Sex and the Single Girl is a 1964 American Romantic Comedy film directed by Richard Quine, starring Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Henry Fonda, Lauren Bacall, Mel Ferrer, and Edward Everett Horton. It was inspired by the 1962 self-help book of the same name by author (and future Cosmopolitan editor) Helen Gurley Brown, who Wood plays a heavily fictionalized version of in the film.
Robert "Bob" Weston (Curtis) is a reporter and the managing editor of STOP, a magazine that has become a reviled but successful tabloid. Their most recent target for slander is Helen Gurley Brown (Wood), a psychologist who wrote a book to encourage single women to be financially independent and have sexual relationships before or without marriage. Predictably, their article infuriates her and damages her reputation. Bob decides he wants to get a better story on Helen, impersonates his neighbor Frank (Fonda) whose marriage with Sylvia (Bacall) is imperiled, and gets closer to Helen. He unexpectedly grows feelings for Helen, and chaos ensues from there.
This film provides examples of the following tropes:
- The '60s: The film was made in 1964 and it shows. It is based on a non-fiction book that is associated with the era's Feminism (Second Wave) and the start of the "sexual revolution"
. - Actor Allusion: People keep saying Bob looks like Jack Lemmon (one adds "in the movie where he dresses up like a girl"). This was due to the success of Some Like It Hot (in which Tony Curtis played) a few years prior.
- Animated Credits Opening: See here.
- Based on an Advice Book: The picture was inspired by Helen Gurley Brown's 1962 non-fiction book Sex and the Single Girl, an advice book that encouraged women to become financially independent and experience sexual relationships before or without marriage.
- Celebrity Paradox: Jack Lemmon exists in the film's universe. This means Tony Curtis exists in it as well due to Some Like It Hot (which is mentioned in anything but name), and Bob looks a hell lot like him.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: When Bob goes to meet Helen passing as Frank, she's stil very stressed due to STOP damaging her reputation and Bob bringing such a magazine in her office. She grabs a cigarette on a holder and Bob lights it.
- Clock King: Bob's boss arrives at work everyday at the same hour, down to the second.
- Dartboard of Hate: Bob has stuck the photo of Helen on a dartboard and throws darts at it.
- Driving a Desk: There's tons of rear projection during the Race for Your Love car chase at the end.
- Family Business: Bob's boss pretends that the STOP magazine has belonged to his family for four generations.
- Get Out!: What Bob's boss shouts at him upon firing him.
- Happy Ending: Bob and Helen end up together, so do Rudy and Gretchen, and Frank and Sylvia reconcile.
- Hero Stole My Bike: Sylvia ends up hijacking the taxi she hired to go faster in order to reach Frank, and throwing the taxi's driver out while she's at it.
- Identity Impersonator: Bob impersonates Frank in order to use Frank's marital situation to gain the interest of Helen. As the story goes further, he asks Gretchen then Susan to impersonate Sylvia. Much confusion ensues for Helen.
- Like a Son to Me: Bob's boss never had children and considers Bob like his son (he even planned to have Bob be his heir), until the day Bob stops feeding STOP with filthy tabloid stories.
- Love Redeems: Bob's love for Helen leads him to quit the tabloid business altogether.
- Lurid Tales of Doom: STOP is a reviled but successful tabloid that can go to disgusting lengths to boost its sales.
- Malicious Slander: Slander (which is all outright lies) by STOP about Helen's work and capabilities cause appointments with her to be cancelled.
- Mistaken for Cheating: To the dismay of his wife, Frank always takes a look at the legs of other women, at their pantyhose more specifically. He's genuinely only interested in improving his products (he's a pantyhose manufacturer) and getting informations on his market competitors' prices, but to his wife it all just looks like he's skirt-chasing.
- No Name Given: Bob's boss (Edward Everett Horton) is never named, he's just known as "the Chief".
- No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: In-Universe. Bob's boss is genuinely proud that his family's magazine has gone from a respectable publication to a filthy tabloid that's reviled by all of their peers — its sales have gone through the roof when they started venturing in the lurid tabloid business.
- Office Romance:
- Bob's secretary, Susan, openly seeks one with him, but he doesn't let it happen. Later on, she latches onto Bob's former (and more, shall we say, "receptive") colleague after Bob is fired.
- Rudy tries to woo Helen, but fails in the end.
- Race for Your Love: In the form of an extended car chase that takes up much of the climax (about 15 minutes). Bob wants to reach Helen who's leaving with Rudy, Sylvia wants to catch up with Frank to apologize. Also involves a motorcycle cop who's Driven to Madness, the taxi driver Sylvia hires and ends up throwing out of his car, an old couple in their slow antiquated car, and pretzels.
- Rom Com Job: Bob works as a reporter for a magazine (the tabloid kind).
- Running Gag:
- Whenever there's a man in Helen's office, he'll be driven to touch Helen's small Japanese archer statue.
- Helen and Rudy keep saying that Bob looks like Jack Lemmon.
- Sex Is Liberation: Part of what Helen preaches for single women, which earns her much slander from STOP, her more conservative peers and other such people (like what the real Helen Gurley Brown faced at the time).
- Sexy Secretary: Susan (Bob's secretary, played by Leslie Parrish), is gorgeous, but Bob would prefer her to be a Dumb Blonde, for she reads too much of Helen Brown's book to his taste. She's openly attracted to him and gets as close as to kiss him and he lets her do, but he doesn't reciprocate (he's in a relationship with Gretchen at this point).
- Shaking the Rump: Bob's initial girlfriend Gretchen shakes her butt at one point during her song (which is also titled "Sex and the Single Girl").
- Sound-Effect Bleep: A variant with a cuckoo sound happens when Helen tells Bob "Why don't you go-" on the phone.
