Review of If a Man Answers

Okay, before I review this movie, I have to complain about some of the pixelating messiness of some of the scenes. While I managed to rewind some scenes I had to skip because of this, I still wish I could have seen the whole movie proper. Even without those technical problems, I don't think I was too enamored of the story with Sandra Dee as a daughter of a French mother and a Boston-bred father having to get married soon so she can give up her gallivantin' ways. Then after she moves to New York, she meets Bobby Darin as a model photographer who wants her in his pictures. She'll only agree to them if he marries her. He does but doesn't want her in them anymore! The rest of the picture has Dee trying to get her husband to pay more attention to her instead of new model-and former friend-Stephanie Powers by using a dog manual to treat him like a pet and then using a "made up" former lover of her mom to get Darin jealous. The performances, from Sandra and Bobby-who's quite hilarious in the beginning-to Powers, John Lund and Micheline Presle as the parents, and Cesar Romero as the guy portraying Dee's "paramour" aren't bad but the whole thing just fell apart after the marriage. I think I would've preferred to see the real-life married couple at the time try to balance their careers with him trying to please both Dee and Powers in whatever demands they give him. As it is, I think I'd only recommend If a Man Answers if you want to see Dee and Darin on-screen together. P.S. The animation at the beginning was probably the best part of the picture. P.P.S. I've now seen the whole movie after wiping the back of the disc. While a little better and I'm upping my rating from 3 to 4, some of my material objections still stand.