Just perfect...

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This is one my favourite early Shirley Mc Claine films which didn't really tap her enormous acting talents, but gave the viewer a pleasant look at her comic talent. David Niven is the star of this film and is wonderful as the uptight, sexually oblivious brother of Shirley's love interest, who is of course a complete womanizer and twit. This movie also explores the different personalities of woman and how men react to them and vise versa. Rod Taylor also makes a good and memorable cameoin the role of Shirley's boyfriend. The soundtrack is nothing special but is forgotten in the wake of the zany events of this film. I definitely recommend this movie to all lovers of predictable and sweet romantic comedies.

It contain spoilers! I love David Niven, and I really like Shirley MacLaine, so when I read the plot of this movie, I wanted to watch it. It's a silly little romantic comedy, where there's this girl (Maclaine) who comes to the big apple to get a job and find a husband. The movie has a few scenes filled with sexual insinuations, because Maclaine has to get rid of a couple of guys that just wanted to get laid. So, men are portrayed as sexual wolves or something like that, at least with someone like her: a young girl who doesn't know how a big city works. Then, after quitting her job, she goes to a marketing company that is paying $2 to anyone that tastes a new cigarette brand. That company is run by 2 brothers: The older one, (Niven) who is a stiff fellow and doesn't care about anything but work, and the younger (Young), who is a cute playboy, who doesn't care about anything but women. So, she enters Niven's office to run the test and everything goes wrong, as she doesn't even smoke. She gets out quickly, only to run into the younger brother, who likes her immediately and hires her as a new employee, in spite of his older brother's opinion, who doesn't want her there. After a while, she discovers that she can apply the marketing techniques to nail down the younger brother, so she asks Niven to help her, as if she were a new customer.He agrees, because he wanted his brother to get married and put his head into work instead of women, and the idea appeals to him, as an experiment.He (Niven) gets his brother's little black book with all of his girls' telephones, and starts to date each one of the girls, so he can understand what attracted his brother to each one. And when he gets the idea, he passes the information to her. So MacLaine gets "modified" according to the "potential consumer's" taste.Naturally, both Niven and MacLaine find they are in love with each other, just when Young proposes to her; but now she doesn't want Young anymore, because she discovers that beyond the rough surface, Niven is a sensitive, nice, decent man. But he doesn't make a move (because she's his brother's girl), so, she leaves them, to go after his former boyfriend (the one who wanted to get laid, who is played by Rod Taylor), and tells him that if the offer is still open, she will take it. So they get a train to his cabin in the country.She tells her girlfriends what she's gonna do, and they tell Niven, who go after her, with Young of course.In the train, MacLaine gets a bit drunk, and starts to say that she doesn't want to go to the cabin, that she was in a very low mood then, but she feels better now, and that going there is just craziness. In that moment appears both Niven and Young. Niven is outraged, and tells Young that if he loves her, he must punch the guy (Taylor). As Young don't feel like punching anybody, Niven goes after the guy, fiercely. Seeing how his brother acts, Young realizes that Niven is in love with MacLaine. (While realizing that she loves his brother also, because the drunk girl tells him that she loves Niven).If you liked Sabrina, My Fair Lady, The Sound of music, Love Actually etc. You'll find this movie pretty amusing. Niven is a bit older, but never that much as Humphrey Bogart!! He's still very sexy, and very cute.If you're like me, you'll love this movie, despite its silliness.

Shirley MacLaine made her film debut a scant four years earlier in The Trouble With Harry and in her third film, Around the World in 80 Days, co-starred with David Niven. Reportedly they did not get along on the set, Niven felt she wasn't suited for the part of a Hindu princess and after seeing it I think you would agree. MacLaine really made her mark in the following year by blowing all the rest of the cast off the screen in Some Came Running. Had it not been the year for Susan Hayward's I Want to Live, Shirley would have gotten her Oscar back in 1958. David Niven had won his Oscar in 1958 for Separate Tables so both of them were box office then.Seemed only natural team them up again and this time MacLaine is most suitable for her role as a hopeful career girl in Ask Any Girl. Shirley's fresh from the country having made her way to New York in the hopes of getting a career going and/or landing husband. She develops quite a few potential suitors along the way.Ask Any Girl is a combination of Sabrina plus elements of any number of Doris Day vehicles that came out at that time. Eventually Shirley winds up at an advertising agency run by two brothers. Older brother David Niven runs the agency and younger brother Gig Young views the place as fertile ground for female companionship.MacLaine exasperates Niven, she's not real good at anything, but he's given up all hope in Young just settling down and tending to business. He sees maybe MacLaine just might be what Young needs, or maybe just what the elegant, but stuffy Niven needs.The principal players go through roles they were all seasoned veterans at handling. Ask Any Girl is pleasant enough entertainment though looking back I wonder just what the very outspoken feminist Shirley MacLaine thinks of this husband hunting woman she plays here.

Just have seen the film and was amused.Because it happened so, that before seeing it on TV a bit earlier I had seen on video "Bridget Jone's Diary"...One film after another one:) It was interesting to see how similar are problems of singles in such different epochs as 1959 and 2001. At the same time something has obviously changed.Freedom in sex matters out of marriage,for example. Or position of a male in the relations...The film is very funny and dynamic, full of wit and doesn't produce sickly sweet feeling. What else is interesting - how plots of some well known plays have been interwoven into the script. "My fair lady" for instance. A Russian film " Moskva slezam ne verit" ( 1979) is worth seeing as one where the same problems have been discussed but at the different cultural background. ...And - as the third part of this " triptych":)- I see, of course ""Bridget Jone's Diary". Two worlds - three countries - four time periods - a lot of characters - much pleasure!!!