Classic Film & TV Cafe: The Notorious Landlady (1962) 'Scene With Jack Lemmon & Kim Novak'

Source:Classic Film & TV Cafe- Hollywood Goddess Kim Novak, in The Notorious Landlady, from 1962.

Source:The New Democrat

"Diplomat Jack Lemmon has just returned to England and doesn't know that everyone else suspects Kim Novak's character of murdering her husband!"

From Classic Film & TV Cafe

Source:Alamy Stock Photo- Kim Novak and Jack Lemmon, in The Notorious Landlady from 1962.

Just on a personal note first: it was the early summer of 2009 June of that year when I was home on a Saturday and there was a an all day Alfred Hitchcock marathon and Vertigo was one of those movies. I heard the name Kim Novak before, but I didn't know who she was. Vertigo is a good movie, but it's really Kim Novak who caught my attention to the point for the rest of that summer at least and into the fall my goal was to see as many Kim Novak movies that I possibly could. I saw Boys Night Out, Strangers When We Meet and perhaps 2-3 other Kim Novak movies that year. Whenever they were available on TV and I had the time to see them. I literally grew a crush on her.

There's something about Kim's voice, eyes, face that all come together at the same time that makes it impossible at least for me to concentrate on anything or anyone else when the camera is on her. She's absolutely adorable and even childlike at times and yet is also drop-dead gorgeous, with incredible sweet, sexy voice. She's like the great talented athlete that has you begging for more every time you see him play, because he's such a great player and then one tragic day it's all over after he breaks his leg in a game and never plays again. And you keep think what if he didn't get hurt, how many more great plays and games, how great would his career had been, had it not been for that one tragic play. Except that Kim Novak was never tragically injured: she left Hollywood voluntarily in the 1960s.

So I think I know how the Jack Lemmon character feels in The Notorious Landlady, with the Kim Novak character knowing how much he likes her and just leaves him begging for more. The Notorious Landlady is not a great movie, which unfortunately can be said about most of Kim Novak's movies, but she and Jack were great together in it. And if they were the only two main characters in it, perhaps it's a great movie, because they had great chemistry in. And Jack Lemmon was always a master comedic actor and comedian.