Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

moonspinner55 Upwardly mobile investment banker, married to a shallow mannequin out in the suburbs, picks up a sophisticated Parisian beauty at his boss's mod party in New York City, unaware she's the boss's wife. Forgotten star-vehicle for Jack Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve (who replaced an unavailable Shirley MacLaine) is an instantly-dated piece of absurdist romantic comedy in the modern idiom circa 1969. Most of the secondary characters are deadpan eccentrics who take turns staring at the strait-laced leads as if they're the ones who are odd, while the busy camera tries to catch everything about the city that is weird-for-a-laugh (often straining to do so). Lemmon is still doing his nervous schnook from "The Apartment" nine years earlier, only this time with dark brown hair dye; he never clicks with Deneuve, who never clicks with her unhappily married character. Director Stuart Rosenberg tries to keep the mood loose, but he falls into the general trap of the scenario, that of chic, shallow deadheads working too hard at having a good time. ** from ****

nomorefog I had a relative take me to see this film on a Saturday morning when I was eleven years old at a cinema in my hometown of Sydney which doesn't exist any more (I'm referring to the cinema, not my hometown of Sydney). I found a video copy on ex-rental many years later and used to watch it often. 'The April Fools' is clumsy but charming, Maybe its even morally challenged by condoning adultery. But I don't care. it isn't terribly subtle or astute, about anything in particular. It does however, contain that inscrutable spark of life that manages to keep the audience's interest flickering for 100 minutes or so before they begin to drift off again.The leading performers are Jack Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve, the latter at the time an actress better known for her work in European cinema and considered to be above this kind of Hollywood silliness. But she is still in the movie and has a wonderful presence; I can't imagine anyone else playing the part. Deneuve stooped to conquer American movies for a time but she returned to Europe, eventually continuing an already distinguished career as if her attempt to conquer Hollywood had never happened. Ms Deneuve's English in this film isn't very good; she is however, playing a French visitor to American shores, so her hesitant delivery, seems natural as it is meant to be an aspect of her character. Both Lemmon and Deneuve are married, but unfortunately not to each other; both are not happy with their relationships and find solace in each other's company. They end up having an affair, and it is all very predictable, but in such a way that is completely delightful.A title song sung by Dionne Warwick and colourful sixties costumes and sets and lots of disco dancing make the film an entertaining relic; the opening sequence where Lemmon, as an advertising executive, is the reluctant attendee of a strange and wild sixties party is very funny and the best part of the film. 'The April Fools' eventually runs out of steam due to a lack of comic ideas and becomes a timefiller because of a lack of attention to the script that resorts to slapstick at the expense of character. Deneuve leaves her husband and Lemmon decides to accompany her to Paris. They leave behind two disgruntled spouses, one Sally Kellerman and the other Peter Lawford who are perfectly set in their ways, extraordinarily boring people and not likely to miss them at all.'The April Fools' is not the kind of film to get cerebral about. It's about people finding the chance to be happy and grabbing onto it with dear life. I can see now that as a youngster I was taken in by its sense of the time ie a 'youthful carfreeness' that was meant to be part of the charm of the sixties. I was also not weighed down by the critical facilities of an adult, and this is definitely not a critic's film. The April Fools gave me the impression that the sixties were a lot of fun with all of that dancing and music and carrying on with other people's partners, but somehow I doubt if that was the film's original intention, which remains a mystery now as much as it was when I first saw it as a child. Brainwave! Maybe it was just meant to be entertainment.

j-marvel "BRUBAKERRR!!" -- Peter Lawford "Bwana wanna taxi." -- tigress/waitress "It's bad luck to be superstitious." -- Loy "Half-Basque Italian." -- Jack Weston. "I think it makes its own quiet statement." -- numerous times. "You are a prince." -- Deneuve. All from what I consider one of the hundred most under-viewed flicks of all time. Yeah, the action gets really slap-sticky in the third act, but it only adds to intensifying the sense of the intensifying isolation of our princess and her frog. Play it a few times and appreciate the subtlety of the romantic element. I heartily agree with the need for DVD of this most delicious movie.

bob4kate Critics often get it wrong and this movie is proof of that. If you watch this movie in the cold and analytical way that critics often do you will see its countless flaws. But if you do this you will also miss its warmth,charm the masterly performances of its cast and a super sixties Bacharach theme song. I urge people to see it and make up their own mind. My guess is you won't fail to be touched.