Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

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

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

MartinHafer There is a lot to like about this Rock Hudson film, but also a lot that just didn't work. Aside from being wildly uneven, it's just not that good a film.The movie starts off quite well. Rock plays a womanizer who is absolutely irresistible to women--and he soon wins a legal case simply because the judge thinks he's a hunk. His opponent (Charles Boyer) is impressed with Hudson's sex appeal and befriends him. Soon, however, their friendship is tested when Boyer asks Rock to seduce his VERY proper and seemingly unhappy daughter (Leslie Caron). However, instead of doing this directly, when Rock finds out she's a psychologist, he decides to concoct some stupid disorder and tries to trick her into loving him. This and the rest of the film is VERY contrived--never making any sense and at times being rather offensive. My ULTRA-feminist college-age daughter kept having an apoplexy as she watched Rock's shenanigans--and she felt he was more like a date rapist than a hero! I didn't feel quite that strongly but could understand how someone could be very turned off by him--he WAS a jerk and the film stopped making sense towards the end. A FAR cry from the great films he made with Doris Day, that's for sure! Unlikable characters and poor writing make this a chore to watch at times. Very skippable.

edwagreen How could a cast with Rock Hudson, Leslie Caron, Charles Boyer and others produce such a stinker of a film?Some of this reminded me of the old Doris Day and Rock Hudson films. Hudson was always at his best when he tried to fool Day into thinking that he was someone else.We see some of that hear but the dialogue and writing produced a rather poor film.Caron looks much older than the 30 year old she is supposed to portray. A psychologist with an extremely even life, Caron is made to go wild when her father, played with humor comedy by Boyer, introduces her to Hudson-who is his usual Casanova type guy.The ending must have had the audience in stitches when Hudson tried to get Caron thinking that he was dating another guy.

blanche-2 Charles Boyer asks Rock Hudson for "A Very Special Favor," a 1965 film starring Leslie Caron, Walter Slezak, Dick Shawn, Nita Talbot and Larry Storch. Boyer is Michel Boullard, a man estranged from his cold, rigid daughter, a psychiatrist, Lauren Boullard (Caron) engaged to a wimp (Shawn). Impressed by his colleague Paul Chadwick's (Hudson) success with women, he asks Paul to seduce his daughter. However, Michel then reconnects with his daughter and, becoming angry with Paul, turns against him and works with Lauren to extract revenge on his mistreatment of her. This involves inventing a lover for Lauren, a bullfighter named El Magnifico and convincing Paul he's lost it in the sack.Paul finally catches on and enlists a female friend who isn't getting any at the moment (Nita Talbot) and has her impersonate a man so that Lauren will think he's now gay.I notice people on the board have all kinds of theories why this film isn't on DVD except that now, of course, it is. It also isn't the only time this inside joke was used in a Rock Hudson film, if anyone recalls his description to Doris Day about her boyfriend in "Pillow Talk." "Well, there are some men...who live with their mothers..." etc. I'm sure that in those days (unlike today) Hudson's private life was safe enough that no one thought twice about using something like this in a script. Everyone probably thought it was pretty funny.These sex comedies were all the rage in the '60s, and this one has its moments, with Hudson and Caron very good in their roles and surrounded by excellent people. In one of the first scenes, Boyer and Slezak, two suicides in real life, embrace - it really didn't get the comedy off to a good start for me. But they're both delightful, Boyer moving from romantic leads to the father roles still possessing that wonderful, easy charm he had. Slezak was a very versatile actor who could go from playing an invincible Nazi in "Lifeboat" to a role like this. Nita Talbot is one of my favorite actresses of all time - seeing her made me nostalgic for the old days.If you like this type of comedy, at which Hudson really excelled, you'll enjoy this one. This is on a DVD set of some of the more obscure Hudson films such as "Has Anybody Seen My Gal," and the collection shows the trajectory of his career from young supporting player to lead. The fact that Hudson has since been "outed" shouldn't make his work any less enjoyable. He was, after all, doing what he was hired to do - act.

bkoganbing Let me tell you this is one special favor that Charles Boyer is asking of Rock Hudson. My guess is that Hudson's estate is keeping a lid on this one.Boyer has a daughter in Leslie Caron who is a psychiatrist by profession. He also has a colleague at work in Rock Hudson and he's concerned about his daughter. Concerned his daughter is not getting any sex.This is a new twist on the normal Rock Hudson comedies. In two of the ones he made with Doris Day, Rock's your normal every day American wolf trying very hard to make the all-American virgin Doris Day. Here Caron is a French virgin, well into her thirties.As Boyer tries ever so tactfully to put it, what a father might be proud of in a daughter at age 18 doesn't hold true when she's 38. As he puts it Rock, he expects him to to the deed with Caron and expose her to what she's been missing. What a favor to be asking.A Very Special Favor then follows the usual capers that these films for Rock Hudson normally do. But the end is really an unusual one. Deciding that maybe he ought to appeal to her professionally as well, Hudson let it be known he's gay and he has switchboard operator Nita Talbot dress up in drag and pretend to be a most effeminate male. Psychiatrist Caron races to the hotel room where Hudson and Talbot are to do the deed and at that point Caron sacrifices all including bachelorhood to save Rock from the love that dares not speak its name.I think it's rather obvious why this film isn't shown at all. What puzzles me is why Hudson who was oh so careful about keeping his homosexuality a secret would do a role like this. Maybe it's the reason why a lot of closeted gay men troll the docks for dates, hoping to have the question of exiting the closet forced on them. I leave that to the psychiatrists.A friend told me that he was at a party at someone's house and a video of one of Rock Hudson's films was being shown. This was a pretty straight crowd he was in and Rock in the macho role he was in was getting not a few hoots from the audience. This wasn't the film they were viewing, but imagine if it was with what we know now.My guess is A Very Special Favor will not be shown any time soon or be out on DVD or VHS. But if it does come out or is shown on TCM or AMC catch it by all means. You try and figure out what was going on in the mind of Rock Hudson.