Prudence... et la pilule

Had I known this junk was populated with a bunch of second rate Brit players I would have run for the hills. Extremely dull fare with lots of shrill, rapid talking limey accents and not a whole lot of anything else. David Niven never made a decent film his whole career, and this bilge was right down on the bottom. Everyone involved with this mess should have taken a sleeping pill and gone to bed.

Once again David Niven who narrates as well as stars in Prudence And The Pill manages to elevate a mediocre film and make it somewhat entertaining. The stories are told in flashback as seen through Niven's eyes. The British have a wonderful way of handling infidelity in such a civilized way. By switching some birth control pills for aspirin in David Niven's medicine cabinet a lot of women become pregnant including Deborah Kerr, Niven's wife and not by him. But that's OK because Niven has himself a French mistress in Irina Demick. And his niece Judy Geeson is also pregnant as is theirmaid courtesy of the chauffeur. This may seem sophisticated to some, but quite frankly it was boring most of the time. Best scene in the film is dotty old Edith Evans walking across a racetrack during an auto race. She's an aristocrat you know and those drivers wouldn't dare do harm to her person. A lot of claptrap talk and less than meets the eye.

David Niven has more great movies than you can shake a stick at. Unfortunately some of his best movies are virtually impossible to obtain. I was lucky to get a copy of this film off the cable. Hopefully it will be on DVD soon. "The Impossible Years" is available on video. "The Statue" has not shown up even on cable. One of the surprising things about "Prudence and the Pill" is the number of actors that you will recognize from that era. You may recognize the niece Geraldine Hardcastle played by Judy Geeson of " To Sir with Love 2 (1996) (TV)" fame. I will not go through the list of actors. However you get the idea. The plot is quite simple and you can guess the outcome. The real worth is in the acting and the details. Not everything goes quite as expected. Half of the women in the village are taking vitamins that mysteriously look like BC pills. And many are taking BC pills that mysteriously look like aspirin. Do not let this film give you any ideas.

In the 1960's films often had opening credits where the painters type/artists could present an attractive package(Intolerable Cruelty{2003} reminded me of this).This was one and with good set designs this film gave a picture of background colour and warmth. This film is unreasonably remembered as poor but golden moments are Edith Evans walking across a motor racing track during a race.Then there was David Niven purchasing Aspirin at Timothy Whites as if purchasing something evil.The number of couples at the end gave the story depth only Deborah Kerr is disappointing but her part is not sympathetic.A welcome increase in the birth rate ended the film.

In movie after movie men & women regularly mate with each other without anyone ever fussing over contraception. This time however there's so much discussion of it you'd assume that the script by Hugh Mills was based on a play rather than on a novel (that he'd originally published in 1965). It certainly lends a new meaning to the description "oral sex" since all they ever appear to do is just talk about it; until the women suddenly all give birth en masse like the women of the village of Midwich. The reality for women of taking contraceptive pills on a daily basis was seemingly a complete mystery to Mills, since he depicts them as indistinguishable from aspirins and dispensed by chemists in glass jars rather than individually in pop-out blister packs. Despite it's rather desperate aim to be contemporary and "with it", the backdrop of extravagent wealth and its upper class characters simply heighten the generally pre-war feel of the thing.

David Niven has more great movies than you can shake a stick at. Unfortunately some of his best movies are virtually impossible to obtain. I was lucky to get a copy of this film off the cable. Hopefully it will be on DVD soon. "The Impossible Years" is available on video. "The Statue" has not shown up even on cable. One of the surprising things about "Prudence and the Pill" is the number of actors that you will recognize from that era. You may recognize the niece Geraldine Hardcastle played by Judy Geeson of " To Sir with Love 2 (1996) (TV)" fame. I will not go through the list of actors. However you get the idea. The plot is quite simple and you can guess the outcome. The real worth is in the acting and the details. Not everything goes quite as expected. Half of the women in the village are taking vitamins that mysteriously look like BC pills. And many are taking BC pills that mysteriously look like aspirin. Do not let this film give you any ideas.

I remember seeing this movie as a teen in the 80s, but had forgotten all of the particulars except for the fact that Deborah Kerr looked absolutely stunning and wore some great clothes. I had an opportunity to see it again recently and enjoyed the ride. This wasn't a Deborah Kerr film per se, but rather, an ensemble. David Niven was absolutely hysterical in the film. Some of the funniest scenes were of him up to shenanigans. The scene in the drug store getting aspirin was absolutely classic. Deborah Kerr, the reason I wanted to watch this movie, wasn't her usual genteel self, but I liked seeing her b!tchy side and the verbal sparring that went on between her and David Niven. All of the other characters were fun as well. This is a fun 60s romp with very little depth, but was entertaining enough to hold my interest until the end.