MovieChat Forums > Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) Discussion > All-time sleaziest double entendre?

All-time sleaziest double entendre?

posted 16 years ago by hipdadiddy
15 replies | jump to latest

If, like me, you're a connoisseur of the kind of double entendres Hollywood resorted to in the crumbling days of the Production Code, just before it was possible to talk about sex openly (and, boy, did this movie go a long way toward making THAT happen), then you'll probably agree Kiss Me Stupid is the mother lode of (barely) concealed sleaze.

Wilder, of course, was a past master of the form, pushing the envelope in 1959 with stuff like Marilyn Monroe lamenting her relationships with men in Some Like It Hot: "I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop", and in KMS he ups the ante all the way (Dino, explaining why he wants to get Orville's wife out in the garden: "Maybe she'll show me her parsley.")

But for my money the one that boggles the mind even by today's standards involves the longest-necked wine bottle in the history of the cinema. As soon as I saw a character lug in that novelty bottle of chianti, sticking a good three feet out of its sack, I thought to myself, "Oh my God, Billy's going to go for the gold with this one!" -- and I wasn't disappointed.

The setup: Orville is cleaning out the room where Dino and Polly have been going at it (or were, until he threw Dino out) and is about to take the empty bottle into the kitchen. Polly stops him at the door and utters the immortal line, "Don't throw away that bottle. It might have a deposit on it."

[–] Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday 16 years ago

I knew this was going to be filled with double entendres before I even put the DVD in the player--it takes place in CLIMAX, Nevada for crying out loud. What more could you expect from a man whose last name is Wilder?

"Even for Albuquerque...this is pretty Albuquerque."

[–] MissIlsaLund 16 years ago

You can expect sleazy double entendres that sound like the pinnacle of wittiness by virtue of being written by Billy Wilder. Some Like it Hot actually more vulgar than Kiss Me, Stupid but it's *so* much more funny with that oblique approach. As much as I love Billy Wilder, I don't like it when it feels like he's venting this hyper-paranoid middle-aged sexual frustration and using weaker leading men to represent the "everyman."

Hildy- Don't be hasty. Remember my dimple. Love, Walter.

[–] WoodrowTruesmith 16 years ago

Naah, you're reading too much into that line. Yes, the bottle is ridiculously phallic, but that interpretation of the line is way out of character for both Polly and Wilder. Wilder was too much an Old World gent to make a deliberate pun on "deposit", which implies Dino used the bottle on (or instead of!) Polly - and the reference would have sailed right over the heads of the audience too, who weren't as versed in medical examiner lingo in 1964 as they are in today's CSI-era.

It's just a gag about how big the bottle is, and how much a thrifty, old-fashioned girl Polly is at heart, that she can't bear waste.

However, no doubt Wilder was behind the much more elegant (and yet lewd) double-entendre: "Maybe your wife will take me in the garden and show me her parsley."

[–] ackstasis 15 years ago

... I got my biggest laugh as Orville was about to leave for his alleged game of bowling. At which point, Dino says "we'll be rooting for you!"
Any Australian, at the very least, would get that one.

Last Film Seen:
* Children Of Men (2006, Alfonso Cuarón) – (9/10)

[–] squallywordy 15 years ago

polly says something like, i like your house.
and orville goes "it's not very big, but it's clean."
and she goes "what is?"

awesome

as for the bottle part, i don't know what you're talking about with him or her using it, but for a "deposit" to land on it, i thought it was funny.

[–] BlondeVixen 15 years ago

<At which point, Dino says "we'll be rooting for you!"
Any Australian, at the very least, would get that one.>

I'm not Australian, but I've read what rooting means in Aussie lingo. Maybe Wilder did too, & cleverly played upon it.

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Hoohawnaynay 13 years ago

I still think stuff is far funnier than what they do taday. Hell, Two & a Half Men gets away with far worse.

There is still some subtlety left in this movie. None today!

It's overall a silly movie so I don't know how anyone could get offended the plot is so stupid, which is actually in the title which gives it away.

I could watch Dean Martin & Kim Novak in anything and Ray Walston is always great even with mediocre material like this.

[–] jd-116 12 years ago

Well I'm surprised that nobody mentioned the Traffic Cop's directions to Dino. "You go by way of Warm Springs, Paradise Valley and Climax."

Now tell me that <i>that</i> wasn't deliberate!

[–] freudified_n_funkified 12 years ago

Now tell me that <i>that</i> wasn't deliberate!

Very deliberate. What does Dino say to it? "That's the only way to go."

Wilder got away with a hell of a lot in this movie and it's a veritable cash crop of brilliant wordplay. It's like a Marx Brothers movie.

As for Wilder being "too much of an old world gent" - as someone further up the thread put it - for him to knowingly go for the "deposit" joke: nah, I don't think he was (he was a gigolo in Berlin, after all) and I think he went for it. And it's a great joke. Associatively contextualized in the movie by the numerous blood bank references. A lot of the jokes decode that way (I mean, she's Polly the Pistol because she "bangs" dudes - it's sophisitcated, but unsubtle - or is it the other way around?)

Wilder had a tendency to dismiss his movies that weren't critical and commericial hits -- had this one gone over better I'm sure he would have owned it more. Instead, I think the failure of Kiss Me, Stupid traumatized him creatively. Contrary to whatever he said, I really think he put his all into it. And when it was so aggressively beaten down on it's release I think the rejection derailed the trajectory of his entire oeuvre. If his ambition in Kiss Me, Stupid had been encouraged instead of shunned it's a good bet that his remaining output might have been much more interesting. Seemed like only after this movie did he sort of become that "old world gent." Which is a shame.

[–] urish 11 years ago

Not subtle at all about Dino's interest in eating out....

[–] assman200 11 years ago

Exactly why Dean Martin was the perfect choice.

[–] Beau_Buffet 8 years ago

Not that it contradicts your post (great post, by the way) but the line is not "Don't throw away that bottle. It might have a deposit on it." but rather, "Don't throw away that bottle. There may be a deposit on it."