A New Kind of Love (1963)

So much average

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

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

Why the 15 others who reviewed this before me didn't much care for it I don't understand. Melville Shavelson's script is very intelligent and often very clever, and it is delivered by a cast of uniformly first-rate actor/comedians. (It's no surprise that Shavelson also wrote the script for April in Paris, another romantic comedy set in the French capital. There, however, room had to be made for a too elderly and not really funny Ray Bolger, and the movie suffered for it. Here, with no weak links and a lot of very strong ones, Shevelson didn't have to lower the level of the comedy.) One of the things I most liked about this very likable movie is that it pokes gentle fun at a host of previous movies, from Breakfast at Tiffany's to The Women to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to .... Woodward dressed up as a parody of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's is really clever. Or is that a parody of Norma Shearer in Idiot's Delight???The one thing that won't endear this movie to feminists, and rightfully so, are the repeated pronouncements that women must get married in order to be happy and that they will be miserable until then. I suppose that was necessary to balance the implied shenanigans, but it does get old quickly. For that, try to remember that the movie dates from a fortunately bygone era.Other than that, there is lots to enjoy here. So enjoy!

A New Kind Of Love is another attempt by Paul Newman to do comedy. He has a part that maybe Rock Hudson could have carried off. Even playing opposite his wife doesn't do it in the chemistry department. Joanne Woodward is better at comedy than her husband.In fact for a long time you think you're watching two different films, that's how long it takes for these two to get together. Woodward is on a buying trip for her dress manufacturer George Tobias who takes her and Thelma Ritter to Paris. Woodward's a workaholic career woman who's been burned by romance and wants no more. She even dresses unattractive so much so that Paul Newman on the flight over mistakes her for a man.Now Newman's been exiled to Paris by his boss Robert F. Simon who he caught kanoodling with his wife. Well if you're going to be exiled, Paris is certainly a good place. As in all Parisian stories the boy and girl just have to get together, if not in Paris, than where in the world. George Tobias and Thelma Ritter who are usually a lot better merely walk through their parts. The best reason to see A New Kind of Love is for Maurice Chevalier's cameo as himself when he sings Mimi, Louise, and the title song which incidentally he introduced back in 1930 in The Big Pond. Eva Gabor is around to turn Tobias's head by just being Eva Gabor.Paul Newman would have to wait more than a decade for triumphant comedy in Slap Shot. He just doesn't cut it in more sophisticated material.

The first five minutes were clever and funny, giving me high hopes, but it went downhill after that--down a very steep hill. Joanne Woodward's wardrobe was atrocious, even when she was supposed to have dolled up! Thelma Ritter had nothing to do but whine and certainly deserved better. Woodward, Newman, Ritter--so much talent given so little to work with! The whole sequence with Maurice Chevalier and the parade in the streets made me feel embarrassed for the writers and for Chevalier. The attitude toward women (marriage is what every woman really wants) was very annoying, but given the era, I could have overlooked that if there had been something entertaining somewhere in the move. Don't waste your time.

The bad news is that the plot is hackneyed and boring. Reporter Newman mistakes fashion family heir Woodward for high-priced prostitute. The goods news is that the plot is mostly irrelevant, but the chemistry between Paul and Joanne is not, and neither is their comic timing. You also have Thelma Ritter and George Tobias on hand to assure a generous helping of chuckles. I give it 6 out of 10; it's a decent time passer.