You need to suspend a lot of beliefs about feminism and doctor/patient confidentiality for this one. If you are a fan of Some Like It Hot, it’s worth a watch for the Jack Lemmon jokes. By the way, this screenplay was by Joseph Heller. Spoilers ahead.
Bob Weston (Tony Curtis) works for Stop magazine. Stop was family magazine started by his boss’s grandmother and his boss has turned it into best selling yellow journalism. The chief is played by one of my favorite character actors, Edward Everett Horton. That has no importance to this blog, I just like pointing it out. The chief praises Bob for being the most vulgar writer on his staff. He plans on exposing a psychologist who specializing sexuality and relationships for modern women, as a fraud and a virgin. Natalie Wood plays Dr. Helen Gurley Brown, a fictionalized version of a real person who wrote a real book called Sex and the Single Girl. That’s where the comparison ends. The real Brown went on to be editor for Cosmo magazine and I found several nasty quotes from Betty Friedan on her.
Helen’s bestseller (based on the real bestseller the movie takes it’s name from) is causing men to feel uncomfortable about how much independence it encourages in unmarried women. Even Helen’s co-workers, a group of older male psychologists who are among the men afraid of what her book will do to society even though it has been good for their practice. All of the secretaries in her office want signed copies.
Bob borrows the life of his next door neighbor, Frank, in order to become a patient in Helen’s office. Frank (Henry Fonda) owns a successful stocking company whose marriage to Sylvia (Lauren Bacall) is on the rocks due to her jealous nature. Bob tells Frank’s tale to Helen and adds to the woes by claiming to be “inadequate”. Little blue bill hasn’t been invented yet.
Helen is weirdly naive about seduction and how alcohol works except when it comes to her coworker played by Mel Ferrer. She has no trouble knowing when he’s hitting on her but maybe that’s because he says things like he became a psychiatrist to hear “dirty stories”. Anyway, the pair realize they are falling in love, so Helen goes to Sylvia and encourages her to save her marriage. This makes the real Frank very happy. However, it’s fake Frank aka Bob who panics when his chief accuses him of growing soft and has his casual girlfriend, Gretchen, pretend to be Sylvia. I rather like Gretchen as a character, which is why she is a secondary character who gets a tacked on happy ending.
When Gretchen is unable, Frank asks his secretary to go, not knowing that Helen is meeting with the real Sylvia at the same time. Three “Sylvias” show up at Helen’s office and she thinks he has multiple wives. She hears hoofbeats and thinks zebras. Anyway, the real Sylvia reveals who fake Frank is and Helen realizes that Bob is using her for his filthy tabloid article. At the same time, Bob is quitting his magazine job for Helen’s sake.
Shenanigans ensure with a car chase and a who’s who of character actors that takes way too long. Followed by a happily ever after with pretzels.
Back to the topic of writers. Helen claims her book is scientific, which can’t be true if it’s a bestseller. I can name all the science best sellers on one hand And most of them are about physics and space. No, I am not including the Kinsey report in this list. As for Bob, he seems to be very proud of being a writer yet only in the sense that he loves being a peddler of sleaze. I mean, all professions have their reprobates.
