sunday in new york

the year: 1964

the genre: comedy


the cast: Jane Fonda (Eileen Tyler); Rod Taylor (Mike Mitchell); Cliff Robertson (Adam Tyler); Robert Culp (Russ Wilson); Jo Morrow (Mona Harris); Jim Backus (Chief Pilot Drysdale)


the plot: Eileen is 22 and is smarting from her breakup with Russ. She comes to New York to visit her brother, Adam, who is an airline pilot. Eileen decides to see if she can have some fun for herself in New York, and seems to find the perfect candidate in Mike, a man she meets on the bus. But things get complicated when Russ pops in with a proposal and a mistaken assumption.


don't miss: Robert Culp as the obtuse Russ - quite a switch from his savvy role in I Spy.


watch for: how Eileen "snags" Mike on the 5th Avenue bus.


count: how many missed connections occur between Adam and his girlfriend.


also don't miss: dinner with Eileen, Russ, Mike (who Russ think's is Andy, her brother), and Andy (who Russ thinks is Mike).

the glass bottom boat

Since it's my birthday week, I thought I'd share some of my very favorite flicks...


the year: 1966

the genre: comedy


the cast: Doris Day (Jennifer Nelson); Rod Taylor (Bruce Templeton); Arthur Godfrey (Axel Nordstrom); Dom DeLuise (Julius Pritter); Dick Martin (Zach Molloy); John McGiver (Ralph Goodwin); Paul Lynde (Homer Cripps); Eric Fleming (Edgar Hill); Edward Andrews (Gen. Wallace Bleeker)


the plot: Jennifer Nelson and Bruce Templeton meet when Bruce reels in her mermaid suit leaving Jennifer bottomless in the waters near Catalina Island. She later discovers that Bruce is the big boss at the space lab where she works as a PR representative. Bruce hires Jennifer to be his biographer - but only to try and win her affections. General Bleeker and Bruce's colleagues believe that Jennifer is a Russian spy out to get GISMO - Bruce's top secret research for the military - and have her placed under surveillance. When Jennifer catches on...Watch Out!




watch for: the "special" hors d'oeuvre.




don't miss: Julius Pritter. Any scene he's in is a keeper.




listen for: "I haven't felt like this since Culver Military Academy."




did you know: The actors who played Norman and Mabel also played married neighbors on Bewitched.




extra bonus points: if you know who makes a special appearance at the party.






also listen for: "The recognition signal is: "Vladimir Sent Me". Over!"




count: how many banana cream cakes meet their demise.

meet-cutes...

In the 2006 film The Holiday (I don't recommend the entire movie, but if you want to see an edited, 30 minute version sometime, let me know), Eli Wallach's character Arthur Abbott (a retired Hollywood screenwriter) describes a meet-cute as:

"Say a man and a woman both need something to sleep in and both go to the same men's pajama department. The man says to the salesman, I just need bottoms, and the woman says, I just need a top. They look at each other and that's the meet-cute."

Here are a couple of my favorite meet-cutes:

It Happened One Night throws runaway heiress Ellie (Claudette Colbert) and world-weary ex-reporter Peter (Clark Gable) together in a dispute over the last seat on a bus.


In The Boatniks, Ensign Tom Garland (Robert Morse), a polite but remarkably clumsy fellow is transferred to a southern California marina area. His first encounter with Kate Fairchild (Stefanie Powers), who runs a local boat rental and sailing school, involves dumping an entire can of yellow paint all over her.


Jennifer Nelson (Doris Day) thinks Bruce Templeton (Rod Taylor) is a weirdo following her around - until she realizes that he is really her boss, in The Glass Bottom Boat.


And possibly my all-time favorite is from Return to Me. Bob Reuland finds an excuse to return to a restaurant in hopes of seeing the waitress he met during a discussion about "an imported Swiss water". When they finally (offically) meet, she's in her bathrobe and shower cap and he's been rooked into quite a game of poker.


What are some of your favorite meet-cutes?