' and ''Knights of the Round ...

. The film was based on

Helen Gurley Brown Helen Gurley Brown ( Helen Marie Gurley; February 18, 1922 – August 13, 2012) was an American author, publisher, and businesswoman. She was the editor-in-chief of ''Cosmopolitan'' magazine for 32 years. Garner 2009. Early life Helen Mar ...

's 1962 non-fiction book of the same name.

Plot

Bob Weston works for ''Stop'', a tabloid magazine whose owner and staff are proud of being regarded as the filthiest rag in the United States. One of Bob's colleagues has just written an article about Dr. Helen Gurley Brown, a young psychologist and author of the best-selling book ''Sex and the Single Girl'', a self-help guide with advice to single women on how to deal with men. The article raises doubts on her experience with sex and relationships. Helen is very offended, having lost six appointments with patients due to the article discrediting her as a "23-year-old virgin." Bob wants to follow up by interviewing her, but she refuses. Bob's friend and neighbor, stocking manufacturer Frank Broderick, is having marriage issues with his strong-willed wife Sylvia, but cannot find the time to go to a counselor. Therefore, Bob decides to impersonate Frank and go to Helen as a patient, with the goal of getting close to her in order to gather more information. Meanwhile, he will report back to Frank on her advice. During their first couple of sessions, Bob acts shy and smitten, and tries to gently seduce Helen. She seems to respond to Bob's courteous advances, all while insisting that it is a

transfer Transfer may refer to: Arts and media * ''Transfer'' (2010 film), a German science-fiction movie directed by Damir Lukacevic and starring Zana Marjanović * ''Transfer'' (1966 film), a short film * ''Transfer'' (journal), in management studies ...

and that she will play the role of Sylvia to the benefit of his therapy. After he fakes a suicide attempt, the two of them end up making out in her apartment, with Bob realizing he is actually falling for Helen, which is the reason he still has not written anything about her, prompting an ultimatum from his boss. Helen panics at the idea that she is in turn falling for a married man, and upon suggestion from her mother, she meets Sylvia and encourages her to return to work at Frank's office, where the two of them first met and could stand together against Frank's business rivals. Sylvia had initially rejected that suggestion coming from Frank (who had heard it from Bob), but she ultimately decides to follow the advice, thus reconciling with her husband. A terminally lovestruck Bob forces another meeting with Helen and tries to convince her his marriage is not legal, but Helen insists on hearing it from his wife and secretly asks her to come to her office. In the meantime, Bob asks his girlfriend, nightclub singer Gretchen, to pose as his wife (or rather, Frank Broderick's wife), and when she cancels at the last minute because of an audition, he asks his secretary Susan to go instead. Without telling him, Gretchen decides to forgo her audition, so she also shows up at Helen's office. Witnessing three different women claiming to be Mrs. Broderick, Helen becomes extremely confused, while a furious Sylvia calls the police on Frank, who is then arrested for bigamy. Helen comes to visit Sylvia with fellow psychiatrist Rudy DeMeyer, who has had a crush ever since the article intimated she might be a virgin. In trying to convince Sylvia to pardon Frank, she finally discovers the man who has been coming to her office was not Frank Broderick at all, but rather ''Stop'' magazine's managing editor Bob Weston. Shocked, she asks Rudy to take her to Fiji. In the meantime, Bob refuses to let the magazine publish anything about Helen, and is consequently fired. In a frantic final act, Helen and Rudy are driving to the airport, while Frank, after being released, has not understood that Sylvia has learned the truth, and so has decided to quit everything and run off to Hawaii with Gretchen; at the same time, Bob is chasing after Helen, and Sylvia is chasing after Frank. During the chase, while constantly changing places on the two cars and two cabs involved, and while eluding a zealous cop's attempts at stopping them, the three couples clarify their feelings for each other, and at the airport, Frank and Sylvia reconcile and depart for Fiji, Rudy and Gretchen console themselves with a trip together to Hawaii, and Helen forgives Bob, who has already found a new job with ''Dirt'' magazine, and the two of them fly to Las Vegas to marry.

Cast

as Bob Weston, managing editor of ''Stop'' magazine *

as Dr. Helen Brown, psychologist and author of ''Sex and the Single Girl'' *

as Frank Broderick, owner of a stocking manufacturing firm, Bob's friend *

as Sylvia Broderick, Frank's wife *

as Rudy DeMeyer, psychiatrist, Helen's colleague *

Fran Jeffries Fran Jeffries (born Frances Ann Makris; May 18, 1937 – December 15, 2016) was an American singer, dancer, actress, and model. Early life Jeffries was born Frances Ann Makris on May 18, 1937, in Palo Alto, California, the daughter of Esther A. ...

as Gretchen, Bob's girlfriend *

Leslie Parrish Leslie Parrish (born Marjorie Hellen; March 13, 1935) is an American actress, activist, environmentalist, writer, and producer. She worked under her birth name for six years, changing it in 1959. Early life As a child, Parrish lived in Massachu ...

as Susan, Bob's secretary *

Edward Everett Horton Edward Everett Horton Jr. (March 18, 1886 – September 29, 1970) was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television, and voice work for animated cartoons. Early life Horton was born in Kings County ...

as the chief *

Larry Storch Lawrence Samuel Storch (January 8, 1923 – July 8, 2022) was an American actor and comedian best known for his comic television roles, including voice-over work for cartoon shows such as Mr. Whoopee on ''Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales'' and hi ...

as the motorcycle cop *

Stubby Kaye Bernard Solomon Kotzin (November 11, 1918 – December 14, 1997), known as Stubby Kaye, was an American actor, comedian, vaudevillian, and singer, known for his appearances on Broadway and in film musicals. Kaye originated the roles of Nicely-Ni ...

as Helen's cabbie *

Otto Kruger Otto Kruger (September 6, 1885 – September 6, 1974) was an American actor, originally a Broadway matinee idol, who established a niche as a charming villain in films, such as Hitchcock's ''Saboteur''. He also appeared in CBS's ''Perry Mason'' a ...

as Dr. Anderson *

Barbara Bouchet Barbara Bouchet (born Bärbel Gutscher; 15 August 1943)
glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com; ...

as photographer at the anniversary party (uncredited)

Awards

Reaction

The film was a box-office success and one of the top 20 highest-grossing films of 1964. The ''

Time Out Film Guide Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to c ...

2009'' described the film as a "coyly leering comedy ... graceless stuff, criminally wasting Bacall and Fonda as a couple with marital problems ... with Quine's moderate flair for comedy nowhere in evidence" and, according to ''Halliwell's Film & Video Guide'', with "noise substituting for wit and style".

References

External links

* * * * {{Richard Quine 1964 films 1964 comedy films 1960s sex comedy films American sex comedy films 1960s English-language films Films about journalists Films based on non-fiction books Films directed by Richard Quine Films scored by Neal Hefti Films set in Los Angeles Films shot in Los Angeles Warner Bros. films 1960s American films