ChikPapa Very disappointed :(

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Yvonne Jodi Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

moonspinner55 One may say "The Private Lives of Adam and Eve" should be judged on its own terms, that of a low-budget drive-in entry without any aim other than being a mild amusement; that is to say, it doesn't aspire to be high art--but then, since it isn't amusing, it must be noted that the movie has questionable aspirations, without the proper handling to steer it in the right direction. A small busload of people en route to Reno, Nevada stop off in nearby Paradise, where the driver picks up a teenage hot-rodder and two married couples on the rocks; after their trip is sidelined by a storm, the passengers take refuge in a church, where one of the frightened couples share the same dream about the Garden of Eden. Co-directed by Albert Zugsmith and Mickey Rooney (who also stars), the film is a shambles on even the most basic cinematic level. In the crude but watchable black-and-white framing story, we at least have Cecil Kellaway as the Christian bus driver who suggests the group sings "Rock of Ages" when the flood waters come. This section also has Tuesday Weld as a possible runaway and Paul Anka as the crooning teen (he also sings the title song in the film's kickiest sequence). But the color dream sequence in Eden, with Martin Milner and Mamie Van Doren as Adam and Eve, is amateurish in the extreme, particularly with an excruciatingly hammy Rooney playing the Devil. Still, one can't dismiss the movie as camp quite so easily. There is quite a bit of serious talk early on about God and the Bible, and later Van Doren shouts and cries to the Heavens, asking God to speak to her. It's a mind-boggling venture that wants to be two different things: a quickie flick for sniggering teens and an earnest character portrait in the manner of John Steinbeck's "The Wayward Bus". But you don't have to see it to believe it, because the picture isn't worth seeing. * from ****

unclebuzz1966 For years this was panned as a turkey (including Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide which awarded this trip to Eden the infamous BOMB!) I have a great fondness for this completely whacked, fantasy-adult comedy. First, the film opens with what appears to be the trailer for the film but is actually a funky introductory segment. Then we launch right into Paul Anka's opening title track - which is a swinging little number. The film makes no bones that this is intended to be an "adult comedy" with loads of double entendres and Mickey's leering, over-the-top portrayal of Nick Lewis a.k.a. "the Devil." But the true fruits are to be savored in producer Albert Zugsmith's Eden where the fabulous Mamie Van Doren strolls the garden in the tiniest fig leaf bikini yet seen in an American studio release. (And this was two years before Ursula Andress' famous bikini intro. from "Dr. NO.") I just wish Universal would re-strike a new print for DVD release because the current copies yield a Spectracolor that has turned, much like Eve's apple, bloody red. "Adam and Eve" is a pleasure - albeit a guilty one.

afainca75 I saw this movie when I was 6 or 7 and it enchanted my young mind. In my polluted older age mind the enchantment remains. (I would love to see it again, but I can't find it anywhere.) I recall that several people are on a bus and have to stop and take refuge in a church on the side of the road because of a severe thunderstorm. They spend the night in the church and one of the people on the bus has a dream about the Garden of Eden. Some of the people on the bus are characters in the dream; Mickey Rooney, the bus driver, is the devil. If anyone who reads this knows how I can get a copy of it, please email me with the information - afainca75@hotmail.com.

eminges This movie is so wrong on so many levels: Paul Anka opens sitting on his $400 hot rod and steering with his feet, Martin Milner and Mamie Van Doren walk into the closing credits with all their marital problems solved on her announcement that she's pregnant, sanitized by her expressing a desire to eat pickles. In between lies a virtual encyclopedia of every snickering, simpering, leering last-gasp-of-the-fifties nudge-nudge battle-of-the-sexes cliche', somehow made all the worse by strictly G-rated language and less exposed flesh than an Iranian quilting bee.Anyone ever caught expressing the slightest nostalgia for anything about the Fifties except beatniks and early rockers should be strapped down, Prisoner 655321 style, and forced to watch alternating showings of this excrescence and Sex Kittens Go to College.