The Perfect Furlough

The Army has a problem. 104 men has been in an Arctic base for 7 months but they can't all go on furlough.

Director Blake Edwards would go on to do some very funny PINK PANTHER movies, but THE PERFECT FURLOUGH begins to crumble upon the premise that men stationed in the Arctic would all be happy if just one of them got a furlough in Paris with a beautiful star (Linda Cristal).Unfortunately, the script only gets dafter as the film progresses, culminating in Cristal getting pregnant, apparently by her accountant hubby whom we never see.

Long before pregnancy test kits could be found in every drug, discount or department store, it was apparently possible to become pregnant and know you were pregnant mere hours after coitus. That "fact" forms the basis for a silly vehicle putting the two Curtis' together.

Funny little early Blake Edwards. Curtis & Leigh are quite good, but watch for the supporting actors.

'The Perfect Furlough' is two-thirds of the way through before it finally stops wasting our time, and the romance we've been anticipating all along between real-life lovebirds Tony Curtis & Janet Leigh finally blooms; although there are still the usual irksome misunderstandings to be surmounted before the final clinch.Two decades after this film Blake Edwards returned to glossy sex farce availing himself of the far more relaxed censorship of the seventies, eighties and nineties, but with not much more stimulating results.

I'm a fan of Tony Curtis so obviously I am more inclined to like this movie than not. To be completely fair this movie is not his best effort and in fact it is probably one of the worst movies of this period of his acting career.

'The Perfect Furlough's' main attraction is the cast (Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Keenan Wynn, Elaine Stritch) . Also the talented Blake Edwards, who did many good to great films, so 'The Perfect Furlough' is watchable if one is trying to see as many films of his as possible.

In his memoirs Tony Curtis lists this as one of five films he would make with first wife Janet Leigh. As opposed to such dramatic fare as Houdini or a great comedy like Who Was That Lady, The Perfect Furlough is distinctly second rate.

Whenever I post a review to IMDB, I have learned that certain words, often innocent words, cause IMDB to refuse to post a review or hold it up for a long time. But sometimes it's difficult NOT to use certain words...