It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Jack Lemmon, rising young man in the United States State Department hasn't a clue when he rents a room from Kim Novak who turns out to be a fellow American in London. He also doesn't know she's The Notorious Landlady whose husband has gone missing and Scotland Yard thinks she did him in.Americans in the diplomatic corps are supposed to be scandal free, even more so back in 1962 so poor Lemmon doesn't know what he's walked into. But his supervisor Fred Astaire does and he wants him to leave. But Lionel Jeffries of Scotland Yard thinks he'd make one great unofficial undercover man. So in the spirit of the alliance that defeated Hitler, Astaire agrees.Later on after a hilarious barbecue scene nearly burns Novak's place down and gets the State Department unwanted publicity, Astaire wants to transfer Lemmon to Tierra Del Fuego, but Novak actually comes up and charms him into letting him stay. So much so that Astaire now wants to play Sherlock Holmes and solve the case himself or at least be Watson to Lemmon's Holmes.Jack and Kim make a lovely couple in danger, 25 years earlier I could have seen Cary Grant and Carole Lombard in their parts. But when you set out to make a stylish comedy, casting Fred Astaire is always a stroke of genius. Director Richard Quine even had the good sense to acquire Astaire's classic, A Foggy Day from the defunct RKO studio where he introduced it in Damsel In Distress to use as background music. It's used to great affect on one of those foggy London nights where both of them are trailing Novak.In the last half hour their sleuthing pays off and a rather intricate mystery is solved. Lionel Jeffries makes a dogged and determined Inspector Lestrade like Scotland Yard man, who if truth be told is one of the sleazier members of that organization ever portrayed on screen.The joint creative hands who wrote The Notorious Landlady were Blake Edwards and Larry Gelbart. Can't do better than that for style and wit.

Lemmon gives his usual sterling performance, although rather closer to the wisecracking, raffish roles that someone like, say, Tony Curtis would normally appear in, Novak shows that hourglass figure in a series of body hugging outfits, her strange Harlow-like eyebrows look out of place in a 60's film. Astaire shows immaculate timing and a nice line is self deprecation, letting Lemmon bounce the laughs off of him.What undoes the film is the desperately phony "foggy London", the sets sprinkle British telephone boxes and black cabs for effect, then undo it by introducing a Cockney flower seller (with obligatory straw hat) and filling the streets with British sports cars and limousines (since they were the most common exports to the US; Since this same cheapo trick was used for so many years in long running TV series such as "Columbo" and "Murder She Wrote", it's clear that US producers realise that US audiences can be conned at low cost).At heart the film is a strange, unworkable melange of comedy, romance and melodrama and fails to hit the mark on any of them. Screwball comedies blossomed and died in the 30's and 40's, this attempt to resurrect them does not succeed.

Jack Lemmon plays an American diplomat, Bill Gridley, attached to the embassy in England. On his first day in London he rents a flat from a very attractive new landlady, Carly Hardwicke played by Kim Novak. But unknown to him his new landlady has a "reputation" but for what. The dialogue sparkles from Lemmon's comment to Carly's query. you don't seem to harbor any prejudices, to which Lemmon responds; no, after all he is a Democrat from Massachusetts. And from the get-go it's clear Gridley is attracted to Carly but is she single, married,or divorced. On Gridley's second day he is grilled by his station chief Frank Ambruster, Fred Astaire, who informs him that his landlady murdered her husband. Suddenly Gridley finds himself recruited by Scotland Yard Inspector Oliphant, Lionel Jeffries, to "investigate" Mrs. Hardwicke to see if he can either prove her guilty or innocent. Of course Gridley leaps to Carly's defense especially after Oliphant's hysterical explanation of how women make not only loving wives but exceptional killers. Ambruster orders Gridley to cooperate and yet after he meets her and is smitten; he agrees that she is innocent. The film is filled with red herrings from titles of bedside reading to misunderstood phone calls that only enrich the comedy and the mystery. Lemmon is great as the would be lover who vacillates between loyalty and suspicion. This film is a classic and deserves an updated release.This film has stuck in my mind from my first viewing in 1962 because of the chemistry among the three principal actors. And the finale is one of the best of any chase scenes filmed.

This is an entertaining spoof on Hitchcock style,long before Mel Brooks' "high anxiety" (1978),and much more subtile at that.Diplomat Lemmon rents a room in a mansion whose owner(Novak) might be a man-eater.After a slow start,the movie quickly reaches its cruising speed and will keep it till the end.Many scenes in Novak's desirable mansion are nods in the direction of "rear window".All the neighbors are looking out their windows,secretly waiting for something to happen.A kid warns Lemmon:"My mother says you're next",and he later adds "And my father says so too".And the final is some kind of cross between the chase movies like" north by norwest" and the "symphonic" scenes of a " man who knew too much"(1956) in miniature,as the characters are in search for an old lady among many wheelchairs,during an outdoor concert .Jack Lemmon is wonderful,his comical expressions have influenced a lot of actors,Jim Carrey owes him a lot.Richard Quine's final crazy chase is much more successful than that of "sex and the single girl" ,two years later.POSSIBLE SPOILER********************Possible spoiler A small flaw:the scene between Kim Novak and her husband is so dramatic that it jars with the light tongue-in -cheek atmosphere of the rest of the show.The same goes for the pawnbroker's scene.