Synopsis
In this film based on a Neil Simon play, newlyweds Corie, a free spirit, and Paul Bratter, an uptight lawyer, share a sixth-floor apartment in Greenwich Village. Soon after their marriage, Corie tries to find a companion for mother, Ethel, who is now alone, and sets up Ethel with neighbor Victor. Inappropriate behavior on a double date causes conflict, and the young couple considers divorce.
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Cast
- Robert RedfordPaul Bratter
- Jane FondaCorie Bratter
- Charles BoyerVictor Velasco
- Mildred NatwickEthel Banks
- Herb EdelmanHarry Pepper
- Mabel AlbertsonHarriet
- Fritz FeldRestaurant Proprietor
- James StoneDelivery Man
- Ted HartleyFrank
- Doris RobertsHotel Maid (uncredited)
Recommendations
- 80
Variety
A thoroughly entertaining comedy delight about young marriage. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Redford and the Oscar-nominated Natwick, fresh from their Broadway triumph in the play, perform with the ease familiarity brings, and Fonda and Boyer also display the appropriate lightness of touch. - 70
Time
Barefoot in the Park is one of the few plays to be reincarnated on-screen while playing on the Broadway stage. Happily, it loses little in transition. - 70
Time Out
Sprightly dialogue, nice performances. - 60
Chicago Reader
Nothing special, but it's a decent example of a vanished genre—the small character comedy. - 60
The New Yorker
Almost amusing in a harmlessly, pleasantly stupid way. - 40
The New York Times
Gene Saks, directing his first movie, has paced it so unevenly and allowed such glaring mismatches of scenic backgrounds and even of gag sequences that it looks as though his costly picture was made by people who didn't know their way around. - 40
Village Voice
Gene Saks directs his first film so clumsily that he even muffs Mike Nichol’s exploitation of the climbing the stairs gag that kept Neil Simon’s feeble farce running for 79 years on Broadway.
