Please don't spend money on this.

Critics,are you kidding us

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

(Flash Review)Probably converted from the theater, there are six main characters: four human, a crummy apartment and five exhausting flights of stairs. Redford and Fonda are newlyweds who apparently got married quickly and immaturely. Moving into an apartment with many shortcomings and on the fifth floor without an elevator they begin to learn more about themselves in the real world. Redford is new lawyer and practical while Fonda is a stay at home wife and very free-spirited. Will their new marriage last harsh reality? There is no real plot as you follow them, her mother and an eccentric neighbor for a few evenings full of unique happenings and light gags. Occasionally, irritating at how Fonda's character was written with her actions but if you like Redford and Fonda, you may as well watch this. If you don't, there isn't much reason to watch it as it was completely average aside from a glimpse into the 60's world.

Barefoot In The Park is an amazingly scripted and well-performed movie about a newlywed couple. Madly in love, opposites attract and find themselves spending all day and night inside their room for a whole week on their honeymoon. After the clouds fade, they begin to settle into their new apartment. There are a couple complications. The room is too small for anything other than a single bed, there is a crack in the ceiling, and the apartment is on the 5th floor. There is no elevator and every person is exhausted by the time they reach the top. Buckle in and get ready for a sweet and entertaining comedy.

Redford and Fonda should get a kissy-face Oscar for the most lingering lip-smackers on movie record.The comedy's premise reminds me of one of those WWII madcaps, where wartime conditions prompt an unlikely couple into quick marriage and barebones apartment. The idea's rich in comedic material so no wonder it keeps coming back. On their honeymoon, stodgy lawyer husband (Redford) is overwhelmed by sexy free-spirited wife (Fonda). She can't get enough kissy-face or sex, while he struggles between lawyerly duties and a burgeoning libido. Meanwhile, she oozes over their cramped apartment, six long flights up, while he's too smothered over to object. Things bumble along until complications take their toll. I love it when goofy neighbor Boyer takes the married couple and Fonda's straight-laced mother (Natwick) to a run-down Albanian eatery. It may be seedy on the outside but on the inside it's a vibrant bohemian paradise. Of course, Fonda and Boyer are in their element, real swingers, while the two conventional types can barely endure. In fact, Redford's quiet discomfort as he sits at the noisy round table amounts to a triumph of low-key expression. And catch it when the belly dancer smothers his unhappy face in her ample breasts. Edelman also scores as the drooping telephone guy. It's like, time and again, he's having to climb Mt. Everest with a heavy load. In fact, the movie milks that 6-long-flights-up, but still gets laughs from a sweaty cast. I can imagine what the auditions were like. Anyway, the movie's first two-thirds is full of such inventive comedic moments that had me thinking "real classic". But then, much too abruptly, Fonda's sparkly role shifts and the prevailing mood goes with it. Same thing with Redford's conventional personality. That is, he goes from stodgy to goofy and she goes from ditzy to crabby. In short, they suddenly swap roles in unconvincing fashion, even for what is now a serio-comedy. In my book, the change over is too clumsily handled to maintain comedic momentum, and a potential classic is lost. Nonetheless, on balance, the movie's still lively entertainment, full of bright moments, and worth catching up with.(In passing- I suspect the moral to the story, if such can be said, is that without some common ground even the best offbeat relationship can't last.)

It is no longer funny and would really have had limited appeal in its day. The lines are some of Neil Simon's weakest, the acting may have worked on a stage, but do not transfer. That it relies on repeated jokes makes it pretty tedious, in fact. That it has leading actors and in the direction, and other support does not lend it anything either. If you liked that kind of Broadway show, farce that has little wit and limited visual humour I suppose it might, possibly, work. I usually do but not here. The sets are about as minimal in interest and thought as could have been from a stage version. Better quietly forgotten by all by the aficionados.