BACHELOR FLAT (1962)

In this silly, ridiculous, stupid sex farce which suffers from miscasting and bad writing (do you really want to read any further?), gap-toothed comedian Terry-Thomas plays a British archeology professor at a Southern California university who (for some reason unknown to viewers) is absolutely irresistible to the female students—and to the slightly older women who live nearby. He's renting a beach house from his fiancée (Celeste Holm) who is in Paris on business. Living a trailer on the property is handsome law student Richard Beymer (and his cute dachshund Jessica) who has become quite buddy-buddy with the professor. One day, out of the blue, beautiful young Tuesday Weld arrives looking for Holm; she's Holm’s daughter, about whom Holm has never told Thomas. For some unfathomable reason, she adopts a tough-girl accent and pretends to be a runaway juvenile delinquent. Thomas tries to help her out while avoiding any hint of scandal—an underage girl sharing his beach house—while Beymer, a more age-appropriate fellow, starts to fall for her, and also starts to see through her subterfuge. There's also a plot point involving a gigantic dinosaur bone that Thomas has found and a rival professor (Howard McNear, Floyd the barber on The Andy Griffith Show) who sneaks around trying to find out where Thomas got it. The climax involves a drunken Thomas, egged on by Beymer, trying to discourage his female admirers by being aggressive with them, when who should arrive on the scene but Holm.

This seems so very dated, it feels like it might have felt old and tired just months after its release. The colorful sets and the attractive young people are pluses, but the whole thing just seems too shrill and forced. No reason is given for Weld not just coming out and saying who she is; the way women throw themselves at Thomas is not explained (except by a brief prologue stating that even as far back as the Revolution, American women have found British men sexy(?)); and poor Holm has practically nothing to do. Thomas seems uncomfortable throughout, though Weld and Beymer (pictured above) are OK. It's a sad situation when the high spots in a sex farce involve the cutesy shenanigans of a dachshund and a dinosaur bone five times its size. An early door-slamming scene involving Thomas trying to hide two girls in his bedroom from Beymer is fun, but it's downhill from there. [FMC]