Barefoot In The Park (1967)

Always loved this film, but the message of the carefree woman having to “give up a piece of herself for her husband” gag me

Love science diet

This movie is about two incredibly beautiful human beings, Paul and Corey Bratter (Robert Redford and Jane Fonda) who fall in love and get married. It's a comedy, but what's so funny about that premise? Lots. This is an adaptation of the Broadway hit written by the great Neil Simon. The story takes place in the 1960's, so the convention of not having sex or moving in together until you get married is what no longer exists. So what never changes? How beautiful young people act when they first start having sex, and how they act when they start living together, share the same space and start socializing as a couple. Nowadays you don't have to be married to go through all that, but you can definitely relate to the problems that arise when a man and woman begin to share the same living space. There's lots of comic material there. However, these two happen to be perfectly compatible only in the bedroom--they are polar opposites in personality. She is fun and personable, loves adventure, new people and new places. She finds humor and beauty in everything, and she's a little over the top emotionally too. He is serious--really, awfully, terribly serious. He folds his tie when he takes it off, for crying out loud. He's all about business--he's more excited about working all night on his first legal case for the firm that just hired him than having a great night in his new apartment with his gorgeous (whatever you think politically about Jane Fonda she is world-class gorgeous) and very sexually motivated (OK, horny) wife. Do they have a difference of opinion? Oh, you bet. Do they really love each other? It takes a while for them to figure that out, and you get to enjoy every minute of it. There's also a 50-year-old globe-trotting adventurer living above them who's been married 4 times and loves women. Corey decides he's just the thing for her very conservative, widowed mother who "needs to get out more". You will see a great gag involving a lot of stairs and no elevator. I wonder if that was the inspiration for the broken elevator situation in The Big Bang Theory. The only thing I didn't like about the film was how the camera always managed to look up Jane Fonda's miniskirt but I suppose the character really didn't care. She bids her new husband goodbye as he leaves for work from their honeymoon suite in front of an elevator full of people. She is wearing only one of his shirts and says, "Goodby, Mr. Bratter, stop by the next time you're in New York." She is playful. Is he shocked? What do you think? This is a great film with wonderful actors, and it does have a lesson in it. Very fun film.

Who doesn't like Jane Fonda and Robert Redford! This is a really cute move about a quirky couple. It has the witty dialog and the awe moments of the traditional rom com. Not a movie you have to pay close attention to in order to follow along with. Great rainy day, cleaning movie to watch.

Barefoot in the Park is a favorite film in our household, one that we watch almost every February (when the movie is set). Neil Simon's screenplay is hilarious (and a little touching). Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, Mildred Natwick, Charles Boyer, Herb Edelman, and Fritz Feld play their roles to perfection. The Neal Hefti score is wonderful, a preview of his classic music for the upcoming Odd Couple movie, which was also written by Neil Simon.The 2020 Blu ray disc of Barefoot in the Park has a very sharp, bright (but not too bright) picture. It's a big improvement over the old DVD version, as demonstrated by an A/B comparison. The old DVD was tolerable but had a noticeably fuzzier, darker picture. The Blu ray is worth getting for the picture quality.So why only four stars for an excellent movie that's presented with a nice sharp picture? When Paramount put together the Blu ray version, it foolishly and unnecessarily eliminated the trailer that was on the DVD edition. Why deprive fans of this movie of the trailer, which provides an interesting look at how this lovely film was promoted 50 years ago? The trailer was obviously available, so there's no excuse for excluding it. I didn't expect this movie to have commentary and featurette documentaries (although the Criterion Collection has proven that older comedies can benefit from such respectful treatment), but why omit the one "bonus feature" -- the trailer -- that's already available? Bad move, Paramount!

Funny underrated sitcom this made just prior to "Klute" and "Butch Cassidy" in which both Fonda and Redford really made their mark. I enjoyed it enough then to go out and buy the video 30 years later.Paul and Corrie Bratter are two newly weds who move into a fifth floor apartment of a building with no lifts. She is extrovert, bubbly and a little naive always wanting to try new experiences while he is a staid advertising executive on a fast track to being very boring. Inevitably there is a clash of personalities. Somehow in these more liberal times such an outcome could easily have been avoided,nevertheless... There is an interesting bohemian character next door who serves as a catalyst for finally bringing out there differences to the fore. A Mr Victor Velasco played with great relish by Charles Boyer. When he invites them all to dinner including Corries mother and serves a hot dish of lychees, the story takes a different turn. It also aroused my curiosity enough to go out and try this tasty asian delicacy myself. But I digress. The 'barefoot in the park' literal ending is both touching and romantic. Enough said. This is not a great comedy as comedies go but extremely watchable for those have us who have a nostalgia for the 60's when cohabitation outside wedlock was still a novelty. Both Boyer and Natwick manage to upstage everyone with there spot-on characterisations. No over acting here. I sometimes wonder if Fonda and Redford had not gone on to bigger things that maybe they would have ended up on some similar tv sitcom of this genre. Fortunately for us they didnt...

Funny!

One oddity of this film is that, although made in 1967, the Summer of Love, you would never know this from the way it looks This is explained by its origin in a Neil Simon play that debuted on Broadway four years earlier, which in turn was based on Neil Simon’s early married life in the 1950s.The Broadway run, the most successful of Simon’s plays, meant that the humour had been thoroughly road tested, and the result is a film full of laughs, however dated the setting. Many of these come from the performance of Mildred Natwick, who earned a deserved Oscar nomination. (She had a similar role in Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry, two years earlier, opposite one of his favourite actors, Edmund Gwenn)Robert Redford as Paul Bratter shows a previously unexpected talent for comedy and there is real chemistry between him and Jane Fonda, as Corie Bratter.The story covers the first few days of a couple’s marriage, and the setting, apart from their honeymoon in the Plaza Hotel, is mainly in their new apartment. This is at the top of a five-storey house in Greenwich Village leading to a running gag about all their visitors arriving breathless.It quickly becomes apparent that the disparity between Redford’s conventional lawyer Paul, and Fonda’s free spirited Corie is a cause of friction (another sign of the times is that she does not appear to have a job). Chuck Lorre’s more recent TV series, Dharma and Greg mined a similar seam of comedy.Another free spirit, Victor Velasco lives in the building’s attic and takes the couple and her mother to an Albanian restaurant on Staten Island, resulting in a contrasting reaction from Corie and Paul. This provokes a row when the couple return home, but her mother and Victor, after an accident, discover they have more in common than she thought, and that he has to recognise he is getting older.Of course, all ends happily with Paul becoming less of a stuffed shirt, and Corie realising that there is something to be said for reliability. And the audience too should feel happier: if, as they say, laughter is the best medicine, there is plenty on offer here.

They don't make films like this any more. Not a single cuss-word in two hours of marital comedy. No nudity. No bittersweet savagery. What on earth is going on here? The bride's mother isn't quite sure where her clothes have got to. Funny eh? Balkan cuisine burns your mouth. That's really funny. A drunk takes off his shoes and raises a ruckus in the park. Hilarious. BUT ... there is a couple who share the newlyweds apartment block. This (invisible) couple are of the same sex, though nobody is quite sure which sex that is. These days, a joke like that could destroy your career and might even put you inside. I enjoyed the film as a trip back in a time capsule. Innocent days. Or, when you think about it, maybe not so innocent.

This is one of Neil Simon's best. He was a fantastic writer and just raced home with this genre so well.The story is about two newlyweds Paul and Corie Bratter (Redford and Fonda). Paul is a very staid lawyer and Corie is his bright, bubbly and adventurous wife, and the story centres around first few weeks of the couples' marriage. The peripheral characters are Corie's mother, played by Mildred Natwick and Victor Velasco, played by Charles Boyer.This film is dated, but it's hilarious. It's warm and light-hearted and all just-coming-out-of-the-50's-white-middle-class, but it does work as a feelgood film. And the gorgeous Robert Redford is surprisingly funny! But it's Mildred Natwick, that steals the show in my eyes. Her timing and facial expressions are priceless. The scene where Robert Redford carries her up the stairs is one that will stay in my mind forever.I laughed, cried, cried with laughter, wanted it to turn out alright in the end. And it did. I'm not spoiling it, but come on, look at the cover, you must know everyone has a HEA. :-)

Found this to be an enjoyable comedy. Although Redford's character is supposedly a stuffed shirt, he was so comical and spontaneous I could not fathom when he lost this ability in later productions.Fonda's portrayal of a light hearted lover was a perfect foil to her family, neighbors, and friends. It was an interesting aspect that she always lit up when referencing their five day love nest Honeymoon at the Plaza.High recommend for light comedy, young Redford and Fonda, 60's Village New York and that initial glow of romance.

Robert Redford & Jane Fonda have an obvious chemistry that comes across well on the screen. The movie is based on the play of the same name,and has translated easily to the screen. Mildred Natwick as the mother of Jane Fonda,delivers many memorable and amusing one-liners,such as: "If you follow my advice,you will have a happy marriage,like two of every ten couples."The soundtrack and the general look of the film have dated,but for me that added to the charm of the film,and Redford and Fonda both look great here. This is a fun and unpretentious piece of late 60s movie history. Unfortunately there are no bonus features or extras on this DVD.