Lawrence Jameson (David Niven) lives in a castle in France, and may be best described as the quintessential rotten womanizer. He systematically seduces wealthy women to his wealthy home, whereupon the victims are persuaded, in one way or another, to give him large amounts of their fortunes. While Jameson is certainly an unsympathetic fellow when it comes down to it, he is very able to fool nearly anyone with his apparent charm. It turns out that he has a rival, however; Freddy Benson (Marlon Brando) lives by the same sort of principles. The two swindlers eventually meet, and as the result of an argument they agree to engage in a bet. The first of them to successfully get 25 000 dollars out of the pocket of Janet Walker (Shirley Jones), the gentle and pretty daughter of a wealthy business man, should be declared as the true king of womanizers. While Freddy pretends to be paralyzed due to a sad love story, in order to evoke empathy from Mrs. Walker, Jameson--unpredicted by Freddy--turns up in the role as his rival's supposed psychiatrist!
Initially intended as another vehicle for Rock Hudson and Doris Day (as well as Cary Grant), BEDTIME STORY instead turned out to provide David Niven with yet another opportunity to perform the kind of role for which he is probably best-remembered today. He is essentially rather similar here to "The Phantom" in the first PINK PANTHER-movie, to just name one example. Even so, he is definitely hilarious; his facial expressions alone are sometimes able to make me laugh out loud. The film does also offer a quite convincing demonstration of Marlon Brando's talent as a comic performer, and furthermore that his capabilities as such has been unjustly under-appreciated. While often praised as the greatest dramatic actor ever seen on the screen, the humorous performances of Brando are rarely given more than passing mention. It may be true that all of Brando's most memorable performances are of the dramatic kind; Stanley Kowalski in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and Terry Malloy in ON THE WATERFRONT being two obvious examples. However, I do not accept this as a valid reason to entirely neglect his attempts at other kinds of roles. Brando himself may have felt that he couldn't do comedy well; but he did admit, in his autobiography 30 years later, that he found making BEDTIME STORY a delight, possibly the only time he truly enjoyed working in a film. He claimed to have laughed so hard during certain scenes that he often had to leave the room, but even then it was hard for the performers to ignore his howls of laughter.
BEDTIME STORY is an entirely undemanding piece of entertainment, a very light comedy indeed, but also a very enjoyable one, if you are in that kind of mood and just wants to laugh after a stressful day.
Initially intended as another vehicle for Rock Hudson and Doris Day (as well as Cary Grant), BEDTIME STORY instead turned out to provide David Niven with yet another opportunity to perform the kind of role for which he is probably best-remembered today. He is essentially rather similar here to "The Phantom" in the first PINK PANTHER-movie, to just name one example. Even so, he is definitely hilarious; his facial expressions alone are sometimes able to make me laugh out loud. The film does also offer a quite convincing demonstration of Marlon Brando's talent as a comic performer, and furthermore that his capabilities as such has been unjustly under-appreciated. While often praised as the greatest dramatic actor ever seen on the screen, the humorous performances of Brando are rarely given more than passing mention. It may be true that all of Brando's most memorable performances are of the dramatic kind; Stanley Kowalski in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and Terry Malloy in ON THE WATERFRONT being two obvious examples. However, I do not accept this as a valid reason to entirely neglect his attempts at other kinds of roles. Brando himself may have felt that he couldn't do comedy well; but he did admit, in his autobiography 30 years later, that he found making BEDTIME STORY a delight, possibly the only time he truly enjoyed working in a film. He claimed to have laughed so hard during certain scenes that he often had to leave the room, but even then it was hard for the performers to ignore his howls of laughter.
BEDTIME STORY is an entirely undemanding piece of entertainment, a very light comedy indeed, but also a very enjoyable one, if you are in that kind of mood and just wants to laugh after a stressful day.