April Fools, The (1969)

Jack Lemmon plays Howard Brubaker, a Wall Street broker about to get a promotion, but on arriving at his tycoon boss’s modern New York apartment, he finds a cocktail party in full swing. And what a swinging party!

The only seemingly sympatico person there is Catherine (Catherine Deneuve), whom Howard takes out for the night, little knowing she is the boss’s wife!

Howard is one of those inept people who the social graces passed by. His wife (Sally Kellerman) can’t spare time for him, his young son (Gary Dubin) hangs up the phone on him, and the dog growls at him.

So who can blame the poor man if, when an interested French girl like Catherine finds him companionable (even romantic), their night on the town looks like lasting a lifetime ?

But Howard has this failing: since appearing in a school play, he has always felt like a frog waiting for the princess to kiss him to change him into a handsome prince. Catherine uses just the right method!

Try as he might, Howard’s lawyer, Potter Shrader (Jack Weston), cannot dissuade him from joining his ‘princess’ in Paris.

The few romantic scenes slow down the hilarious, excellently-characterised comedy somewhat, but if you want to see a clever piece of uncomplicated, amusingly slick entertainment, The April Fools is for you.

It’s pleasant to see Myrna Loy (after an eight-year absence from the screen) and Charles Boyer in cameo roles, and Peter Lawford as the tycoon who finds his wife forgettable.

Burt Bacharach wrote the music.

Howard Brubaker
Jack Lemmon
Catherine Gunther
Catherine Deneuve
Ted Gunther
Peter Lawford
Potter Shrader
Jack Weston
Grace Greenlaw
Myrna Loy
Andre Greenlaw
Charles Boyer
Les Hopkins
Kenneth Mars
Leslie Hopkins
Melinda Dillon
Matt Benson
Harvey Korman
Phyllis Brubaker
Sally Kellerman
Stanley Brubaker
Gary Dubin
Mimsy Shrader
Janice Carroll
Naomi Jackson
Dee Gardner
Orlow P. Walters
David Doyle
Bess Bluestone
Tani Guthrie (as Tani Phelps)
Connie Archer
Nancy Howard

Director
Stuart Rosenberg