Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Jack Lennon (as Hogan) is a promiscuous landlord who loves to rent apartments to hot prospects, like young Carol Lynley (as Robin); trouble is, she moves her fiancée Dean Jones (as David) in for a platonic "try-out" living arrangement. Mr. Lemmon spends much of the movie lecherously peeping at the young couple, while plotting how to seduce Ms. Lynley.The cast is very nice, but the story is really, really dumb. Mr. Lemmon is a terrific actor, but this role just doesn't work for him; you have to wonder about all of his peeping. This movie might have worked if the Lemmon character were unsuccessfully promiscuous, in a supporting role, and without the peeping (like a Dudley Moore or Don Knotts role). Mr. Jones and Ms. Lynley are very likable, but they want to undress, and tease each other so quickly. The orange cat was a (sex?) joke I didn't get. ** Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963) David Swift ~ Jack Lemmon, Carol Lynley, Dean Jones

I'm sure that the reason Jack Lemmon was cast in the screen version of Under the Yum Yum Tree was the resemblance of his character of the landlord Hogan here with the part that got him his first Oscar, Ensign Frank Pulver in Mister Roberts. Superficially there is a resemblance.But the womanizing frat boy gone to sea in Mister Roberts is behaving under acceptable standards. It's kind of expected that men act out their sexual fantasies being deprived of it when on sea duty. Those stories about sailors on shore leave aren't an exaggeration. In Under the Yum Yum Tree it's as though Frank Pulver was left an inheritance of an apartment building which is obviously strategically located near a co-ed campus. What was acceptable behavior for Lemmon in Mister Roberts is unbelievable in this situation. Try as he might Lemmon cannot make this character likable. He's a rich guy who never worked a day in his life which apparently is devoted to being a peeping tom in regard to all the beautiful young women he rents to. And he only rents to young women. When you think about it, it's pretty darn scary. I can't believe one of these girls hasn't called the police on him.On Broadway the play was a five character thing and only Dean Jones came over from Broadway. Lemmon, Carol Lynley's part, and Edie Adams part were taken by Gig Young, Sandra Church, and Nan Martin. Under the Yum Yum Tree had a respectable run of 173 performances on Broadway.But if this is what the theater audience saw, how did it run so long?

Films certainly underwent some massive changes during the 60's. Compare the "chaste" sex comedy of this 1963 movie with the far more permissive and blatant movies of the latter part of the decade. Lemmon plays a relentless, lascivious skirt-chaser who runs an apartment complex called Centaur Apartments. Renting only to women, he says goodbye to former flame Adams and, before he can adjust to it, has rented the vacant apartment to her pert and very attractive niece Lynley. Lemmon can barely contain his glee as he sets out to carve yet another notch on his figurative bedpost, but he's unaware that Lynley has arranged for her boyfriend Jones to live with her (platonically) as well as part of an experimental, pre-marital arrangement! While Lynley and Jones wrestle with their hormones and strive to shield each other from temptation, Lemmon peers through windows and hangs from the roof when he isn't just trotting right through the front door with one of his many, many keys. The goings-on are observed by Lynde, as an envious gardener, and Coca, as his disapproving, cleaning-lady wife. Plenty of predictable misunderstandings and shenanigans take place with opposing sides either vigilantly defending Lynley's virginity or trying to get it taken away. All of it is handled with a soft touch through suggestiveness, innuendo or comedy. Lemmon tackles a very unusual role for him and is at least partially successful with it. He outrageously skulks around like Wile E. Coyote, with a battery of tricks up his sleeve, while appropriately cartoonish music plays. His antics eventually grow tiresome and he overacts with abandon, but it's still fascinating to see him in this light. Lynley was probably never more beautiful than in this film and, most of the time, she's quite appealing. She handles a stock "liberal, progressive virgin" role with skill. Jones (impossibly skinny, especially during the seduction scene towards the end) is charming and endearingly lunkheaded. He and Lynley make a very nice couple. Adams is saddled with a fretful role, but she looks pretty nice and manages a few nice moments. Handsome Lansing, as her new fiancé, has a very thankless part (one which was not in the original Broadway play on which this is based.) Coca is afforded several amusing bits as is Lynde, but Lynde was capable of far more hilarious screen activity than he's allowed to show here. Some of the material was just a tad obvious and tired, even for 1963. The film would have benefited well from a little bit of pruning in the redundant dialogue and more lengthy sequences. Still, it's a very colorful, silly, wacky romp that, if nothing else, makes for a fascinating time capsule of what filmmakers of the era thought (or perhaps wanted audiences to think) was the right way for people to behave. The sets are quite amazing, actually, though patently artificial-looking at all times. The opening credits for the film are really bizarre with a big fake tree hovering over two dancers as James Darren croons the title song. It's amazing how similar Darren sounds to the much later Harry Connick Jr. Incidentally, among Lynley's belongings in the apartment is a Darren LP! Bixby appears briefly as a potential male tenant, given the brush-off by Lemmon. A few years later, Ryan O'Neal, Leigh Taylor-Young and Harold Gould would film a pilot movie intended to set this up as a series, but it didn't come to fruition.

Lawrence Roman's popular stage farce comes to the screen seeming a bit undernourished, with everyone playing 'perky' to perfection but without benefit of any funny lines. With a whole apartment complex full of sexy, single gals, landlord Jack Lemmon becomes fixated on innocuous college girl Carol Lynley, who has just moved in with her boyfriend--a platonic arrangement that has Lemmon up in arms (and on the roof!). A shiny package with nothing inside, and Lemmon visibly strains to give the proceedings some bounce (tough to do since his wolfish character is thoroughly loathsome). The script, adapted by David Swift (who also directed), tries for snappy repartee, but since none of the characters are particularly sharp, the results here lack wit, sparkle and imagination. *1/2 from ****