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1[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/phffft_1954.jpg]]
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3''Phffft!'' is a 1954 comedy film, starring Creator/JudyHolliday and Creator/JackLemmon.
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5After eight years of marriage, Nina (Holliday) and Robert Tracy (Lemmon) decide to split up. With the divorce painlessly done, Nina washes her hands of Robert [[DivorceInReno during her stay in Reno]], and decides to take her mother's advice and get back to the dating scene. At the same time, Robert moves in with his friend, failed playwright Charlie Nelson (Jack Carson), and is also pressured to date. Charlie, the ever suave ladies man, convinces Robert to date the not-too-smart Janis (Creator/KimNovak), a young floozy.
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7But getting back into circulation makes both Nina and Robert weary, especially when they keep running into each other wherever they go. They try their best to distract themselves from the old bubbling feelings, but things [[DivorceIsTemporary come to a head when they share a mambo dance]].
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9This light RomanticComedy was Lemmon's second film appearance, and reunited him with Holliday, who'd costarred in his first film, ''Film/ItShouldHappenToYou''. The film was directed by Mark Robson, and adapted by screenwriter George Axelrod from his stage play of the same name.
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12!!Tropes in this work are as follows:
13* AlcoholInducedIdiocy: Belting a few double martinis makes Nina loudly remark—in a crowded restaurant, no less—how she has gotten more beautiful over the years, and that now that she's divorced she's going to be "passion's plaything".
14* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: The end, of course.
15* BelligerentSexualTension: More tension then you can shake a stick at!
16* BigAppleSauce: There's a lot of footage of 1950s New York.
17* BrutalHonesty: The ridiculous mustache that Robert sports makes Nina say this:
18-->'''Nina''':It happens to make you perfectly ridiculous.
19* CallBack: When Nina sees that Robert has grown a mustache:
20-->'''Nina''': You look like a gigolo. You don’t even look like a gigolo; you look like Creator/GrouchoMarx!
21* TheCasanova: The always womanizing Charlie.
22* {{Catchphrase}}: Janis' constant use of "dreamy".
23* CharacterTics: The actor in Nina's show scrunches up his nose like a bunny whenever he poses a proposition.
24* TheDandy: Trying to change his image, Robert changes his outfits to much dandier ones.
25* DanceOfRomance: The mambo Nina and Robert share.
26* DeskJockey: Robert spent the war behind a desk, not because he didn't want to fight, but because he was better at contracts and saving money for the war department.
27* DivorceInReno: Nina is surprised how quick and easy the divorce was, and spends the customary time in Reno, Nevada.
28%%* DivorceIsTemporary: A RomanticComedy + a divorcing couple = this trope
29* DumbBlonde: Janis plays it up to a hilt.
30* LoveEpiphany: After the mambo dance, both Nina and Robert know they still have feelings for each other.
31* ThePeepingTom: PlayedForLaughs: Janis and her roommate have a peeping tom that they keep teasing; they never bother to close their blinds.
32* PulpMagazine: Robert reads ''He Stooped to Kill'' by Jason Carter.
33* ReadyForLovemaking: After inviting Janis over for a second date, Robert dresses himself up like a Hugh Hefner type, and gets out a tiger skin rug to set the mood.
34* RomComJob: Nina's a writer for NBC.
35* RunningGag:
36** Robert can't seem to get past these sentences in the book, ''He Stooped to Kill'': "Outside, the night was as cold as a cold miner's t-shirt. I turned slowly away from the window and faced her. Then, for the first time, she could see the automatic in my hand. For a long moment, she stared at me in silence. Her eyes had that funny mad look I'd come to know and fear. Her moist red lips were half parted. Then slowly, her eyes never leaving my face, she began to, one button at a time, undo the front of her sweater."
37** The fact that Robert and Nina were going to take rumba lessons.
38** Filing Nina’s cancelled checks for her income taxes.
39** One doesn't simply walk into Nina's house... without tripping on the stairs.
40* {{Sexiled}}: Charlie has already set up a system with his statue, Sam. He turns it on, the eyes illuminate, and he turns it towards the window, so the approaching roommate will know the apartment is occupied.
41** Robert is surprised when Janis already knows the procedure with Sam.
42* SleepingSingle: Surprisingly averted.
43* ShoutOut: Robert says he'll look like Creator/GrouchoMarx if he grows a mustache.
44** The title of the film is a shout out to society columnist, Walter Winchell, who, when mentioning a divorce in his columns, would say they’ve gone “phffft!”
45* ShowWithInAShow: The Nina penned, NBC hit, ''Serena, Medical Wife''.
46* YouSaidYouCouldntDance: Nina finds out that Robert can dance the rumba, and surprisingly, the mambo.

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