Sunday in New York (1963)

(On Cable TV, November 2020) The more I explore early-1960s Hollywood movies, the more I’m seeing—especially in silly sex comedies—the rumblings of the social changes that went on during the decade. Hollywood was not well equipped, especially pre-New Hollywood, to do justice to these changes. Hampered by the inertia of the Production Code, hesitant to challenge audiences that were also used to a certain kind of Hollywood, the major studios poked and prodded (especially in jest) at the social changes but tried to keep some decorum about it. That’s how you end up with the quaintly charming subgenre of 1960s sex comedies that nodded toward greater liberalization, while not giving in to any uncharacteristic crassness. Sunday in New York clearly plays by those rules. It makes a fuss of discussing premarital sex (even the poster cheekily states that the film is “dedicated to the proposition that every girl gets… sooner or later”) and complicating the romantic situation of its heroine, but it ends up very traditional in its conclusions. The execution, working from a fast-paced script based on a theatrical play, benefits from some serious acting talent: Jane Fonda is terrific (and sexy) in the lead role, while she’s surrounded by none other than Rod Taylor, Cliff Robertson and Robert Culp as brothers and suitors. The jet-setting lifestyle that was so hip in the 1960s is showcased as a vision of life in then-Manhattan. As a farce, Sunday in New York is more successful than not: even if it has been outdone in raciness several times over by generations of spiritual inheritors, it remains a fun fine comedy with a bit more class than many of the similar sex comedies of the time.