The Notorious Landlady | |
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Directed by | Richard Quine |
Written by | Blake Edwards Larry Gelbart |
Based on | The Notorious Tenant 1956 Collier's by Margery Sharp[1][2] |
Produced by | Fred Kohlmar Richard Quine |
Starring | Kim Novak Jack Lemmon Fred Astaire Lionel Jeffries Estelle Winwood |
Cinematography | Arthur E. Arling |
Edited by | Charles Nelson |
Music by | George Duning |
Color process | Black and white |
Production company | Columbia Pictures |
Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 123 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $2.7 million (US/Canada)[3] |
The Notorious Landlady is a 1962 American comedy mystery film starring Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, and Fred Astaire.[4][5] The film was directed by Richard Quine, with a script by Blake Edwards and Larry Gelbart.
When American diplomat William Gridley arrives in London, he rents the second floor of Carly Hardwicke's townhouse and promptly falls in love with his sexy new landlady. But Gridley isn't aware of what many people suspect—that Carly murdered her husband Miles. However, since there is no body, Carly cannot be prosecuted. A Scotland Yard inspector, Oliphant, visits the embassy and convinces Gridley to spy on her. However, that evening, a fire erupts as he and Carly grill steaks in her back yard. The fire makes Fleet Street headlines, and a scandal results. But since Carly is an American, she goes to the embassy to plead Gridley's case. She tells Gridley's boss, Franklyn Ambruster, that Gridley is a good man and not to transfer him out of the country. Ambruster is touched. He takes Carly to lunch, becomes smitten with her, and proclaims her innocence in the murder affair.
One evening, Miles turns up in the townhouse, alive and well. His uneasy reunion with Carly degenerates into violence, and when Miles approaches her with a gun, there is a struggle, and the gun goes off, killing him. The fatal report is heard by Gridley while on the phone with Inspector Oliphant. But at the coroner's inquest, Carly is cleared when a crippled neighbor's private nurse testifies that Miles assaulted Carly. After the inquest, the nurse attempts to blackmail Carly over a pawn ticket to a candelabra that Miles had stuffed with stolen jewels. Carly and Gridley try to retrieve the candelabra but find the pawnbroker murdered. Gridley and Carly then locate the nurse in a Penzance retirement community. They catch her in the act of pushing her elderly patient off a cliff to silence her. (It was, in fact, the elderly patient who witnessed Miles and Carly fighting, not the nurse.) Gridley and Carly save the elderly lady as Ambruster and Oliphant arrive by helicopter. The crooked nurse is arrested and led away in cuffs.