''Promises! Promises!'' (presented as ''Promises... Promises!'' on screen) is a 1963 American

sex comedy Sex comedy, erotic comedy or more broadly sexual comedy is a genre in which comedy is motivated by sexual situations and love affairs. Although "sex comedy" is primarily a description of dramatic forms such as theatre and film, literary works such ...

film directed by

King Donovan King Donovan (January 25, 1918 – June 30, 1987) was an American film, stage, and television actor, as well as a film and television director. Early years Francis King Donovan was born in Manhattan on January 25, 1918. His parents were vaudev ...

and starring

Tommy Noonan Tommy Noonan (born Thomas Noone; April 29, 1921 – April 24, 1968) was a comedy genre film performer, screenwriter and producer. He acted in a number of high-profile films as well as B movies from the 1940s through the 1960s, and he is best ...

(who also served as coproducer) and

Jayne Mansfield Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967) was an American actress, singer, nightclub entertainer, and ''Playboy'' Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s while under contract at 20th Century Fox, Man ...

. 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 the ...

era and before the

MPAA film rating system The Motion Picture Association film rating system is used in the United States and its territories to rate a motion picture's suitability for certain audiences based on its content. The system and the ratings applied to individual motion pictures ...

became effective in 1968, it was the first

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywoo ...

film of the sound era to feature nudity by a mainstream star (Mansfield).

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

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 sex symbol. She is perhaps best known for the rock 'n' roll, juvenile delinquency exploitation film '' Untamed Youth'' (1957). Early life Van ...

, 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 and actress known as "The Body Beautiful" and later nicknamed "The Body". Early life Born in Burgin, Kentucky, McDonald was the daughter of Evertt ...

, in her final screen appearance.

Ceil Chapman Ceil Chapman (1912 – July 13, 1979) was an American fashion designer who worked in New York City from the 1940s to the 1960s. She created glamorous cocktail and party dresses, and worked with celebrity clients including television and movie ac ...

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. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disn ...

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, who plays King Banner in the film, was Mansfield's husband.

Nude scenes

''Promises! Promises!'' became the first Hollywood feature release of the sound era to feature nudity by a mainstream star (

). That distinction would have belonged to

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

, 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. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO when David O. Selznick, the studio's Head ...

's ''

Something's Got to Give ''Something's Got to Give'' is an unfinished American feature film shot in 1962, directed by George Cukor for 20th Century Fox and starring Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse. A remake of ''My Favorite Wife'' (1940), a screwball comedy ...

'' 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 1887 – 6 November 1975) was an Australian professional swimmer, vaudeville star, film actress, and writer. Kellermann was one of the first women to wear a one-piece bathing costume, instead of the then ...

, 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 United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...

brought an end to nudity in mainstream American films. Mansfield appears undressed in three scenes in ''Promises! Promises!''. The scenes are repeated several times in the movie as

dream sequence A dream sequence is a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other ...

s. 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 barechestedness, also commonly called shirtlessness. Expose ...

, a photo in

Kenneth Anger Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927) is an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and author. Working exclusively in short films, he has produced almost 40 works since 1937, nine of which have been grouped ...

's book ''

Hollywood Babylon ''Hollywood Babylon'' is a book by avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger which details the purported scandals of famous Hollywood denizens from the 1900s to the 1950s. The book was banned shortly after it was first published in the U.S. in 1965, a ...

'' shows her on the set completely nude, with

pubic hair Pubic hair is terminal body hair that is found in the genital area of adolescent and adult humans. The hair is located on and around the sex organs and sometimes at the top of the inside of the thighs. In the pubic region around the pubis bon ...

visible. 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 ''The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield'' is a 1968 mondo documentary film chronicling the travels of actress Jayne Mansfield. It was directed by Charles W. Broun, Jr., Joel Holt and Arthur Knight. Synopsis ''The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Man ...

'' (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 ''obscēnus'', ''obscaenus'', "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Such loaded language can be us ...

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 which provoked charges of obsc ...

, who was arrested by Chicago police in June 1963, but the subsequent jury trial ended in 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 ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...

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 Playboy TV (originally The Playboy Channel) is a pay television channel based in the United States. History The channel first launched on December 9, 1980, as Escapade by Rainbow Programing Services (a joint-venture of four cable companies, ...

. The film was one of several dozen sound films to have been released in full-length form on

Super 8mm Super 8 mm film is a motion-picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement over the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format. The film is nominally 8 mm wide, the same as older formatted 8& ...

in the 1970s. The film was released on VHS and

Betamax Betamax (also known as Beta, as in its logo) is a consumer-level analog recording and cassette format of magnetic tape for video, commonly known as a video cassette recorder. It was developed by Sony and was released in Japan on May 10, 1975, ...

videotape in the 1980s. On February 14, 2006,

VCI Home Video 2 Entertain (stylized as 2 , entertain) is a British video and music publisher founded in September 2004 by the merger of BBC Video and Video Collection International in 2004. Under CEO Richard Green, the company operated as a joint venture b ...

released the film on DVD 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 ...

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 newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the '' Chicago ...

'' movie critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

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."

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Promises Promises 1963 films 1960s sex comedy films Works subject to a lawsuit American sex comedy films 1960s English-language films Nudity in film Obscenity controversies in film Rating controversies in film Sexual-related controversies in film Film controversies in the United States American sexploitation films 1963 comedy films 1960s American films