{"id":10568,"date":"2025-01-14T17:09:15","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T22:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=10568"},"modified":"2025-01-14T17:09:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T22:09:15","slug":"the-man-who-loved-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/01\/14\/the-man-who-loved-women\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man Who Loved Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Man Who Loved Women<\/strong> (1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia Pictures\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, nudity, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Blake Edwards\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Blake Edwards, Milton Wexler and Geoffrey Edwards\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Henry Mancini\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Haskell Wexler\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 16, 1983 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Burt Reynolds, Julie Andrews, Kim Basinger, Marilu Henner, Cynthia Sikes, Jennifer Edwards, Sela Ward, Ellen Bauer, Denise Crosby, Barry Corbin, Ben Powers, Roger Rose.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $10.9M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I didn\u2019t like The Man Who Loved Women<\/strong> the first time I saw it, but I understood why after a few years. I went in expecting a comedy, a reasonable assumption given that it\u2019s directed by Blake Edwards, the man responsible for many a funny movie like The Pink Panther, 10 and Victor Victoria. I wasn\u2019t prepared for what I got.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Man Who Loved Women<\/strong> is more of a drama with comedic elements than an outright comedy. The attempts at slapstick comedy feel completely out-of-sync with the rest of the picture. It\u2019s like Edwards can\u2019t decide what kind of movie he wants to make. In the forefront is a tragedy about a womanizer whose obsession with the opposite sex ultimately kills him. This is NOT a plot spoiler as the movie opens at his funeral, an affair for which dozens of attractive women turn out. Burt Reynolds plays the title role and I can\u2019t think of another actor better suited for the role. I mean, we are talking about the consummate macho ladies man of the time, right?<\/p>\n

\u00a0As much as I like The Man Who Loved Women<\/strong>, I can\u2019t help but find it a frustrating viewing experience in that it should have turned out much better considering the talent involved. It\u2019s a pretty good movie that has the makings of a great one, but fails to utilize the elements to their maximum potential.<\/p>\n

\u00a0David Fowler (Reynolds) loves women, all kinds of women. He has an insatiable sexual appetite. In short, this guy is a real horndog! His fast and loose lifestyle has finally caught up with him in the form of a paralyzing mid-life crisis that renders the sculptor socially, creatively and sexually impotent. He can\u2019t work or make a decision of any kind. He seeks helps from Marianna (Andrews, Victor Victoria), an attractive analyst who gets him to tell her his life story as a way of getting to the root of his problems. Naturally, he falls in love with his psychiatrist and starts a relationship with her. That\u2019s the serious part of the picture and it\u2019s quite good.<\/p>\n

\u00a0We also get to meet a few of David\u2019s lady friends like Courtney (Sikes, Arthur 2), his live-in girlfriend and Nancy (Edwards, S.O.B.), the young prostitute he hires as his assistant. We also see him pursue Agnes (Henner, Taxi) in order to get a look at her legs.<\/p>\n

\u00a0About midway through, Edwards throws in a comedic subplot about the horny wife (Basinger, L.A. Confidential) of a Texas oil millionaire (Corbin, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas) who\u2019s sexually attracted to David. She loves to take risks and have sex in places where her jealous husband might catch her. This situation would make for a decent sex farce, but it doesn\u2019t belong in this picture. These scenes give the movie a palpable feeling of unevenness. They just come off as clumsy and awkward.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What some people don\u2019t realize is that Reynolds is a fine dramatic actor; they only see him as the good old boy from Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run. He\u2019s equally adept at light comedy (Paternity), action (Sharky\u2019s Machine) and drama (Boogie Nights). I think he\u2019s the perfect choice for a movie like The Man Who Loved Women<\/strong>, a remake of the 1977 French comedy directed by Francois Truffaut. He portrays David as a man blind-sided by the activity that has defined his existence for more than half his life. He\u2019s not so much a pitiful victim as he is confounded by his misery. Yet he continues to engage in the sport of skirt-chasing right unto the end. Not even the prospect of true love keeps him from pursuing women and going to bed with them. It\u2019s an addiction and like addicts of all kinds, David has no control over it. Addiction is a powerful force that drives a person to engage in behavior that they know is harmful and dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u00a0You may question why an educated woman like Marianna would violate professional ethics by getting romantically involved with her patient. You may wonder why she stays with him knowing that he will cheat on her. I\u2019d say that the answer to these questions is elementary. It\u2019s love, an emotion that can cause people to make poor decisions. She thinks that she can change David, but deep down knows that she can\u2019t. He is what he is and will continue to do what he does, but that doesn\u2019t mean he doesn\u2019t love her. He does, but doesn\u2019t know the first thing about monogamy. That\u2019s the tragic flaw that leads to his downfall. At least that\u2019s what I get from The Man Who Loved Women<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As Marianna, Andrews delivers a decent performance, not an outstanding one. Basinger is quite good as the Texas millionaire\u2019s insatiable wife. In a different movie, she and Reynolds would make an excellent comedy duo. I really think that Edwards should have removed this subplot and made a separate movie of it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As for The Man Who Loved Women<\/strong>, it\u2019s a sad movie through and through, right down to the understated cinematography and Henry Mancini\u2019s downbeat score. I realize that this is a seriously flawed movie, but I like it. It\u2019s not one of Edwards\u2019 best films, but every filmmaker is entitled to make a few errors.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Man Who Loved Women (1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia Pictures\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, nudity, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Blake Edwards\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Blake Edwards, Milton Wexler and Geoffrey Edwards\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Henry Mancini\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Haskell Wexler\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 16, 1983 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Burt Reynolds, Julie Andrews, Kim Basinger, Marilu Henner, Cynthia Sikes, Jennifer Edwards, Sela Ward, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas","category-guilty-pleasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/The-Man-Who-Loved-Women-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10568"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10745,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10568\/revisions\/10745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}