Today’s Post by Joe Farace
If you’re a true movie lover, I’ll bet that there are some films, or maybe just one, that gets under your skin. I’m not talking about “guilty pleasures,” movies that on the surface seem to have no redeeming qualities but you love anyway but films that connect with you in a visceral way but would never make anybody’s top 100 list. For me, The April Fools is just such a movie and it did not make my list of 100 favorite films.
The plot of 1969’s The April Fools is that a married man meets a married woman and they fall in love. In this case the married man is Jack Lemmon and the married woman is Catherine Deneuve. This film resonates with me, for some reason, that feels personal, although the theme is similar but oh-so-different from 1960’s Strangers When We Meet, a film I saw when I was in high school. But while I liked that film as well, it’s ending is not as happy as The April Fools because The April Fools is ostensibly a comedy.
Yes, there are a few laughs in the movie. And it may have been funnier in 1967 than it is in 2022. Part of that difference is in the way it treats drinking and drunks. Funny in 1967; not so funny in 2022. The talented Jack Weston, who portrays Lemmon’s lawyer, is equally adept at both serous and humorous roles,and can be genuinely funny, notwithstanding what your current view of drunkenness might be. At least none of them are driving. Oh wait, Weston does briefly get behind the wheel of a ‘67 Mustang convertible.
In addition to Weston, the cast is exemplary and features Peter Lawford in one of his better roles, Sally Kellerman, Melinda Dillon, Kenneth Mars and the always amazing Harvey Korman. And there’s a bevy of women in the party scenes who seemed to have walked over from a Russ Meyer movie. I would be remiss if not acknowledging the brief appearance of Charles Boyer and Myrna Loy with her channeling a mature and ever-so-charming version of Norah Charles. By the way, Boyer is pronounced BOY-YAH, not BOY-YER as I have heard a few YouTube movie pundits pronouncing his name.
The movie is very much of it’s time, including its attempts at humor (and some of them actually work) along with director, Stuart Rosenberg’s attempt to make this a hip, sixties movie by jamming three party scenes in a row into the film’s beginning. The actual first scene with Weston and Lemmon is really a setup to a party hosted by Lawford and his where Lemmon meets Deneuve. The second scene is a jungle-themed night club that seems like a party, as does the third scene set in a disco. Then the mood changes when Deneuve meet Loy who invites her and Lemmon to her home.
Can we talk about the music? Is that (an uncredited) Dusty Springfield singing, “I Say a Little Prayer” during the party at the beginning of the film? The score of the film is attributed to multi-Oscar winning Marvin Hamlisch but I bet you wouldn’t know it. There may be some of his music in the party scene and maybe there’s some music in the second “party” while the third “party” uses source music. After that, the lilting and melancholy Bacharach/David song, The April Fools, dominates the sound track, sometimes with Dionne Warwick singing the song’s lyrics. This use of the song underscores the two main characters falling deeply in love and I never got tired of hearing it in the movie.
Let me get to what really makes me love this movie— Catherine Deneuve. It’s not just Jack Lemmon’s character that falls in love with Deneuve’s character, who is also named Catherine, but the director and cinematographer provide so many dreamy close ups of her that all of the men and many of the women in the audience probably fell in love with her as well. It’s Deneuve’s presence that’s at the heart of this film. This movie was made during Deneuve’s brief run in American films, the other being Hustle with Burt Reynolds that is a wonderful film in it’s own right and is only available on DVD.
This movie is only available as a DVD but it’s a really good transfer and only costs about ten bucks. Any romantics that are reading this should get a copy. Should you watch The April Fools on April Fools Day the way many of us watch Groundhog Day on Groundhog Day? Yes. But you can also watch it anytime you’re with the person that you love because down deep the movie is a story of finding true love when you didn’t even know you where looking for it. I love this movie. Maybe you will too.