The Notorious Landlady

The Notorious Landlady is a 1962 American comedy mystery film starring Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, and Fred Astaire. The film was directed by Richard Quine, with a script by Blake Edwards and Larry Gelbart based on the short story "The Notorious Tenant" by Margery Sharp.

Plot
A young boy shoots passerby with a toy gun. Mrs. Dunhill an older woman in wheelchair reacts to a gunshot noise and mentions that is because the gun shot she heard is from a real gun and not the toy gun. Neighbors open their windows to inquire about the gun shot. An American diplomat William Gridley has just arrived in London and is looking to rent an apartment. He responds to an advertisement in the newspaper. When he arrives at the house a maid opens the door and informs him that the apartment is only being rented to couples. He convinces her to take a look at the apartment and during this time he realises that the maid is actually the owner of the apartment - Carly Hardwicke. She lets him rent the second floor of the townhouse. Gridley informs his boss, Franklyn Ambruster that he has found a flat for rent. When Ambruster hears Carly hardwicke's name it seems familiar so he calls the research department to inquire if they have any information. It turns out that the whole town suspects that Carly murdered her husband Miles, however, since there is no body, Carly cannot be prosecuted. When he moves in to the house she tells him that a closet on the main floor is locked and to use the one in his room. Gridley and Hardwicke go out on a date where they are followed by Scotland Yard. At the restaurant her presence causes quite a stir but Gridley is oblivious to it. While leaving the restaurant a mysterious man approaches her and she takes him aside to have a conversation with him. Gridley inquires about her marital status when they are back in the house and she says that she might be a widow. He wakes up at night when he hears her playing the organ in a thoughtful mood. The next day, a Scotland Yard inspector, Oliphant, visits the embassy and convinces Gridley to spy on her as she has claimed his insurance and suspects that she killed him. When he returns back to the flat he finds a suspicious note and decides to look into the closet, where he finds a uniform which he tries on. He goes through the house and finds a bottle of arsenic and some books that discuss murder. Carly returns while he is in her room, so he hides in her closet and overhears her talking to someone that the job needs to be done tonight and they might need two men to get it out of the house. He manages to return the coat to the closet and pretend that he has just returned. That evening, while having a barbeque in the backyard where all the neighbors are watching them from their windows, a fire erupts. The fire makes Fleet Street headlines and Ambruster decides to transfer him to out of London.

Carly 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 and decides not to transfer Gridley. They both decided to look into the matter and decide to go to Carly’s house where they see her talking to the mysterious man that she spoke to outside the restaurant. Gridley decides to follow him while Ambruster follows Carly who leaves the house shortly after that. The man who Gridley is following turns out to be a priest and Carly has sold him the organ way below the cost. When he returns to the flat he finds his bags packed and Carly asks him to leave. He tells her that he doesn’t care if she murdered her husband and tells her that he loves her.

Gridley calls Oliphant to inform him that he will not spy on Carly anymore and when on the telephone they hear a gun shot. When Gridley goes to Carly’s room he finds Miles’s body with Carly standing over it with a gun in her hand. He goes to stand near her when Sgt. Dillings from Scotland Yard detective enters the room leading him to believe that they both shot Miles.

At the coroner's inquest, Carly is cleared when a crippled neighbor's private nurse Mrs. Brown testifies that Miles assaulted Carly. After the inquest, Mrs. Brown 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 Mrs. Dunhill off a cliff to silence her. (It was, in fact, Mrs. Dunhill who witnessed Miles and Carly fighting, not Mrs. Brown.) Gridley and Carly save the elderly lady as Ambruster and Oliphant arrive by helicopter and arrest Mrs. Brown. Ambruster then tells Gridley and Carly that they are better off back in the States.

Cast

 * Kim Novak as Carlyle 'Carly' Hardwicke
 * Jack Lemmon as William 'Bill' Gridley
 * Fred Astaire as Franklyn Ambruster
 * Lionel Jeffries as Inspector Oliphant
 * Estelle Winwood as Mrs Dunhill
 * Maxwell Reed as Miles Hardwicke
 * Philippa Bevans as Mrs Agatha Brown
 * Doris Lloyd as Lady Fallott
 * Henry Daniell as the Stranger
 * Ronald Long as Coroner
 * Richard Peel as Sergeant Dillings
 * Dick Crockett as Detective Carstairs
 * Ottola Nesmith as Flower Woman
 * Bess Flowers as Courtroom Spectator
 * Scott Davey as Henry
 * Ross Brown as Boy
 * Mary O'Brady as Mrs Oliphant

Production
The film was announced in December 1957 with Richard Quine to direct and Jack Lemmon to star opposite Victoria Shaw, and filming was originally scheduled to begin in February 1958. Blake Edwards wrote the first version of the script. Quine recruited writer Larry Gelbart to write a draft, and S. N. Behrman revised it.

Lemmon and Novak had appeared together on screen twice previously, in Phffft! (1954) and Bell, Book and Candle (1958). Novak, who had previously been engaged to marry Quine, was paid $600,000. It was her last performance for Columbia after eight years with the studio.

The song "A Foggy Day (in London Town)" by George and Ira Gershwin, which serves as the film's main theme, was introduced in the 1937 Fred Astaire film A Damsel in Distress.

Filming began on May 15, 1961. The opening London scenes were filmed at the Columbia Ranch in Burbank, California. The closing scenes set on the cliffs of Cornwall were filmed at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve in Carmel, California.

Reception
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote that the film is "well worth the viewing of anybody who wants a nice breezy comedy concocted with a little standard mystery and suspense" and succeeds despite Novak's performance: "[T]he title role is played by Kim Novak, and that simply does not augur well. Miss Novak is one of those performers who have cast so many drab and saggy palls over good motion pictures that one shudders to see her name in a cast. ... In short, Miss Novak is a flat tire. But Mr. Lemmon as the embassy chap makes up in solid measure for her lack of inflation and bounce."

Nominations

 * Nominated for Best Written American Comedy in 1963 at the WGA Awards.