Kiss Them for Me

Kiss Them for Me (1957)

They tried so hard ... so very hard ... not to fall in love !

Three navy war heroes are booked on a morale-building "vacation" in San Francisco. Once they manage to elude their ulcerated public relations officer, the trio throw a wild party with plenty of pretty girls.

Date of release
1957-12-10
TMDB
5.7 / 10 (35)
Runtime
1h 45m
Genres
Comedy, Romance
Director
Stanley Donen

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Kiss Them for Me

Kiss Them for Me is a 1957 American romantic comedy film directed by Stanley Donen in CinemaScope, starring Cary Grant, Jayne Mansfield and model-turned-actress Suzy Parker in her first film role. The film is an adaptation of the 1945 Broadway play of the same name, itself based on Frederic Wakeman Sr.'s 1944 novel Shore Leave. The supporting cast features Ray Walston, Werner Klemperer, Leif Erickson, and Larry Blyden.

Production

Frederic Wakeman, Sr. (1909–1998) worked in the advertising industry until leaving Lord & Thomas to serve in the United States Navy in the Pacific from 1942 to 1943. Recovering in a naval hospital, he wrote his first novel, Shore Leave, basing the character of Andy Crewson on an actual decorated naval aviator, which was published in 1944.

In 1945 the recently discharged Luther Davis acquired the rights to Wakeman's novel and adapted it into a play called Kiss Them for Me which ran for 110 performances from March 20, 1945, to June 23, 1945, and featured Richard Widmark as Crewson and Judy Holliday as Alice.

When Wald acquired the property Richard Widmark was approached to reprise his Crewson role but was quickly passed over once Cary Grant expressed interest in the project. The film was the first of four collaborations between Stanley Donen and Grant.

The screenplay toned down many cynical anti-war profiteer dialogues of the play and made the Alice character a war worker rather than a "Victory Girl". The film was the feature film debut of both Ray Walston and Nathanial Frey, who had appeared together in Damn Yankees on stage, as well as Suzy Parker.

The film was shot on various locations in San Francisco. At the end of the film, USS Boxer, an Essex-class aircraft carrier, can be seen launching a Douglas A-1 Skyraider type aircraft, though the Skyraider type was not actually used in World War II.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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