Comedy – Page 9 – The Magnificent 60s

Man’s Favorite Sport (1964) ****

Wow! From an academic/critical perspective this is veteran director Howard Hawks (Hatari!, 1962) taking the mickey out of his famed style, where women are always competing to enter the sacrosanct male world. But, shades of his earlier Bringing Up Baby (1938), a fast-talking assured sassy woman takes command of a hapless male. Sure, Rock Hudson and newcomer Paul Prentiss aren’t in the Cary Grant-Katharine Hepburn league but they make darned good substitutes. And there’s a big difference to the earlier picture. There, Grant was an accepted expert, and it’s not his knowledge that’s in question but here Hudson is a phoney and relies on the woman.

But fiddlesticks to academe and critics, this is just helluva good fun. Built on a brilliant premise, it just rolls along from one set-piece to another to fashion as daft a screwball comedy as you could imagine. Maybe Rock Hudson left all the physical comedy in Send Me No Flowers (1964) to Doris Day because he was plumb tuckered out by his exertions on this one.

So, Roger Willoughby (Rock Hudson) is a fishing expert employed as a salesperson by Abercrombie & Fitch. When, in a public relations wheeze, Abigail Page (Paula Prentiss) invites him to participate in a competition, she uncovers his terrible secret. He’s never fished before in his life, he’s just a clever listener, passing on fishing lore from one customer to another. She agrees to help him out. But, of course, he’s an idiot and it’s not long before he’s upside down in a car that’s way too small for him, walking around with rubber buckets for shoes and upside down (again) in a lake trapped by inflatable waders.

There’s a marvellous meet-cute where they get off on the wrong foot because she steals his reserved parking spot and his first encounter with her dexterity with language should have warned him what he’s letting himself in for. The situation is complicated by, natch, Abigail falling in love with him, not to mention her buddy Easy (Maria Perschy) not unattracted either, and his fiancée Tex (Charlene Holt) about to appear any second.

So when Roger’s not tying himself in knots, he’s allowing himself to be persuaded to pretend to have a broken arm, which to make it realistic must be encased in plaster, which Abigail and Easy concoct. The fact you know full well this is only the first step to major complication doesn’t make it any the less funny. Then there’s the problem of the zip in a sleeping bag. And the fiancée turning up at the wrong time.

I could have done without the fake Native American (Norman Alden), but the rest is top-notch. Any other director would have kept the wig gag going for ages, but here it’s dumped early on because the wearer, Roger’s boss Cadwalader (John McGivern), needs little excuse to stop wearing it.

You’d be hard put to find sexuality as cleverly dealt with as here, Abigail and Easy provided with good reason to swan around in skin-tight clothing and later prattling on fifteen to the dozen as pouring rain renders their shirts see-through much to the discomfort of Roger. While Roger might be a typical male, the trio of women are far from typical of the period with a streak of independence that allows little room for the notion of men as the superior species. Not only is Abigail as competent as any male in this type of sport, she far exceeds the capabilities of the supposed expert. Furthermore, Abigail is the antithesis of the scatter-brained Susan Vance from Bringing Up Baby. She knows exactly what she’s doing even if shifted slightly off kilter by the unexpected impact of love.

As the male coming unstuck outside of his comfort zone, Rock Hudson is excellent especially in the physical comedy but the real gem is Paula Prentiss, as effervescent a star as you would ever find. You only have to see her in The Parallax View (1974) to understand what a terrific character she has succeeded in creating. Never mind that she handles the script deftly, she virtually bursts off the screen.

The general critical consensus is that Howard Hawks went downhill after Rio Bravo (1959), and that outside his final pair of westerns El Dorado (1966) and Rio Lobo (1971) was very much at the tail end of his career. Most critics seemed to have simply ignored that Man’s Favorite Sport took a different approach to the male-female dynamic or that, setting academia aside, this is just a very enjoyable romantic comedy.

The Art of Love (1965) ****

Priceless. Effortless comedy from the same director, Norman Jewison, as Send Me No Flowers (1964) but minus the box office powerhouses of Doris Day and Rock Hudson and perhaps it’s their absence that makes this work so much better. Or perhaps you get more comedic leeway in Paris. Although the scripts were written by different people, I sense a directorial insistence that the supporting characters are believable, not just there to oil the plot.

The story here is fraud, penniless artist Paul (Dick Van Dyke) faking his own death to give his paintings the necessary burst of publicity to make them hot items. Except he doesn’t fake his death. He dives into the Seine to save a drowning girl Nikki (Elke Sommer) and his buddy Casey (James Garner), a wannabe writer for whom Paul is a meal ticket, and who you would have to say was instrumental in suggesting such a scam, assumes he has committed suicide.

Paul goes along with the scheme for as long as it takes art dealer Zorgus (Roger C. Carmel) to make a killing (no pun intended) from his paintings. Nikki ends up a housemaid at a risqué nightclub (though it being Paris what other kind is there) run by Madame Coco (Ethel Merman) where, coincidentally, heavily disguised, Paul hides out. Meanwhile, in the final piece of the complication jigsaw, Paul’s fiancée Laurie (Angie Dickinson), turns up. A bit like the lecherous friend in Send Me no Flowers, Casey knows how to make the most of the opportunity to give a potential widow a shoulder to cry on. “How can you make a play for this girl?” he asks his reflection, but she’s too gorgeous for qualms.

You can pretty much guess where it will go from here.

It works so well because none of the principals is permitted to milk their roles (though Van Dyke can’t resist making a meal out of a sneeze) and the supporting cast drive it along with selfish action. Dick Van Dyke (Divorce American Style, 1967) has none of his usual zaniness or limbs that refuse to obey orders. James Garner, though in part cloning his character from The Americanization of Emily (1964), plays it as drama. Elke Sommer (The Venetian Affair, 1966) is the best I’ve seen her, no longer the pouting sexpot but a girl-next-door from the suburbs fallen on hard times. Angie Dickinson (Jessica, 1962), further down the billing than I’d expect, has to play it for drama, almost the foil for Casey’s seductive tendencies.

There are some superb running gags. Paul is furious to find a red-headed woman in the bed of flat-mate Casey. But, sight gag number one, it belongs to a mannequin. The wig, sight gag number two, is used to disguise Paul. Casey gets ride of the mannequin by stuffing it into a furnace only it doesn’t fit so he has to saw off its legs and is discovered from above by a waiter, sight gag number three, who naturally thinks he is sawing a woman in half. (I always think the beauty of a good comedy is that you can see the gag coming and you still laugh.) That gag has even more miles to run.

The supporting cast, as I said, are all given just delicious lines. Paul and Nikki, soaking wet, are saved by a passing barge. Paul hangs out her clothes to dry. When the naked woman in the wheelhouse calls for her clothes, the barge skipper, enjoying the prurient scene, implores, “Don’t give her her clothes back.” And when, after a row, that allows her to leave the barge, the skipper whines, “I told you not to give her her clothes back.”

. “I don’t want you to think I came for the rent you owe,” says Casey’s landlord. “What did you come for,” asks Casey. “The rent you owe, but I didn’t want you to think it.” The landlord’s wife comforts the grieving Casey (at this point he thinks Paul is actually dead) with some chicken soup. Casey admits the suicide was his idea. The woman snatches back her soup.

Having put Nikki on a bus, Paul, handing over few coins, asks the driver to keep an eye on her. Comes the reply, “I would whether you pay me or not.”

Sure, Ethel Merman (There’s No Business Like Show Business, 1954) gets to sing. Audiences expected that. But that’s understandable. What a voice. When you wonder why Ann-Margret wasn’t given more opportunity to sing in proper musicals, this is the answer. She lacks the voice of an Ethel Merman, Julie Andrews or Barbra Streisand.

The sly screenplay was concocted by Richard Alan Simmons (Della, 1965), William Sackheim (First Blood, 1982) and Carl Reiner, who had written for both Dick Van Dyke (his eponymous television show) and James Garner (The Thrill of It All, 1963).

The stars play proper roles, not just one-note characters driven by plot. Doesn’t take much to work out where it’s going all right but that doesn’t lessen the enjoyment of the journey.

I always wondered why, after making his name in comedy, Norman Jewison was selected for more serious works like The Cincinnati Kid (1965) or In the Heat of the Night (1967), but when you see the care he takes with each character, far more than standard directors in the fun genre, how he carefully builds the narrative, you do tend to agree he’s wasted in comedy.

A pure delight.

Send Me No Flowers (1964) ***

Doris Day (With Six You Get Eggroll, 1968) is such a whiz at physical comedy you wonder why it is ever rationed, as it appears to be here, limited to a fabulous sequence where her coat is caught in the door while collecting supplies from the milkman and a shorter one where she loses control of her golf cart. And until the relevant misunderstandings kick in, this slightly limps along on the tale of hypochondriac George (Rock Hudson) believing he has only a few weeks to live and determining to make provision for his wife Judy (Doris Day) once he is dead.

Unfortunately, he confesses to his neighbor Arnold (Tony Randall) who is overcome with grief, even writing an eulogy along the lines of “when they wanted a good sport in Heaven they called on George Kimble.” Into the misunderstanding mix are innocent Dr Morrissey (Edward Andrews), Bert (Clint Walker), Judy’s college sweetheart, and lecherous bachelor Winston (Hal March) who preys on women with marital issues.

The fun only really starts when Judy, on discovering George kissing a woman in a cloakroom, believes he is having an affair and discovers that he is being more of a hypochondriac than usual in assuming early mortality. And that’s when we come to Doris Day’s other priceless (rather under-rated ) asset – her range of expressions, not just the expected outrage at deception, but the look in her eye that tells you she is planning revenge.

Most of the supporting characters are well-drawn. Dr Morissey, endlessly envious of colleagues making a killing in one speciality or another, is the kind of man who has a ring of white atop his tanned face indicating where he has kept his hat on when out fishing in hot weather. The predatory Winston demonstrates his talents for picking up vulnerable women. The undertaker is ridiculously jolly. And Bert acts as if Judy made a big mistake in throwing him over. For that matter, Judy seems unable to resist his romantic arm around her shoulder.

It’s not until the complications mount up in that Rock Hudson (Seconds, 1966) comes into his own – an excellent scene sharing Tony Randall’s bed when kicked out by Judy during which his neighbor revises the eulogy downwards, and a cracker of a sequence where, taking his neighbor’s advice, he has to invent a lover in order to confess an affair to his wife in the hope of speedy forgiveness.

It’s all effortless fluff but you do wonder how well it would have worked in other hands. You often don’t appreciate the skill of actors at this kind of light-hearted comedy, creating highly believable characters and at the same time leaving themselves open to be ridiculed by the script. The narrative skips through three arcs. First we focus on the hypochondriac, then the “good sport” trying to ensure that his wife is so well looked after following his death that he buys his own burial plot and attempts to find her a second husband, and it’s only in the third act that the engineered complications kick in.

I was surprised to find Norman Jewison’s hand on this particular wheel, having associated him with more serious pictures like The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and In the Heat of the Night (1967) while even The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966) fits more the category of satire. But comedy was very much his forte in his initial foray in Hollywood.

Of course, you could argue that the Rock Hudson-Doris Day cavalcade needed little steering, the two principals pretty capable of making the whole enterprise run smoothly, so I’m assuming the attention he paid to the supporting cast was where his effort was most noticeable. And, also, given this was based on a short-lived Broadway play, he does an excellent job of widening it out, so that it rarely feels stage-bound. Although maybe that credit should go to screenwriter Julius J. Epstein (Return from the Ashes, 1965) who adapted the play by Norman Barasch and Carroll Moore.

Nothing to exert you here, just sit back and enjoy the fun.

The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969) ***

Sounds like a treasure hunt picture, contemporary buccaneers or thieves in search of missing gold. But there’s nothing in the way of maps waiting to be discovered, no clues, no character unhinged by its pursuit. In fact, the valuable commodity here is wine, over a million bottles of it. Everyone in the hilltop town of Santa Vittoria is in on the secret. Because they hid it from prying Germans who have taken over the place after the death of Italian dictator Mussolini. And that element of the story, once we finally embark on it, doesn’t begin until halfway through.

Meanwhile, we are treated to the browbeaten drunk Bombolini (Anthony Quinn), too dumb to realize that being elected mayor – the previous incumbent kicked out for being a Fascist – is a poisoned chalice. However, taking a few tips from Machiavelli he works out that his survival depends on bringing together a council of more sensible heads. His new position cuts no ice with disgruntled wife Rosa (Anna Magnani) whose weapons of choice, vicious tongue apart, include copper pans and an elongated rolling pin.

But if you were desperate to know how to bury treasure, here’s your chance. A good quarter of an hour is spent on that element. I’m not entirely sure what fascinated director Stanley Kramer (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 1967) about this. Because, clever though the scheme is of vanishing into thin air more than a million bottles, it takes little more than lining up the populace in rows close enough together so they can pass a bottle onto their neighbor, until the total amount – minus 300,000 bottles left behind to fool the Germans – is hidden in tunnels in the caves below the village.

Assuming of course the Germans fail to prod the stones concealing the tunnels and discover the cement is too fresh to be ancient. But Bombolini is in luck because German leader Captain von Prum is a “good German,” inclined to take things easy, coming down hard of any of his soldiers who pester female villagers, allowing the mayor to negotiate to retain some of the supply being handed over to the invaders, half his mind on the local Countess Caterina (Virna Lisi) with whom he fancies his chances, but in gentlemanly fashion of course, aiming to seduce her over dinner rather than resorting to force.

That matter is complicates because the widowed countess already has a lover, a wounded soldier Tufa (Sergio Franchi) whom she nursed. It’s only when the captain realizes that he has been duped by the apparent buffoon of a mayor and by the countess that things start ugly and soon you can hear cries of the torture echoing out over the piazza.

The odd mixture of comedy and reality fails to gel. Anna Magnani (The Fugitive Kind, 1960) doesn’t look as if she’s acting in showing her distaste of Anthony Quinn (Lost Command, 1966) possibly because he is over-acting, cowing and whimpering and using his hands to express every single word he speaks. But it looks authentic enough. Either Kramer has rounded up every aged extra left over from Once Upon a Time in the West (1969) or he has recruited scores of ordinary peasants to play the villagers.

Kramer’s usual earnestness has disappeared, and although his first movie was a comedy, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, his previous picture, played on the comedic elements of the situation, his feeling for comedy is rusty at best, non-existent at worst. It’s hard to feel any particular sympathy, as would be the point, in the villagers outwitting the Germans and in the fact that they have changed from ostensible World War Two conquerors to the conquered once their erstwhile allies turned on them.

You might consider this a feminist twist on The Taming of the Shrew, Rosa not only being a shrew who would never be tamed, not even by Germans, but actually the family breadwinner. While, until his election, her husband is a nonentity. And it might be viewed as a choice role for Anthony Quinn, a dramatic shift away from the heroic roles with which he was more often associated. Anna Magnani mostly looks as if wondering why she agreed to participate.

The best acting comes from Virna Lisi (How to Murder Your Wife, 1965), a widow realistic about the lack of true love in what sounds like an arranged marriage, and faced with having to keep the amorous captain sweet, and possibly doing whatever that takes in order to protect the townspeople. Hardy Kruger (The Red Tent, 1969) has also abandoned his normal arrogance, is uncomfortable with being a despot, wanting to maintain friendly relations with the villagers, and seeking solace in gentlemanly fashion from the countess. He has the best scenes, the look of superiority as he outwits, he thinks, Bombolini, and the look on horror on his face as he discovers the countess’s lover.

Based on the bestseller by Robert Crichton with a screenplay by William Rose (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner) and Ben Maddow (The Way West, 1967) it’s the kind of movie that raises a lot of questions without bothering to answer any of them.

The Bliss of Mrs Blossom (1968) ***

The predatory female was a late 1960s trope but this takes it stage further by suggesting that a woman can have it all, husband, lover and career fulfilment. Usually, it’s the powerful male that sets his mistress up in an apartment. It being British, Mrs Blossom (Shirley MacLaine), wife of bra manufacturer Robert (Richard Attenborough), stashes lover Ambrose (James Booth) in the attic.

There’s an element of Carry On in the focus on Robert’s profession, sniggering at the audacity of it all when it’s little more than an excuse to show a succession of half-naked girls modelling the product. The central conceit is ahead of its time, not so much one-size-fits-all, the Holy Grail of all manufacturers, but that women can have the bosom-shape they desire (rather than these days opting for the under-wired bra or going the whole hog with cosmetic surgery) through inflating the brassiere to suit.

Except toward the end, the bra business takes second place to the sex business as Mrs Blossom demonstrates exactly how to have your cake and eat it. Her shenanigans with Ambrose cause her to make greater effort with Robert. Although the male perspective occasionally intrudes: Mrs Blossom “ecstatic” at the prospect of making two men happy.

There’s not much going on plot-wise beyond Robert hearing strange noises in the attic and discovering a number of items, purloined by Ambrose, going missing, resulting in him seeking the help of a psychiatrist (Bob Monkhouse).

The whole enterprise is doused in modernity, probably post-ironic for all I know, Mrs Blossom’s painting tending towards Pop Art, some in-jokes (one dot on a canvas turns out to be a “sold” sticker). Since there’s not much else going on, Robert, kept sexually satisfied, hardly imagining his wife is engaged upon an affair, scarcely raising a scintilla of suspicion, the lovers carry on as if they are, in the best Hieronymus Merkin fashion, embarking on a welter of fantasies, primarily of the cinematic variety, so nods to Hitchcock, David Lean and even Raymond Chandler etc.

The climax at some kind of ticker-tape convention featuring Robert speaking atop a giant bra-clothed statue looks as though it consumed most of the budget. At bit more of the money could have been spent on jokes, because, without the danger of the illicit couple being found out, it lacks any real tension, unless you count a pair of bumbling and/or camp detectives (Freddie Jones and Willie Rushton) whose sole purpose appears to be to over-act. There’s a clever twist at the end.

Director Joseph McGrath (The Magic Christian, 1968) is something of an acquired taste. His main claim to fame at this point having helmed music videos for The Beatles and his scattergun approach rarely hits the target. One of the few examples where opening up a play (by Alec Coppel – of Vertigo fame!!) results in in racing in too many directions.

Shirley MacLaine (Sweet Charity, 1969), by now the decade’s most celebrated kookie, brings immense charm to the role and it has to be said it’s the acting in the main that keeps this on an even keel when the director is so clearly on a different planet. Richard Attenborough (The Flight of the Phoenix, 1965) is believable as a workaholic who lets off steam conducting an imaginary orchestra. James Booth (Fraulein Doktor, 1969), meanwhile, in a role that could have gone seven ways to Sunday, makes a convincing lothario.

Comedian Bob Monkhouse is surprising good as the madcap psychiatrist and you might have some fun spotting John Cleese, Barry Humphries and a young Patricia Routledge. Producer Joseph Shaftel (The Biggest Bundle of Them All, 1968) wrote the script with Denis Norden (The Best House in London, 1969).

Kind of has to be seen to be believed.

The Glass Bottom Boat (1966) ***

I’ve never gone out of my way to watch a Doris Day picture with the exception of musical Calamity Jane (1953) when it became a camp classic as well as Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and films where she happened to be co-starring with Cary Grant.

So I came to The Glass Bottom Boat with low expectations, especially as this was towards the end of her two-decade career and her co-star was Rod Taylor, a different level of star to Grant and Rock Hudson. By now, she had dropped the musical and dramatic string to her bow and concentrated on churning out romantic comedies and also been supplanted by Julie Andrews as Hollywood’s favourite cute star.

But on the evidence here I can certainly see her attraction. This is entertaining enough. And she sings – the theme song, one other and a riff on one of her most famous tunes “Que Sera Sera.” Unless there’s a symbolism I’ve missed, the title is misleading since the boat only appears in the opening section to perform the obligatory meet-cute with Taylor as a fishermen hooking Day’s mermaid costume.

The plot is on the preposterous side, Day suspected as a spy infiltrating Taylor’s aerospace research operation. It’s partly a James Bond spoof – when her dog is called Vladimir you can see where the movie is headed – with all sorts of crazy gadgets. But mostly the plot serves to illustrate Day’s substantial gifts as a comedienne. For an actress at the top of her game, she is never worried about looking foolish.

And that’s part of her appeal. She may look sophisticated even when, as here, playing an ordinary public relations girl, but turns clumsy and uncoordinated at the first scent of comedic opportunity. There’s some decent slapstick and pratfalls and some pretty good visual gags especially one involving a soda water siphon. A chase scene is particularly inventive and there’s a runaway boat that pays dividends. But there are a couple of effective dramatic moments too, emotional beats, when the romance untangles.

She’s in safe hands, director Frank Tashlin responsible for Son of Paleface (1952) and The Girl Can’t Help It (1956). I also felt Rod Taylor was both under-rated and under-used, never given much to do onscreen except stick out a chiseled jaw and turn on the charm. Although he had been Day’s sparring partner in her previous picture Do Not Disturb (1965) he’s not in the Cary Grant-Rock Hudson league.

It’s also worth remembering that the actress had her own production company, Arwin, which put together over a dozen of her pictures, including this one, so she would be playing to her strengths rather than those of her co-star. On the bonus side, watch out for a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo by Robert Vaughn (The Man from Uncle), and a featured role by Dom DeLuise as a bumbling spy.

Fitzwilly (1967) ***

Implausibility was not much of a deterrent for the Hollywood screenwriter. It might even prove beneficial when it came to romantic plot ramifications. Suffice to say that this most charming of fey comedies entailing a gang of butlers engaged in a larcenous spree stretches credibility, not least because their intentions are a twist on Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the rich, namely to ensure a dotty old lady maintains her wealthy lifestyle.

The big plus is not the series of heists, which fall into the over-egged pudding category, but the performance of Dick Van Dyke (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968). It’s somewhat refreshing to see him not falling back on twisting his vowels or his body and looking like an accident waiting to happen. This is Dick Van Dyke – actor.

*Edith Evans explaining her brilliant concept.* although I’m surprised to see her leave in the “D” in Sandwich which is the most common error.

Fitzwilliam – nicknamed Fitzwilly – is the adored and highly-educated head butler in a gigantic New York mansion owned by the eccentric Victoria Woodworth (Edith Evans) who is working on the daftest notion imaginable, writing a dictionary for people who can’t spell. That’s not even the most bizarre element.

While leaving the entire running of the house, and the management of her money, to Fitzwilly, Miss Woodworth goes against this by off her own bat hiring a secretary Juliet (Barbara Feldon) who can’t spell. This is despite Juliet having a degree from a top university and having a professor for a father. But, aha! There’s method in the old bird’s madness. She requires a semi-illiterate to practise her dictionary notions upon.

Having upset Fitzwilly by sneaking in like a cuckoo to his well-oiled nest, Juliet complicates matters firstly by spotting some of the thieving and secondly by falling in love with the butler. It’s something of a shame, really, that the initial scheme of clever crooks on the make, using wealth as a disguise – who is going to challenge an exceptionally well-spoken butler when he walks off in plain sight with a Steinway piano – is turned on its head when we realise the hoods stand to make no personal benefit. Their largesse merely avoids revealing to Miss Woodworth than she is actually broke.

*The two stars getting up close and personal.*
*There are a ton of under-stated elements of Van Dyke’s performance. In this scene,*
*he delicately explains to a young, inexperienced waiter how to properly pour wine.*

Some of the heists are more of the over-egged con variety, too complicated for their own good, but the final robbery – on Xmas Eve – sits fairly and squarely in Marx Bros territory, providing a host of genuine laffs. Though you might wonder at the susceptibility of big-name department stores to smooth-talking criminals.

The romance is gently old-fashioned, and though Barbara Feldon (Agent 99 from Get Smart!, 1965-1970) does possess comedic timing, in hairstyle and delivery resembles Jane Fonda. It could have done with more time spent on her challenging or outwitting the butler, as she does at the start, to build up her character rather than lamely surrender to the romantic urge

Dick Van Dyke and Edith Evans effortless carry the picture. But while you’d expect nothing less of the renowned British actress, Oscar-nominated the previous year for The Whisperers, the biggest stretch in the entire picture is Van Dyke reversing his screen persona to turn into a believable leading actor not dependent on pratfalls, dodgy accents, singing and those limbs that seem to have a life of their own. He exudes charm and class and his character, without the distraction of being so devoted to his boss, could have pursued a highly profitable life of crime with himself as the sole beneficiary, which might have opened the door for his underwritten confederates – including John McGiver (My Six Loves, 1963), Oscar nominee Cecil Kellaway (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 1967), Norman Fell (Sgt Ryker, 1968) and in his debut Sam Waterston (Three, 1969) – to play a larger part in the dramatic proceedings.

But hey, if audiences were primed to fall for every Doris Day comedy built on a dumb premise and had lined up in the millions for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), then it’s kind of hard to question the narrative underpinning this picture. Isobel Lennart (Funny Girl, 1968) whipped up the screenplay from the novel A Garden of Cucumbers by Poyntz Tyler.

Once you get over the initial over-egging it’s soon apparent that Delbert Mann (Buddwing, 1966) has stitched together quite successfully a jigsaw of improbability.

Worth seeing for a Dick Van Dyke you never knew existed and another imperial turn from Edith Evans.

With Six You Get Eggroll (1968) ***

The blended family was so rare in the 1960s you could easily play it for comedy. In retrospect, though, this comes across as a more realistic approach at how game couples find their romance under threat from children hostile to the match. Doris Day’s swansong, she might have done better with a partner zippier on the uptake than Brian Keith, who for the most appears lumpen, and she shoulders most of the physical comedy burden, but it’s a decent end to an extraordinary career. There are shades of Absolutely Fabulous, children remonstrating with parents going off the rails.

Widow Abby is very much the independent woman, running a substantial lumberyard operation, too busy to consider romance and aware her options are limited to deadbeats. She can afford help for the domestic chores. Widower Jake (Brian Keith) faces endless frozen meals and could have as much sex on the side as he wants with married neighbor Cleo (Elaine Devry) whom he constantly rejects. She has three sons, one a teenager who works part-time in the business, he has one daughter, Stacey (Barbara Hershey) also a teenager.

Courtship gets off to a rocky start. Jake, invited to a dinner, is so bored he makes an excuse and leaves, caught out in his lie later that night. Most of the romance takes place in a drive-in hot dog operation since the children make it plain they oppose any union.

But, hey, since the story is also dragging, the couple decide to get married quick. That’s when the trouble starts. Neither house is big enough to accommodate the squad, irritation spills over into full-blown argument, and little can be done to placate the kids, who resent being forced into a situation over which they have no control and having to share a doting parent with a stranger.

Family planning was another big issue in the 1960s and this was an unintended offshoot, the couple making no provision in advance, beyond their own selfish needs, for how their marriage would emotionally affect their children. And although the happy ending doesn’t feel too forced, it does point up the problems of turning two rival families into one supportive team.

Back in the day. audiences probably laughed their heads off at the antics of the disapproving teenagers, but I think most people would approach those scenes with sorrow rather than humor, acknowledging the despair of ignored children facing up to dealing with what they regard as an intruder upsetting a settled family unit. The assumption that kids will make do while parents embark on a joyous ride seems only too unrealistic.

You can see some scenes coming a mile off. When Jake gets too close to a younger woman you guess right away that’s bound to be his daughter and the minute you spot a lorry loaded with chickens you are counting the moments before unexpected collision sets them free. But once the movie settles into the meat of the story it’s on pretty safe ground.

It’s at its best when Doris Day (Midnight Lace, 1960) is permitted space to indulge in physical comedy. The scene where she ends up with a yellow stripe on her attire is priceless and her driving of a camper van leaves much to be desired. Brian Keith (The Deadly Companions, 1961) only has to deal with temperamental cupboard doors. While he’s not in the class of her previous romantic companions like Clark Gable (Teacher’s Pet, 1958), Rock Hudson (Pillow Talk, 1959), Cary Grant (That Touch of Mink, 1962) or James Garner (Move Over, Darling, 1963) by this point in her career she was more than capable of carrying any movie.

Both teenagers were making movie debts, Barbara Hershey (Last Summer, 1969) coming off best as the sullen female while John Findlater (Airport, 1970) is little more than her companion in creating chaos.

Director Howard Morris (Who’s Minding the Mint, 1967) puts on a decent show given the material. The script was written by Gwen Bagnit, whose last movie credit (western The Last Wagon, 1956) was a decade before, her husband television writer and sometime actor Paul Dubov, and Harvey Bullock (Who’s Minding the Mint).

It’s not quite the career finale Doris Day might have hoped for, but the box office was respectable especially as it faced severe competition from Yours, Mine and Ours (1968), which doubled down on family members, the year’s sleeper hit.

Harmless comedy, perhaps, but the passing of the years has given the movie unexpected emotional heft.

The Wild Affair (1965) ***

An unexpected gender equality twist as fiancée Marjory (Nancy Kwan) decides to embark on the equivalent of a stag party after seeing the state it left potential husband in. Although the full-scale Hen Party was a few decades away, Britain had given way to the Permissive Society, so, theoretically at least, a young lass on the brink of marriage could have a wild fling and with her last day at work coinciding with the office Xmas party she does her best.

Predatory men, of course, have a sixth sense regarding available women so there’s no shortage of suitors and she is egged-on by an alter-ego she calls Sandra who tut-tuts at her in the mirror when she fails to let herself go. Meanwhile, boyfriend Andy (Donald Churchill) has decided she will be bored silly at the party and plans to whisk her away for Xmas shopping.

The roster of potential lady-killers is headed by boss Godfrey (Terry-Thomas) forever maneuvring her into the confines of his office. Scottish salesman Craig (Jimmy Logan) wines and dines her in a private room. The company’s in-house designer Quentin (Victor Spinetti) tries to seduce by spouting poetry by D.H. Lawrence.

An office party being the kind of occasion where emotions run wild, tempers fray and home truths spill out, we discover Marjory is not the only one with romance in mind. An older secretary Mavis (Betty Marsden), lip perpetually a-quiver, more or less announces that Godfrey is the love of her life, ignoring, at least for the moment, that he has already embarked on an affair with model Monica (Joyce Blair).

Marjory switches from staid housewife-to-be (she has to quit her job on getting married, as was standard at that time) to exploring her inner Sandra, submitting to a make-over by Quentin that turns her into a vamp. With clothes by Mary Quant and a bob from Vidal Sassoon, she would have been quite the eye-catching catch had she remained still long enough for anyone to catch her. However, this being a comedy, and Marjory/Sandra an innocent among wolves much of the running time is spent getting her out of situations of her own making.

But although humor is to the fore, you get the sense this is a ground-breaking film desperate to break out into something more serious. Marjory challenges the notion that marriage ended careers, that women had to make do with sitting at home doing housework waiting for husband to return, in a life devoid of excitement or development.

If this is her idea of beginning married life, you certainly get the idea that her marriage will have a more feminist tinge than Andy might be expecting. The Sandra alter-ego, initially expressed as a flighty piece, soon develops into inner doubt, channeling a potential rebel. In some respects, this is standard stuff, middle-class girl sensing opportunity only to be taken advantage of and certainly this particular year appeared to be filled with characters on the cusp of change and/or consequence – Four in the Morning (1965), The Pleasure Girls (1965), The Hallelujah Trail (1965), Georgy Girl (1965), and you might even include Doctor Zhivago (1965). Female characters later in the decade would have fewer qualms.

So it has a time capsule feel, full of surreptitious suggestion. You get the impression that when Marjory quashes Sandra it’s only a temporary solution and that questions that remain unanswered will pop up at a later stage.

The ploy of the alter-ego in the mirror allows writer-director John Krish (Unearthly Stranger, 1963) to seed the comedy with more serious elements and ask questions that might be uppermost in the female mind. He throws in the occasional surreal moment such as the husband being trapped in a phone booth by a drunk (Frank Finlay) or an innovative way to stifle rising chaotic emotions. But some scenes could do with editing, namely the makeover scene which relies overmuch on reaction shots.

Nancy Kwan at last fulfils the potential shown in The World of Suzie Wong (1960), portraying a more complex character than the free-spirited Tamahine (1963). Terry-Thomas (Arabella, 1967) does too much mugging and his well of double-takes runs dry for this to be considered one of his better works. Joyce Blair (Be My Guest, 1965) makes the most of a man-eater role.

Silent American film superstar Bessie Love puts in an appearance and Scottish comedian Jimmy Logan is convincing in a dramatic part. Frank Finlay (A Study in Terror, 1965) is an inspired drunk and English comic Bud Flanagan has a bit part. Krish based the script on a novel by William Samsom. If you want to learn more about “The Permissive Society,” check out a course run by the University of York, which dates it starting in 1957.

Strictly matinee material until you notice the undertones.

Nurse on Wheels (1963) ***

A rude interloper had come trampling over the more sedate world of the “Doctor” franchise, a gentle comedy now in its fifth iteration and even surviving a brief interlude minus original star Dirk Bogarde. Carry On Nurse (1959), the second in that series, had been a massive box office hit and a jolt to the cultural senses.

Who knew that the upright Brits would condescend to a film that depended on smutty jokes, leering male characters and inuendo? But it did open up the mini-genre of films about nurses where they could be presented as ordinary people rather than being heroic in some global famine-stricken or war-torn trouble spot. And make the nurse the top-billed character rather than a doctor’s sidekick whose main characteristic was to whimper at the star in the hope he might take a fancy to her.

*The marketing team clearly decided the slim Juliet Mills needed suspenders*
*and a bigger bosom to pull in the audiences.*

But where the eponymous character in the Doctor series started out as hapless, lovelorn and bullied, here District Nurse Jones (Juliet Mills) has taken a leaf out of the robust book of Hattie Jacques, the bossy, no-nonsense, unperturbed Matron in Carry On Nurse. Not quite as over-the-top as that Matron, she more than holds her own, in perky fashion, in a patriarchal society, answering back a holier-than-thou vicar and dealing with a lecherous patient.

Nurse Jones has shifted from the city to the bland sleepy backwater village of Blandley in part to help her scatterbrain mother (Emma Cannon) cope better with, well, everything. Naturally, romance beckons, between Nurse Jones and local farmer Henry Edwards (Ronald Lewis), although any chance of love blossoming is imperilled by her lack of driving skills (106 lessons to pass her test).

Competent and confident and with a light riposte for every domineering male, it’s a shame that at the first sign of love she turns into a whimpering wreck. But there you go, confident women were acceptable in those days but everyone knew emotion would soon get the better of them. There’s not much in the way of plot, overcoming initial suspicions of patients coming to terms with a younger nurse, the various oddities of her charges, romantic rivalry between Nurse Jones and vicar’s daughter Deborah (Joan Sims).

But it is charming in an old-fashioned English way and certainly the camera adores Juliet Mills (Twice Round the Daffodils, 1962) though she’s neither given much drama to play with nor little opportunity, beyond the ripostes, to develop as a comedienne. Made in black-and-white on a leaky budget I had expected this to be a B-feature, propping up a double bill, but in fact it was given a circuit release on the ABC chain as the main (and sole) feature.

Will keep you entertained on a rainy Saturday afternoon, sufficient witty lines to raise a chuckle along with the batty mum’s battles with telephones, cupboards and rubber plungers. Not sure audiences wouldn’t have preferred smut and inuendo or the more polished presence of the Doctor cast.

But standing out as one of the few movies – comedies or dramas (and pre-dating the mid-60s cultural shift) – where a woman was in control of her own life not subservient or submissive to any passing male, feminism before that word took real root.

Supporting cast includes Joan Hickson (television’s Miss Marple), Carry On alumni Jim Dale and the aforementioned Joan Sims (who would have taken the lead role apparently had she not put on weight), Derek Guyler (Please Sir! television series) and Noel Purcell (Mutiny on the Bounty, 1962).

Director Gerald Thomas could churn out these light-hearted vehicles with his eyes closed and given he helmed the Carry On series shows remarkable restraint.