Phffft! (1954)

Phffft! That was, according to Walter Winchell, the sound a marriage made when it fell apart (he used it when Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio split). And it was borrowed by Columbia as the title of Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon's second on-screen pairing, after the very successful It Should Happen to You (1954). It didn't matter that the critics called it the "worst-named film in Hollywood history," or that no one knew how to pronounce it. The ads simply encouraged people "Don't say it. See it!" and hoped that the unusual title would get the movie-going public talking.

It also had studion heads talking. Jack Lemmon remembered "an 'emergency' break that was called while we were filming a big ballroom scene. Mark Robson [director] had to shut everything down while he went to a front-office meeting. There must have been a hundred extras, plus all the technicians, just sitting around waiting for two and a half hours with money just pouring down the tubes. When Mark finally came back, he was in hysterics. I asked him what the meeting had been about, what was so urgent? 'It was a meeting about a title change,' he said. 'They changed it from Phfffft to Phffft. They took out an f.' "

Nina (Holliday) and Robert (Lemmon) are a couple who, after eight years of marriage, can barely speak without getting into an argument. Nina asks for a divorce and gets no objection from Robert, who claims he's been trying to get up the courage himself to ask for one for the past six months. A few weeks later, when Nina comes out of the courtroom in Reno, people congratulate her and comment on: the nice day, the lovely ceremony, how they always cry at divorces - all sounding as if they were describing a wedding. Robert meanwhile reminisces about how he met his wife to his best friend, Charlie Nelson (Jack Carson). He has moved into his friend's bachelor pad. 

They even used Winchell's name for the fake newspaper clipping in the movie!

They both go out on dates that end disastrously, she with the star of the television show she writes (the actor wants her to write out the actress who the show is named after and make him the star) and he with a young lady friend of Charlie's, Janis (Kim Novak) - you can watch part of it here. After that experience, both Nina and Robert claim they are happy by themselves but sit around not knowing what to do. "Find something to do!" their friends encourage them. "Take dance lessons! Grow a mustache!" 

Nina and Robert both taking dance lessons, not realizing the other is just on the other side of the wall.

They take this advice and end up running into each other on the dance floor. A mambo gives them the chance to show off their new dancing skills to each other and ends in a sort of dance off. You can watch the scene here. It stirs their feelings for each other and they get together under the pretext of doing Nina's taxes (Robert is her tax man). They quickly discover that neither has changed and part angrily. 

Once again they attempt to enjoy themselves on a date, her with Robert's friend Charlie, and he with Janis again. Whereas Nina immediately regrets her choice of date, Robert is getting along fine with Janis, until she tells him that she had a date with Charlie but he canceled to go out with some "writer up in Westport."

Robert immediately heads to Westport, but finds Charlie gone when he arrives. He listens in on the telephone and overhears Nina telling her mother that she still loves Robert. You can guess how it ends :)

Kim Novak was the breakout star of the film. After seeing her performance in Pushover, her part was built up, much to the annoyance of Holliday. "I've just seen the most incredible thing - the new Marilyn Monroe. She's going to steal my next picture!" she exclaimed to a friend after sneaking into a screening. And it was indeed Novak whom everyone talked about. According to the biography, Kim Novak - Reluctant Goddess by Peter H. Brown, there were "endless lighting tests...to insure that her hair became a platinum halo while a suggestion of shadow masked Kim's mouth and chin, allowing her eyes to seem more luminous. Hairstylist Helen Hunt employed three shades of blond in order to lend a modernized touch to the old Harlow hairstyle. And, while Judy's gowns were standard (several of them coming from the wardrobes of past productions), Jean Louis glorified Kim with the elegant, draped sheaths which became a Novak trademark and accidentally started and international trend." 

UPDATE: Look what I came across!!! A publicity photo of Kim Novak wearing the same gold jumpsuit worn by Holliday in the film. There was no information with this photo. Was it to publicize Phffft? Was it taken before Holliday wore it? Did Holliday see the photo? 

Her appearance wasn't the only thing making waves. She could act too! Jack Lemmon told reporters after the premier, "It was a good film, and a lot of the credit goes to Kim Novak. When I went to the sneak preview of the picture, even I couldn't take my eyes off her. On the set, Kim was brilliant from the first, and, the damnedest thing, she didn't even know she was being funny. I think she turned in a classic comedy performance." 

They certainly gave her some great dialogue, which she delivered in a style compared to Marylin Monroe's but with her own unique spin. She deftly delivered lines such as "Here, put your hot one against my cold one and make my cold one hot. That means give me a light," and "Hey, would you mind if I sat on your tiger skin for a minute - I'm just dying to try it?" And when Robert apologizes for being out of ice for her whisky she replies, "Oh, don't worry about it. I'd just as soon have a little straighty." Then there is this delightful screwball moment:

There is also the moment when Robert gives Janis an orchid to which she naively asks, Gee, let's see - where can we pin it?"

The critics singled out her performance and wrote glowingly of her:

Kim Novak puts across a zesty show as a dizzy, accessible blonde out to cure Lemmon of post-connubial blues

 ~ Variety

Kim Novak, as the gabby blonde, is the big news of this picture. In Phffft, she really proves herself as a trooper who puts across laugh lines with a sureness which reminds you of Jean Harlow at her best in Platinum Blonde.

 ~ Hollywood Reporter

Phffft! changed Novak's life. She went into a sneak preview as an unknown and when she came out moviegoers gathered around her, asking for her autograph. Competing studios clamored for her and her fan mail jumped to 3,500 letters a week. I guess you could say Phffft was also the sound of her life changing forever.

When you see Kim Novak for the first time.

You can watch the full movie here. You do not need an account.

This post is for The Kim Novak Blogathon, An 89th Birthday Celebration hosted by The Classic Movie Muse. Be sure to check out the other posts celebrating the life and career of one of the last of the old Hollywood stars still with us!

Sources: 

Brown, Peter H. Kim Novak - Reluctant Goddess. St. Martin's Press. 1986.

Freeland, Michael. Jack Lemmon. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 1985.

Kleno, Larry. Kim Novak on Camera. A.S. Barnes & Company. 1980.

Widener, Don. Lemmon: A Biography. Macmillan. 1975.