Promises! Promises!
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''Promises! Promises!'' is a 1963 American
sex comedy Sexual comedy (also known as, sex comedy and erotic comedy) is a genre in which comedy is motivated by sexual situations and love affairs. Although "sexual comedy" is primarily a description of dramatic forms such as theatre and film, literary wor ...
film directed by King Donovan and starring Tommy Noonan (who also served as cowriter and coproducer) and
Jayne Mansfield Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967) was an American actress, ''Playboy'' Playmate, and sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s. She was known for her numerous publicity stunts and open personal life. He ...
. Released at the end of the
Production Code The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as th ...
era and before the MPAA film rating system became effective in 1968, it was the first Hollywood film of the sound era to feature nudity by a mainstream star (Mansfield). The film was banned in Chicago, and several other major U.S. cities upon its release.


Plot

Sandy Brooks is desperate to become pregnant, but her husband Jeff, a television script writer, is too stressed to make love to her. They take a pleasure cruise and meet Claire and King Banner. The couples set out on a drunken spree and change partners after returning to their rooms. Both women later discover that they are pregnant and must determine which man is the father of each baby.


Production

Tommy Noonan had offered the role of Claire to
Mamie Van Doren Mamie Van Doren (; born Joan Lucille Olander; February 6, 1931) is an American actress, singer, and model. A Bombshell (slang), blonde bombshell, she is one of the "Three M's" along with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, who were friends and ...
, but she declined and was replaced with
Marie McDonald Marie McDonald (born Cora Marie Frye, July 6, 1923 – October 21, 1965) was an American singer. She started her career at a young age, participating in beauty pageants and gaining attention as "The Queen of Coney Island" and "Miss New York Stat ...
, in her final screen appearance. Ceil Chapman worked on McDonald's wardrobe for the film. During production, producer/actor Tommy Noonan and Mansfield argued so much that Noonan recruited
20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...
publicist Jet Fore to keep peace on the set. Mansfield sings two songs in the film: "I'm in Love" (also known as the "Lullaby of Love") and "Promise Her Anything".
Mickey Hargitay Miklós Károly "Mickey" Hargitay (January 6, 1926 – September 14, 2006) was a Hungarian-American actor and bodybuilder. Born in Budapest, Hargitay moved to the United States in 1947 and eventually became an American citizen. He was married ...
, who plays King Banner, the man she swapped her husband for in the film, was actually Mansfield's real-life husband.


Nude scenes

''Promises! Promises!'' became the first Hollywood feature release of the sound era to feature nudity by a mainstream star (
Jayne Mansfield Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967) was an American actress, ''Playboy'' Playmate, and sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s. She was known for her numerous publicity stunts and open personal life. He ...
). That distinction would have belonged to
Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe ( ; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 August 4, 1962) was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "Blonde stereotype#Blonde bombshell, blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex ...
, who shot a nude scene for director
George Cukor George Dewey Cukor ( ; July 7, 1899 – January 24, 1983) was an American film director and film producer, producer. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO Pictures, RKO when David O. Selzn ...
's '' Something's Got to Give'' in 1962, but the film went unfinished after Monroe's death. The first film featuring a mainstream star fully nude was '' A Daughter of the Gods'' (1916) featuring
Annette Kellerman Annette Marie Sarah Kellermann (6 July 1886 – 6 November 1975) was an Australian professional swimmer, vaudeville star, film actress, and writer, usually spelt with a single final n as Annette Kellerman. Kellermann was one of the first wome ...
, but enforcement of the
Motion Picture Production Code The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the Cinema of the United States, United States from 1934 to 1968. It ...
brought an end to nudity in mainstream American films until 1968. Mansfield appears undressed in three scenes in ''Promises! Promises!''. The scenes are repeated several times in the movie as dream sequences. In the first and longest (59 seconds) scene, Mansfield sings "I'm In Love" seminude in a foam-filled bathtub and then bends over with her back to the camera.Craig Hosoda, ''The Bare Facts Video Guide'', page 137, Bare Facts, 1991, She is also seen nude in brief glimpses as she dries herself with a towel and writhes on a bed. Mansfield reportedly drank champagne to relax before appearing nude in front of the camera. Though the film actually shows Mansfield only
topless Toplessness refers to the state in which a woman's breasts, including her areolas and nipples, are exposed, especially in a public place or in a visual medium. The male equivalent is known as barechestedness. Social norms around toplessness ...
, a photo in
Kenneth Anger Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927 – May 11, 2023) was an American Underground film, underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and writer. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost 40 works beginning i ...
's book '' Hollywood Babylon'' shows her on the set completely nude. During the 1960s, some 8-mm film mail-order companies sold the nude footage. After Mansfield's death, the documentary '' The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield'' (1968) included nude scenes from the film and pages from the ''Playboy'' pictorial, along with scenes from her other films including '' Too Hot to Handle'' (1960), '' The Loves of Hercules'' (1960) and '' L'Amore Primitivo'' (1964).


Release

The film was heavily publicized in the June 1963 issue of ''Playboy'', featuring nude photos of Mansfield. The publication led to an
obscenity An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin , , "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Generally, the term can be used to indicate strong moral ...
charge against
Hugh Hefner Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of ''Playboy'' magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles. Hefner extended the ''Playboy ...
, who was arrested by Chicago police in June 1963, but the subsequent trial ended with a
hung jury A hung jury, also called a deadlocked jury, is a judicial jury that cannot agree upon a verdict after extended deliberation and is unable to reach the required unanimity or supermajority. A hung jury may result in the case being tried again. Thi ...
, and thus acquittal. Copies of the issue reportedly sold for as much as $10 each. Upon its theatrical release in 1963, ''Promises! Promises!'' was banned in
Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
and several other cities, although a Cleveland court later ruled that the nude scenes were not obscene. Both the original and an edited version enjoyed box-office success in places where it was not banned, except for California. The film was presented for the first time on television in its uncut form in 1984 on the Playboy Channel. The film was one of several dozen sound films to have been released in full-length form on Super 8mm in the 1970s. The film was released on
VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...
and
Betamax Betamax (also known as Beta, and stylized as the Greek letter Beta, β in its logo) is a discontinued consumer analog Videotape, video cassette recording format developed by Sony. It was one of the main competitors in the videotape format war ag ...
videotape in the 1980s. On February 14, 2006, VCI Home Video released the film on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
with extras such as original trailers and a gallery of stills from the ''Playboy'' issue, along with previously unreleased
lobby card A film poster is a poster used to promote and advertise a film primarily to persuade paying customers into a theater to see it. Studios often print several posters that vary in size and content for various domestic and international markets. The ...
s.


Reception

Mansfield was voted one of the top 10 box-office attractions by theater owners in 1963. ''
Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...
'' movie critic
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
wrote: "Finally, in 'Promises, Promises' she did what no Hollywood actress ever does except in desperation: she made a nudie. By 1963, that kind of box office appeal was about all she had left."


See also

* List of American films of 1963 *
Nudity in film In film, nudity may be either graphic or suggestive, such as when a person appears to be naked but is covered by a sheet. Since the birth of film, depictions of any form of sexuality have been controversial, and in the case of most nude scenes, ...
*
Sex in film Sexual content has been found in Film, films since the early days of the Film industry, industry, and the presentation of aspects of human sexuality, sexuality in film, especially human sexuality, has been controversial since the development of the ...


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Promises Promises 1963 films 1963 directorial debut films 1960s sex comedy films Works subject to a lawsuit American sex comedy films 1960s English-language films Obscenity controversies in film Rating controversies in film American sexploitation films 1963 comedy films 1960s American films English-language sex comedy films