Good Neighbor Sam Movie Review - Starring Jack Lemmon, Romy Schneider, and Dorothy Provine

By David Terr

"Good Neighbor Sam" is a very funny movie from the mid-sixties about an advertising executive named Sam Bissell, played by Jack Lemmon, known by everyone at his firm as a wholesome family man. Things get out of hand for Sam when he gets a visit from wife Min's friend Janet Lagerlorf (Romy Schneider), who stands to inherit a fortune if she can prove that she's happily married. She's in the process of divorcing her husband and finds she must pretend she's married to Sam in order to fool her snoopy cousins.

The plan goes well at first until Sam's client Nurdlinger sees him kissing Janet after he goes to work in continuation of the act. Now he finds he must fool Nurdlinger as well into thinking that Janet is his wife.

One day, Janet's husband shows up and threatens Sam. Soon he finds he must get into the act as well, so he pretends to be married to Min.

The most tense moment occurs when Sam discovers that one of his fellow agents had decided to use a picture of him and Janet on a billboard for Nurdlinger milk, using Sam's wife's name. Sam also learns that Janet's cousins had hired an investigator to spy on him. The investigator is mistaken, however, thinking Sam is really married to Janet and sneaking around with Min. Sam is fine with this, realizing that this is much better than him learning the truth. Sam takes the investigator home and finds he must not let him see any of the billboards along the way, so each time he passes by one, he whizzes around the corner, nearly killing him in the process.

That night, Sam and Janet decide to paint over all the billboards. Min becomes fed up with the whole scheme and threatens to leave if he goes out, but he does so anyway. They spend the night painting faces over all the billboard photos. They finally succeed, and Janet gets her 15 million dollar inheritance, one million of which she decides to give to Sam and his wife for going through the scheme. Min changes her mind about leaving and the two return to their relatively normal life, but a million dollars richer.

Good Neighbor Sam - Dave's Top Movies

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