Barefoot in the Park Doesn't Deserve to Be Considered a Classic Movie

I would rather walk barefoot in the park across broken glass and rusty nails than watch this travesty of a movie again. Barefoot in the Park is an unfunny romantic comedy with almost no plot to it. It just gives us the basic formula with nothing new or interesting added. Boy meets girl, they separate, and then get back together. Yawn! Originally, this was a Broadway play. They must have cut out all the good scenes because this movie is so bad that I wouldn't give the play a chance even if Emeril Lagasse told me how good the dinner theatre prepared their veal.

The movie starts with Paul (Robert Redford) and Corie (Jane Fonda) going to a hotel for their honeymoon, where they allegedly screw for eight days straight. Now that would have been the movie to make. Their marathon session ends because Paul has to go to work. He's a new lawyer, but we only ever see him talking about preparing cases. We never see him working, and he does such a bad job negotiating with Corie throughout the movie that's it's hard to believe he'll be very good as an attorney. Corie, who is all id, still wants more of that sweet lovin', but Paul, who is superego, goes to work anyway.

Corie goes to the new apartment that she has picked out. It's on the fifth floor and there's no elevator, so we get beat over the head with the joke (?) about how exhausted everyone gets when they climb all five flights of stairs. You'd think they were attempting Mt. Everest with their gasping for breath and rubbery legs. Everyone, that is, except Corie, but since she was still wanting more after the eight-day sex-o-rama, that means she probably has more endurance than the rest of the characters or else Paul is a lousy lay.

The apartment is tiny and a bit of a dump, but it's all they can afford since Corie has no job. It's always freezing inside because there's a hole in the skylight, which lets in cold air and occasionally snow. For some inexplicable reason no one looks for the superintendent or the landlord, nor do they try to cover the hole themselves.