Phffft (1954)

 

A Jack Lemmon/Judy Holliday comedy from 1954. Lemmon & Holliday are unhappily married & at the film's outset they decide their union is kaput (or the titular expression!) so they go their separate ways. Lemmon a former CPA in the military cries on the shoulder of his best bud, Jack Carson, while Holliday, a soap opera writer/producer, now that she's unattached decides to go out w/one of the actors from her show. Meanwhile Lemmon does the same by going out w/Kim Novack, one of Carson's old arm holders, which goes nowhere so the separated couple, who have remained cordial to each other (hell Lemmon still does Holliday's taxes for her!) have to find other means to keep themselves entertained w/both parties taking up dance lessons (where they steal they show when their respective partners at a club can't keep up w/them & they end up dancing w/each other) & the like but the niggling feeling they've made a colossal mistake slowly seeps in which they'll rectify by film's end or will they? Screenwriter George Axelrod's (The Manchurian Candidate/Lord Love a Duck) humorously poisonous take on the vaulted institution, something that was becoming more commonplace in the 50's, couldn't be more mirthful as our leads make their points cogently but we can see why they needed a break from each other to regroup later on...maybe. The leads are wonderful w/Lemmon (in his second outing w/Holliday after It Should Happen to You which came out the same year) starting to come into his own as a comic performer (which in my opinion Billy Wilder would hone to perfection in their collabs) w/Holliday peerless in every scene.