Boeing Boeing

• a classic farce (1960) by French author Marc Camoletti [1]; and

• a comedy film (1965) directed by John Rich based on Camoletti's play starring Tony Curtis, Jerry Lewis and Thelma Ritter.

Bernard Lawrence (Curtis) is an American journalist stationed in Paris, France. A playboy, he has devised a sophisticated timetable to organise his three ongoing love affairs. His girlfriends are all flight attendants, working for Air France, British Airways and Lufthansa respectively, and they all spend the night at Bernard's apartment whenever they stop over in Paris. However, each of them believes she is the only one, and accordingly they must never meet. Bertha, Bernard's faithful housekeeper (Ritter), has a hard time managing his affairs, preparing special diets for each of them, rearranging photographs and, generally, keeping track of what is going on.

Bernard's life is turned upside down following (a) a change of schedule for one of his girlfriends and (b) the arrival of Robert Reed (Lewis), an old friend of his who wants to stay at his apartment for a day or two. The ensuing complications lead to "dangerous" situations until, eventually, all three flight attendants are in the apartment at the same time and still think there is no one else there. However, there is of course a happy ending.

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