HotToastyRag On Wednesdays, Jason Robards tells his wife he's spending the night in a corporate apartment, when really he's spending the night at his girlfriend's place. His client, Dean Jones, is in town and is accidentally sent to the executive suite instead of a hotel. He thinks Jane Fonda, Jason's girlfriend, is actually a hooker hired by the company! Muriel Resnik's successful Broadway play Any Wednesday fits in with many 1960s sex comedies, and Jane Fonda fits right in, as she did in Sunday in New York and Barefoot in the Park. She's beautiful and has fantastic comic timing, so the misunderstandings are twice as funny when she's in the middle. I never find Jason Robards to be very likable, but when he's paired up against Jane, he softens around the edges. While I liked Sunday in New York the best, this is a cute movie for those who like play adaptations or silly comedies that take issue with premarital sex. Jane Fonda really is totally adorable!

SnoopyStyle Wealthy businessman John Cleves (Jason Robards) lies to his wife Dorothy (Rosemary Murphy) to have affairs on any Wednesday. Ellen Gordon (Jane Fonda) is a gallery clerk who inadvertently helps him. He is relentless in his pursuit until she surrenders to his wealth and power. She's getting kicked out of her apartment unless she gets $32K. John proposes his company buy her apartment as a love nest. She surprises herself with her uncontrollable lust for him. One day, John's secretary sends Cass Henderson (Dean Jones) to stay at the company apartment. Cass figures it's a love nest and intends to find out if it's Cleves's. Dorothy drops by and assumes that Cass and Ellen are together. They play along leading to an all out farce.Jason Robards is old and disgusting. He is a horrible character. The affair makes my head hurt and my soul cry. Jane Fonda is playing such a weak minded character. Dean Jones' character is only better by comparison. These are all unlikeable character to one degree or another. I don't care about any of these characters and I don't care what happens to them. The farce is all wacky without being funny.

evening1 I kept thinking of how the self-actualized Jane Fonda of today must look back on this trifle and blush. She plays Ellen, a ditsy bimbo with no discernible direction in life who allows her affections to be bought by the crass, self-satisfied user of a businessman, John Cleves (Jason Robards). This story is terribly dated and all of the characters overact -- down to an interior designer who is egregiously overplayed so as to seem gay. I suppose this film, which often plays like a sitcom, aspires to be a zany farce. But it drags and cries out for editing. (That extended scene in the car, with all the principals playing a silly clapping game...what drivel! Wasn't there any other way to advance this weak-kneed plot??) Fonda is pretty here but that's all I can say for her characterization of an intellectually challenged blonde. Dean Jones -- conjuring a young Jimmy Stewart -- does OK, despite all odds, as the kind of guy Ellen should have been dating -- a young man who could think beyond his own immediate gratification."I'm full of love," he tells his inamorata. "It's all right here -- just waiting for the right person to come along!" Fonda was still starting out in her career, but one wonders why the by-then respected Robards -- 44 when this was filmed but seeming much older -- accepted a gig like this!I know, someone reading this review will tell me to lighten up -- it's just a frothy comedy! Even when viewed through that tinted lens, this could have been way better.

jjnxn-1 What used to be referred to as a sex comedy which in the more innocent time it was made meant that if included no actual sex only the suggestion of it. The film is dated in its attitudes that's true but because of the lightness with which the material is played by the four leads it remains a breezy comedy. Jane is at her fluttery bubbly early career best and because of her hairstyle it's striking how much she resembles her present day self. All four principals are very winning, Rosemary Murphy in particular is a chic delight as well as wonderfully droll. The film also offers a reminder that there was a time when Dean Jones was quite an expert comic actor. The story is a bit incredible but being a romantic comedy that sort of goes with the territory.