Critical Reception
The film opened to good reviews and good box office, just as the splashy screen musicals bowed out gracefully to more serious movies with serious issues and messages. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called the film "a thoroughly delightful movie," "a kidding satire, in a rollicking song-and-dance vein," "a joyously syncopated frolic," and "a romantic-melodramatic fable that makes clichés sparkle like jewels." He added, "Miss Andrews is absolutely darling — deliciously spirited and dry . . . Having had previous experience at this sort of Jazz-age hyperbole in the British musical, The Boy Friend . . . she knows how to hit the right expressions of maidenly surprise and dismay, the right taps in a flow of nimble dances, and the right notes in a flood of icky songs." He concluded, "A few faults? Yes. There is an insertion of a Jewish wedding scene . . . which is phony and gratuitous. There's a melodramatic mishmash towards the end, which has Mr. Fox dressing up like a girl and acting kittenish. That is tasteless and humorless. And the whole thing's too long. If they'll just cut out some of those needless things, all the faults will be corrected and it'll be a joy all the way".
Variety observed, "The first half of Thoroughly Modern Mille is quite successful in striking and maintaining a gay spirit and pace. There are many recognizable and beguiling satirical recalls of the flapper age and some quite funny bits. Liberties taken with reality, not to mention period, in the first half are redeemed by wit and characterization. But the sudden thrusting of the hero . . . into a skyscraper-climbing, flagpole-hanging acrobat, a la Harold Lloyd, has little of Lloyd but the myth. This sequence is forced all the way".
TV Guide rated the film three out of four stars and commented, "Although it ultimately runs out of steam, this charming spoof of the 1920s is still one of the 1960s' better musicals . . . Andrews is a comic delight, Moore is charming, and Channing steals scene after scene in this enjoyable feature". This film was one of four Nostalgia based movies George Roy Hill made. After this film, he made Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Great Waldo Pepper, and the Oscar Winning hit The Sting.
Read more about this topic: Thoroughly Modern Millie
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