Promises! Promises!
Encyclopedia
Promises! Promises! is a 1963
unrated sex comedy
film, released after the demise of the Hays code and before the MPAA film rating system
became effective, produced by Tommy Noonan
(Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt). It was the first Hollywood motion picture release of the sound era to feature a mainstream
star—Jayne Mansfield
—in the nude. That distinction was to have gone to Marilyn Monroe
, who shot a nude scene for director George Cukor
's Something's Got to Give
in 1962, but the film went unfinished after Monroe's death. The first movie featuring a mainstream star fully nude was A Daughter of the Gods
(1916) featuring Annette Kellerman
, but the Hays code had brought an end to nudity in mainstream American films.
, to keep peace on the set.
and Mickey Hargitay
). Both couples set out on a drunken spree. They end up changing partners when retiring to their rooms. Later both women discover that they're pregnant, and set out to find whether the fathers are their own or the other's husband.
s. The first and longest (59 seconds) in a part of the scene where she sings "I'm In Love" semi-nude in a foam filled bathtub, then bends over with her back to the camera. The second when she towels herself off (4 seconds), and the most repeated (4 times) third when she writhes around on a bed (6 seconds). Mansfield reportedly drank some champagne in order to give her the will to get undressed in front of the camera.
Though the movie actually showed her only topless
, a photo in Kenneth Anger
's book Hollywood Babylon
shows Mansfield on the set completely nude with pubic hair
visible. In a set of photographs published in the Playboy pictorial (titled The Nudest Jayne Mansfield), Mansfield stares at her breast, as does T.C. Jones (Babbette, a female impersonator
hair stylist), then grasps it in her hand and lifts it high.
During the 1960s, 8 mm
mail order companies sold the nude footage. After Mansfield's death, the documentary The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield
(1968) included nude scenes from this film and pages from the Playboy pictorial, along with scenes from her other films including Too Hot to Handle
(1960), The Loves of Hercules
(1960) and L'Amore Primitivo
(1964).
The film was heavily publicized in the July 1963 issue of Playboy
, and led to an obscenity
charge against Hugh Hefner
, the publisher. Hefner was arrested by the Chicago police in June 1963, the only time in his life, and was acquitted by the jury. The jury voted 7-5 for acquittal. Copies of the issue reportedly sold for as much as $10 each. The film was presented for the first time on television in its uncut form in 1984 on the Playboy Channel. A VHS release soon followed but was only briefly in print. On February 14, 2006, VCI Video released the film on DVD with extras such as original trailers and a gallery of stills from the Playboy issue along with never before released lobby cards.
Both the original and an edited version enjoyed box office success in places where it was not banned, except for California. Mansfield was voted one of the Top 10 Box Office Attractions by theater owners that year. She received $150,000 for her role (half of the film's budget) and 10% of the film's profits.
The reviews included Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
writing - "The film is a bust", and Variety
writing - "The only excuse for this shabby self-propelled contrivance is that obviously there is an audience waiting to devour it." Chicago Sun-Times
movie critic Roger Ebert
wrote, "Finally in Promises! Promises! she does what no Hollywood star ever does except in desperation. She does a nudie. In 1963, that kind of box office appeal was all she had left."
1963 in film
The year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City....
unrated sex comedy
Sex comedy
Sex comedy is a term for comedy movies with sexual content usually referring to those made in the United Kingdom in the mid 1970s. They may range from comic pornographic films like the Confessions series to relatively innocent comedies that include jokes about sex and other sexual related humour,...
film, released after the demise of the Hays code and before the MPAA film rating system
MPAA film rating system
The Motion Picture Association of America's film-rating system is used in the U.S. and its territories to rate a film's thematic and content suitability for certain audiences. The MPAA system applies only to motion pictures that are submitted for rating. Other media may be rated by other entities...
became effective, produced by Tommy Noonan
Tommy Noonan
Tommy Noonan was a comedy genre film performer, screenwriter and producer. He acted in a number of 'A' and 'B' pictures from the 1940s through the 1960s, and he is best known for his supporting performances as Gus Esmond, Marilyn Monroe's wealthy boyfriend, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes , and as the...
(Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt). It was the first Hollywood motion picture release of the sound era to feature a mainstream
Mainstream
Mainstream is, generally, the common current thought of the majority. However, the mainstream is far from cohesive; rather the concept is often considered a cultural construct....
star—Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both in Hollywood and on the Broadway theatre...
—in the nude. That distinction was to have gone to Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, who shot a nude scene for director George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
's Something's Got to Give
Something's Got to Give
Something's Got to Give is an unfinished 1962 American feature film, directed by George Cukor and starring Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse...
in 1962, but the film went unfinished after Monroe's death. The first movie featuring a mainstream star fully nude was A Daughter of the Gods
A Daughter of the Gods
A Daughter of the Gods is a silent film that featured Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman.The film was controversial because of the sequences of what was regarded as superfluous nudity by the main character, Nydia, played by Kellerman...
(1916) featuring Annette Kellerman
Annette Kellerman
Annette Marie Sarah Kellerman was an Australian professional swimmer, vaudeville and film star, and writer...
, but the Hays code had brought an end to nudity in mainstream American films.
Production
Low on production value, and made for less than US $200,000, the movie banked on Mansfield's nudity. She also sings two songs in the film - "I'm in Love" (also known as the "Lullaby of Love") and "Promise Her Anything". The production went through so much bickering between Noonan and Mansfield that Noonan had to fly in Jet Fore, a crack publicist from 20th Century Fox20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, to keep peace on the set.
Plotline
Sandy Brooks (Mansfield) is desperate to get pregnant, but her husband Jeff (Tommy Noonan), a television script writer, is too stressed out to make love to her. In an attempt at a sea change, they go on a pleasure cruise and meet another couple, Claire and King Banner (Marie McDonaldMarie McDonald
Marie McDonald was an American singer and actress known as "The Body Beautiful" and later nicknamed "The Body".- Early life :...
and Mickey Hargitay
Mickey Hargitay
Miklós "Mickey" Hargitay was an actor and Mr. Universe 1955. Born in Budapest, Hungary, he was married to Jayne Mansfield, and the father of actress Mariska Hargitay...
). Both couples set out on a drunken spree. They end up changing partners when retiring to their rooms. Later both women discover that they're pregnant, and set out to find whether the fathers are their own or the other's husband.
Nude scenes
Mansfield appears undressed in three scenes in Promises! Promises!. These three scenes are repeated a few times in the movie as dream sequenceDream sequence
A dream sequence is a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other element. Commonly, dream sequences appear in many...
s. The first and longest (59 seconds) in a part of the scene where she sings "I'm In Love" semi-nude in a foam filled bathtub, then bends over with her back to the camera. The second when she towels herself off (4 seconds), and the most repeated (4 times) third when she writhes around on a bed (6 seconds). Mansfield reportedly drank some champagne in order to give her the will to get undressed in front of the camera.
Though the movie actually showed her only topless
Toplessness
Toplessness is the state in which a female's breasts are uncovered, with the areolae and nipples visible, usually in a public space. It can also refer to a female not wearing any clothing above the waist, which is the female equivalent to a male barechestedness.The history and even the present-day...
, a photo in Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger is an American underground experimental filmmaker, occasional actor and author...
's book Hollywood Babylon
Hollywood Babylon
Hollywood Babylon is a book by avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger which details the sordid scandals of many famous and infamous Hollywood denizens from the 1900s to the 1950s. First published in the US in 1965, it was banned ten days later and would not be republished until 1975...
shows Mansfield on the set completely nude with pubic hair
Pubic hair
Pubic hair is hair in the frontal genital area, the crotch, and sometimes at the top of the inside of the legs; these areas form the pubic region....
visible. In a set of photographs published in the Playboy pictorial (titled The Nudest Jayne Mansfield), Mansfield stares at her breast, as does T.C. Jones (Babbette, a female impersonator
Drag queen
A drag queen is a man who dresses, and usually acts, like a caricature woman often for the purpose of entertaining. There are many kinds of drag artists and they vary greatly, from professionals who have starred in films to people who just try it once. Drag queens also vary by class and culture and...
hair stylist), then grasps it in her hand and lifts it high.
During the 1960s, 8 mm
8 mm film
8 mm film is a motion picture film format in which the filmstrip is eight millimeters wide. It exists in two main versions: the original standard 8mm film, also known as regular 8 mm or Double 8 mm, and Super 8...
mail order companies sold the nude footage. After Mansfield's death, the documentary The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield
The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield
The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield is a 1968 X-Rated documentary film based on the life of the late 1950s sex-bomb Jayne Mansfield.-Background:...
(1968) included nude scenes from this film and pages from the Playboy pictorial, along with scenes from her other films including Too Hot to Handle
Too Hot to Handle (1960 film)
Too Hot to Handle is a low-budget neo-noir British gangster thriller, directed by Terence Young. Christopher Lee has a small role in the film....
(1960), The Loves of Hercules
The Loves of Hercules
The Loves of Hercules is a 1960 Italian-epic fantasy-feature film starring Jayne Mansfield and husband Mickey Hargitay.-Alternative titles:*Hercules vs...
(1960) and L'Amore Primitivo
L'Amore Primitivo
L'Amore Primitivo is a 1964 Italian comedy film that starred Jayne Mansfield, Mickey Hargitay, Franco Franchi, Ciccio Ingrassia, and Carlo Kechler.-Release dates:*Italy ... August 17, 1964...
(1964).
Publicity
The publicity and advanced blurbs on Playboy put Mansfield's name out as a major box office draw, though reviews of the film were next to disastrous. However, most of the offers that she received were largely of similar skin flicks.The film was heavily publicized in the July 1963 issue of Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
, and led to an obscenity
Obscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
charge against Hugh Hefner
Hugh Hefner
Hugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...
, the publisher. Hefner was arrested by the Chicago police in June 1963, the only time in his life, and was acquitted by the jury. The jury voted 7-5 for acquittal. Copies of the issue reportedly sold for as much as $10 each. The film was presented for the first time on television in its uncut form in 1984 on the Playboy Channel. A VHS release soon followed but was only briefly in print. On February 14, 2006, VCI Video released the film on DVD with extras such as original trailers and a gallery of stills from the Playboy issue along with never before released lobby cards.
Reception
Promises! Promises! was banned in Cleveland and several other cities, though later the Cleveland court decided the nude scenes in the film were not lewd after all.Both the original and an edited version enjoyed box office success in places where it was not banned, except for California. Mansfield was voted one of the Top 10 Box Office Attractions by theater owners that year. She received $150,000 for her role (half of the film's budget) and 10% of the film's profits.
The reviews included Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
The Los Angeles Herald Examiner was a major Los Angeles daily newspaper, published Monday through Friday in the afternoon, and in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays. It was part of the Hearst syndicate. The afternoon Herald-Express and the morning Examiner, both of which had been publishing in...
writing - "The film is a bust", and Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
writing - "The only excuse for this shabby self-propelled contrivance is that obviously there is an audience waiting to devour it." Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
movie critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
wrote, "Finally in Promises! Promises! she does what no Hollywood star ever does except in desperation. She does a nudie. In 1963, that kind of box office appeal was all she had left."