1964 - BEDTIME STORY, a farce with Marlon Brando!

 Marlon Brando the preeminent method actor of his generation, the star of On The Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, Julius Caesar and The Godfather gives a performance as a complete grinning goofball in this comedy.  He mugs, does some broad slap stick and at one point acts like the village idiot.  This is his only outright comedy as far as I can tell and he's incredible to watch.

 

Bedtime Story is what you could call a typical Universal Studio comedy. With a little adjustment in the plot and characters it could star Doris Day and Rock Hudson.  The film has reasonably amusing situations.  It was written by a couple of tried and true pros Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning.  The director Ralph Levy was also an expert in comedy having worked on TV shows such as I Love Lucy, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies so Brando was surrounded by people who knew their way around this genre.

 

You can see Brando is really enjoying himself in this film.  He was the first to admit that playing broad comedy this was not exactly his acting forte.  However performing with David Niven, not an actor who was known for method acting really brought out the ham out in him.  Niven who was a very witty guy in real life kept Brando laughing throughout the entire production.

 

Well the plot such that it is involves two con men  (Brando and Niven) attempting to chisel an heiress played by Shirley Jones out of her money.  Bedtime Story has been remade a couple of times as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and The Hustle.  It was also adapted as a Broadway musical.  I would hardly say this is the greatest comedy ever made but Brando and Niven are very entertaining playing off each other and certainly worth a look.

The running time is 99 minutes.