Seniors Find Love in the Suburbs in “Bachelor in Paradise”

All too often I hear women in their 30s who don’t want to date men over 50 as well as women in their 50+ years wondering why so many men at the online dating sites are citing in their dating profiles that they are looking to date much younger women in the 30s and early 40s.  Well, turns out, Hollywood in its delicious late golden age years in the 1950s and early 1960s was selling that romantic story line.  I know, I know.  In that era of Hollywood widowed women in their 30s (“All That Heaven Allows”) were portrayed as over the hill and off of the market to men their own age, let alone (quelle gasp!) younger men.  In that marvelous movie, the widow is depicted as a woman who, already having 2 young adult children, surely must be no longer interested in sex. I’m not complaining. That was Hollywood in that era.  Just I do find it amusing, and now, I can tell my coaching clients who to blame! lol.

In the funny romantic comedy, “Bachelor in Paradise,” which terrific Turner Classic Movies (TCM) screens periodically, then 40 year old actress Lana Turner years after her “Sweater Girl” days and 2o years after her scandalous sexpot girls a la “Ziegfeld Girl” is our leading lady pursued by, yes, 58 year old Bob Hope.  I gotta say, Bob looks pretty good for just-this-side of 60 throughout the movie.  Some men at 62 come across like they are 85 years old, while other 62 year olds, if you didn’t know their age, you’d guess they were 55-57 years old.  Bob does not look like formerly hot stuff Gary Cooper did when at 56 as the romantic leading man in “Love in the Afternoon” when he had puffy under eye bags.  Not that Bob Hope was ever a classically handsome man.  Just, he does look good, and his character has so much good humor and wit that he is appealing throughout “BiP.”

Hope is popular published author who has carved out a niche for himself in best selling travel log books on life as a bachelor in various European countries.  The movie opens with him smooching a “mature French woman” on a chaise lounge on a glorious French terrace.  He’s been in Europe for the past 14 years (this is an important detail to remember in the situation set up) but then runs into troubles with the IRS and must return to the States.  Once back stateside, he may not leave the country, yet he must earn money to pay a debt to the Feds.  His publisher backs him in continuing his series of Racy Sexual Mores stories focusing on modern married life and the wive in America and places him right smack dab down in the middle of modern 1960s suburbia, San Fernando Valley in a housing tract dubbed, “Paradise Village,” concealing his identity with an alias as “Adam Niles.”  Yes, Hope become “Adam” in “Paradise!”

Intriguingly enough, Lana Turner is a Bachelorette with a career in Real Estate.  And in keeping with Hollywood’s fine tradition of dressing “career girls” in darling and gloriously feminine suits, I desire all of Turner’s work wardrobe.  Stacey London and Clinton Kelly of TLC’s “What NOT to Wear” would be pleased with her attire because she looks feminine, professional, and alluring all in an “age appropriate” style.  They don’t style her in a “young ingenue” look.  I like that she is portrayed as happy in her career and, naturally since girl has to not be interested in boy for awhile, not hot to land a husband asap.

Of course boy meets girl and is interested in dating girl and girl isn’t interested in boy so we have time to develop the characters and the story line.  And that’s where all the sparkling comedy is of this delightful late golden era MGM comedy.  Since Hope has been an expat for 14 years, he hasn’t experienced all the modern lifestyle attributes of post-WWII American suburbia.  Not only is all housing tract housing in planned communities.  But there is the school system and commuter living which we take for granted now but which was brand new right after WWII.  There is a hysterically funny scene in a grocery store where Hope has to be guided by a little girl to manage his food shopping.

Another part of the storyline which I particularly enjoyed as a Dating Expert and I think every adult man and woman will find it funny as well is an Evening of Romance which Hope suggests to all the married ladies of the tract to rekindle their marriage bed’s flames.  What ensues is riotously funny.

Hope has to eat some humble pie and apologize to Turner for insulting her home when he first met her to start warming her to him.  The rest of the story, I will leave to your enjoyment when you catch a screening of “Bachelor in Paradise” next time it’s on TCM.  Set your DVR and enjoy a tale of mature romantic love!

Happy Dating and Relationships,

April Braswell