“The April Fools” (1969) may not have left any mark on cinema history but it did bring to life two of Burt Bacharach’s best songs, one of which is the title song. The film stars a very Jack Lemmony Jack Lemmon and an absurdly gorgeous Catherine Deneuve as two people married to others (she’s married to his boss–played by an absurdly toupeed Peter Lawford) who fall in love with each other. “I Say A Little Prayer” makes its debut in a party sequence which I’ve posted above. The singer is Susan Barrett and the fact that the song survived such an inglorious introduction says a lot about Bacharach’s melodic prowess. Below I’ve posted a trailer of the film itself. I’ve never seen the whole thing but I think I’ve probably seen enough. It used to turn up on an afternoon movie show on KABC in LA when I was growing up. The KABC ‘Afternoon Movie’ slot was a ninety minute one which was already too short for most movies to fit in without being cut. And then there were the commercials–probably a half hour’s worth. So every movie they showed had to be cut down to one hour in length. I wonder who got paid for doing that work…and if it helped to not be sober when undertaking the butchery of somebody’s carefully crafted work…