Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Admirable film.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

I saw this as a teenager and even then I was deeply impressed with everything about it, the writing, the casting, the superb performances. I thought that Dick and Paula would certainly become the Lunt and Fontanne of my generation, a gifted married couple who could play comedy brilliantly, and drama, too! But CBS never gave this show the slot it deserved or the promotion it needed. It got rave reviews and had a devoted if small audience, but it was canceled after only one season. I liked it so much I made (audio) recordings of several episodes, just for the writing and to hear the way these two, Benjamin and Prentiss, played off of each other. Sheer brilliance!

I was 11 when this show was on. I recall my mother being very fond of it and encouraging me to watch it because of (I think) Jack Cassidy in particular, though she was fond of the whole cast. I can still recall great swathes of dialog from this show, which proves that it was dazzlingly funny and that I clearly watch too much TV. :) The episode where they think everyone's been poisoned (Kenneth Mars: "Dick, I took to the hospital a *stiff* *CAT*!"), or when Dick and friends went up to the cabin and had already been driven crazy by Hamilton Camp, and **SPOILER ALERT JUST IN CASE** body-Englishing--unsuccessfully--the starter on Hamilton Camp's car and having everyone come home after a week with beards (Camp: "Mistuh Hollistuh, when you shave it off, you want to be sure to use an electric razuh." Dick: "Why?" Camp: "Because the pipes ah turned off and theyuh's no hot watuh!" Dick grabbed the goldfish bowl). Kenneth Mars reading a book when Dick and Paula want to sneak out ("Whatcha reading?" "'War and Peace'." "Where are you?" "Page 17."). And on and on and on....The show was vastly, amazingly funny. I've not seen it since it was on, yet I can remember a considerable number of the scenes and dialog. I'm very sorry that it wasn't continued because it was bloody brilliant. And writing this, I realize how very much I miss it. :(

I have mentioned the failure of the above-average GOOD MORNING, WORLD, that was on Tuesday nights in 1967 - 1968. Ironically the same year that that fine program failed, a Wednesday night comedy which was superbly funny failed as well - despite critical acclaim. HE & SHE was set in Manhattan, where Dick and Paula Hollister (Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss) lived in an apartment in a building where the super was Andrew Hummell (Hamilton Camp) and their closest friend was Harry Zarakados (Kenneth Mars) lives next door (Harry is a fireman, who enters their apartment through a board balanced between his window sill and the Hollisters). Mars, when not fighting fires, frequently dropped over to see them - which sounds like Cosmo Kramer's frequently dashing into Jerry's apartment in the later series SEINFELD.Dick was a cartoonist who did a cartoon called JETMAN, which had just been turned into a successful television series starring Oscar North (Jack Cassidy). It was an obvious spoof of the then popular series BATMAN (starring Adam West), but Cassidy's "North" was not like Adam West, who from all accounts is a gentleman and very professional. Cassidy's North was a very egotistical type, who hired an elderly man (in one episode) as his new sidekick because he would not steal scenes like an alternative child actor or a trained animal. The elderly man (who could only speak Greek) would have no dialog in his part, and would be called "Mr. Shush".The weekly story lines were very original. Dick and Paula have birthdays on the same day. They have spent huge sums on each other to impress each other in the past. Suddenly Dick announces that they should try to get each other some meaningful item showing their affection for under $10.00 each. So Paula remembers that when Dick proposed to her, they were in an area where rocks were falling frequently - he got hit with one just as he proposed. She has kept it all these years. She gives him the rock (she will have it made into a key chain/keepsake shortly). But Dick, forgetting his rule, has bought her a fur coat. He's naturally less than thrilled with the rock, once he finds it does nothing special (no hidden section revealing a treasure of some type). Andrew (always there fixing some plumbing or electric problem) notes the rock, and says, "You are lucky Mr. Hollister. That's upstate Grey stone. They say that is worth $500.00." Dick is amazed at this piece of good fortune. "Are you sure it's worth $500.00?", he asks. "Yes," says the helpful Andrew, "$500 a ton." In another episode, the Hollisters are having a large dinner party, including Dick's business associates, their wives, and Oscar. They have dined on part of it, when Harry comes in to report that a little cat that belongs to the firehouse, and was caught nibbling on some of the Hollisters food, has taken ill. It may be ptomaine poisoning. What to do with the guests inside. Oscar hears this, and showing surprising nerve (given his usual character) says he will explain things. They go inside, Oscar leading. Turning to the guests, Oscar sternly says, "Friends..." Immediately he collapses and gasps out, "WE'VE BEEN POISONED!!" and dashes out of the apartment. Later it turns out the cat is sick because it was pregnant. As everyone congratulates themselves on a close call, Oscar returns, collar opened - looking disheveled. He asks if anyone can change a $20 for a cab ride to the hospital.It was a well acted ensemble, and it should have succeeded. Instead it lasted that one season. A year later it was shown in reruns, and the T.V. Guide (when it returned) said it just may have been too far ahead of it's time. Possibly so. It was Jack Cassidy's best comic role, and Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentice, Hamilton Camp, and Kenneth Mars did well in it too. Maybe one day it will be put on DVD or on cable again.

Someone should rerun "He & She" on a regular basis (are you listening, TV Land?) because it's one of the true underrated gems in TV sitcom history. The cast and the writing are all first-rate, and it's one of the few sitcoms of the '60s to be filmed in front of a live studio audience, which means there's no annoying laugh track. It really is a forerunner of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Cheers", and perhaps it came along too soon. But it's a witty, intelligent show that tried to do something different. I've caught a few episodes of it here and there. (TV Land used to run an occasional episode every once in a while, usually part of a "box set" of shows with a common theme.) "He & She" deserves to be seen again.