moonspinner55 Review of In the Cool of the Day

In the Cool of the Day (1963)

Fonda in exotic wig provides the only (unintentional) laugh

[3/10 · 22 February 2004]

Infidelity on the Mediterranean as a vacationing man and woman, married to others, fall for each other while touring Athens under the eyes of their respective spouses. What they used to call a "windswept soaper", with handsome travelogue footage from Greece used to bolster a wayward story. Performances are mostly dull, unusual with such a good cast: Peter Finch looks sleepy as he attempts to mediate a rift between friend Arthur Hill and wife Jane Fonda; she's a flirt and ensnares Finch, much to the concern of Peter's wife, Angela Lansbury (who manages to give the film a little goose). Bewigged Fonda is meant to be alluring and faintly dangerous, but her exotic Asian-styled hairpiece instead makes her look like the night hostess at Madame Chow's. Barely-released melodrama from John Houseman Productions and MGM recently gained some recent notoriety for being named by Fonda as the least-favorite of her own movies, although it's really no more terrible than, say, "Tall Story" or "Period of Adjustment". *1/2 from ****