Comedy – Page 9 – The Magnificent 60s

The Glass Bottom Boat (1966) ***

One of the joys of writing this blog has been the opportunity to reassess stars that I’ve had a tendency to under-rate. You’ll maybe forgive me for putting Doris Day in that category especially as I’ve had ample reasons now to take a different, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960) just one of the many instances where the actress has confounded my expectations.

Until I started on the Blog I’d 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-decades 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 favorite cute star.

But it was in part on the evidence here that I changed my tune regarding Day. 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. The occasionally hapless Jennifer (Doris Day) is suspected as a spy after infiltrating Bruce Templeton’s (Rod Taylor) 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 the 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 (Dark of the Sun, 1968) 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.

Everett Freeman (The Maltese Bippy, 1969) wrote the screeplay.

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Love Is A Ball (1963) ***

Three main characters playing against type and a feisty, independent, woman are the main pleasures of this conspiratorial rom-com that takes a while to get going. The main obstacle is the subplot involving the education of a klutz, impoverished French Duke Gaspard (Ricardo Montalban), who needs brought up to speed on the niceties of fine dining, horse-riding and dancing in order to represent a decent catch for American heiress Millie (Hope Lange).

So that keeps ex-racing driver John (Glenn Ford), fallen on such hard times he’ll accept a job as chauffeur, confined to the background for the first third of the movie. That is, until he works out that his employer Etienne (Charles Boyer) is a professional matchmaker who makes a living marrying off poverty-stricken aristocrats to wealthy women. However, he poses as a charmer who happens through his connections to put women in contact with eligible men without letting on that he takes a hefty commission or that his clientele is financially illiterate.

But the cunning Etienne realizes that in order to get close to Millie he has to exploit the weakness of her over-protective uncle Dr Gump (Telly Savalas) for gourmet food. All these complications create delay in getting on with the will-they-won’t-they romance of Millie and John.

Millie, channeling the adventurous spirit of the likes of Amelia Earhart, is car mechanic, wannabe racing driver and neophyte ballet dancer, so not quite the hapless rom-com female. And she’s pretty good at putting John in his place when he lacks the necessary subservience, giving him a tight deadline to wash her family’s huge fleet of cars, and forcing him to wear a despised chauffeur’s cap.

Meanwhile, Gaspard is causing problems of his own, not just by his complete ineptitude, but by falling for Etienne’s secretary Janine (Ulla Jacobson). So it’s hitches all round especially as Millie and John spend all their time upsetting each other, so much so that, determined to get married to please her grandmother, she’s on the brink of marrying the next clod in Etienne’s line-up.

To be honest, the script is a bit of a mess and in sticking to it director David Swift (The Interns, 1962) hasn’t quite been able to play to the movie’s strengths – and making more of them – rather than trying for what amounts to not much more than an ensemble piece. What lifts the movie is watching the usually steadfast and take-charge Glenn Ford (Rage, 1966) being put through the wringer by the heiress and forced to swallow humble pie any time he has had more than enough.

Next up is Telly Savalas (The Scalphunters, 1968) who totally switches his mean if not downright villainous screen persona to portray a character who dithers over epicurean delights and turns into a happy individual as long as his appetite is sated. A Jolly Telly is indeed a sight to be savoured.

Lastly, we have Ricardo Montalban (Sol Madrid, 1968), again an actor who errs on the tough-guy side, another of the take-charge fraternity, who always appears completely in command. It’s a bold career move for him to chuck that persona into the mixer and let it spin round a hundred times a minute till he comes out looking frazzled.

Hope Lange (A Pocketful of Miracles, 1961), who had a sporadic career as a female lead, and was at the time involved in an affair with Ford, is excellent as the adventurous headstrong spirit clad in overalls but less convincing as the glamorous heiress especially when simpering.

The screenplay, based on the novel The Grand Duke and Mr Pimm, looks as if it wanted to head in too many heads directions at once, was by Swift and Frank Waldman (Inspector Clouseau, 1968). Farce, at which Waldmann later excelled (he wrote the trio of 1970s Pink Panther films), seems is not a good fit for rom-com.

Worth seeing for Glenn Ford, Telly Savalas and Ricardo Montalban all thumbing a nose at their screen personas.

The Wrong Box (1966) ***

Somewhere between SBIG (So Bad It’s Good) and WAL (Worth a Look), The Wrong Box is a black comedy in the wrong directorial hands. Better known for thriller Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and POW drama King Rat (1965) Bryan Forbes struggles to bring enough comedy into the proceedings or to wring sufficient laughs out of what he has.

Neither the wit nor the slapstick is sharp enough. But it does exhibit a certain charm. Essentially an inheritance story, it pivots on the notion that the two potential inheritors are on their last legs and putting one, Joseph Finsbury (Ralph Richardson), out of action will benefit dastardly nephews Morris Finsbury (Peter Cook) and John Finsbury (Dudley Moore) of the sole survivor Masterman Finsbury (John Mills).

It turns out Joseph Finsbury is not dead. That does not cue as much hilarity as it should., as the nephews plot to send him to his grave. Given the idea was dreamed by none other than Robert Louis Stevenson of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde fame, you can imagine it was written less with comedy in mind.

With so much dependent on set-pieces, it’s rather a hit-and-miss affair, with the conspirators’ failures not matching the humor of watching potential victims escape their proposed doom. Only occasionally does it sparkle.

Surprisingly, the film relies on affecting performances from the shy, retiring Michael Finsbury (Michael Caine), a gentle soul, who enjoys a very innocent romance with Julia Finsbury (Nanette Newman), a young woman terrified of being murdered, which condition provides ample opportunity for her to be rescued/consoled. who enjoy a very innocent romance.

Ralph Richardson steals the movie as a dotty pedant, weighted down with erudition and a knack, equally, for boring the pants off anyone within earshot and for escaping from the jaws of death including a massive train pile-up and several murderous attempts.

Michael Caine, in a follow-up to The Ipcress File (1965) and Alfie (1966) convincingly plays against type. John Mills (The Family Way, 1966) also plays against type as a villain rather than Hitherto, I had been rather sniffy about Nanette Newman (Deadfall, 1968),wife of the director, but here she is delightful.

Peter Cook (A Dandy in Aspic, 19680 and Dudley Moore, in his movie debut, let the show down by being so obviously the personalities from their comedy series Not Only…But Also (1964-1970), a partnership that works so well on television just frittered away here from what looks like characterization with nowhere else to go. But there is a nice cameo from Peter Sellers (The Millionairess, 1960) as an inebriated doctor.

Hard to say whether the blame lies with Larry Gelbart (The Thrill of It All, 1963) for his screenplay or Bryan Forbes for his direction.

Michael Caine got it spot-on when pointing out in his autobiography that it was a “gentle success in most places except Britain” precisely because to foreigners it represented an acceptably stereotypical view of a country full of eccentrics while to Brits it was all too stereotypical. So if you’re from America or other points global you might like it and if you are British you might not. On the other hand, the score by John Barry is one of his best with a wonderful theme tune.

Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960) ****

This shouldn’t work at all. The episodic structure breaks all the narrative rules. Doris Day fans should be disappointed as she’s not in typical prim rom-com mode (Pillow Talk, That Touch of Mink), but a mother – and with four kids for goodness sake. And, beyond for some reason a sotto voce rendering of “Que Sera Sera,” she doesn’t sing until late on. Worse, she hardly qualifies as the main character. That privilege falls to David Niven.

But it has charm in buckets, it plays around with the rules, breaking all narrative conventions, setting up traps for the viewer, and the four siblings are superbly realistic, little cute or adorable about them, given their main occupation is dropping water bombs on unsuspected passers-by and, even adopting sedentary positions, can’t help but cause mischief.

Initial focus is on academic Laurence (David Niven), promoted to Broadway critic, making mincemeat of a play produced by best friend Alfred (Richard Haydn), in the process savaging its star Deborah (Janis Paige). He quickly becomes front page news when Deborah’s revenge is captured by a photographer. Fame goes to his head and wife Kate (Doris Day) feels she is losing him.

But then suddenly we switch to the countryside after they swap their New York apartment for a huge house. Cue the usual slapstick caused by holes in floors and the inevitable paint. Laurence’s lofty attitudes rile the locals. But before you know it we’re onto the third storyline, Kate reviving her dancing career by putting on a show with the local dramatic society.

By now we’re also knee-deep in sub-plots. Taxi driver Joe (Jack Weston), budding playwright friend of Kate’s mother Suzie (Spring Byington), weaves in and out of the tale. You are led to expect that his Biblical musical script, initially dismissed by Laurence, is going to play a part, perhaps turning up at the dramatic society, or being reworked by Alfred into a hit. You are almost certainly going to be convinced that Laurence will end up in Deborah’s bed. And you are even more certain that Alfred is going to get his revenge by bringing a huge squad of critics and celebrities to the first night of Kate’s play. Unknown to Laurence, Alfred has passed to Kate a rejected early embarrassingly bad effort by her husband when he harboured ambitions to be a playwright.

That all these set-ups are brilliantly confounded turns the entire movie on its head. And the reversals don’t involve cheating. It’s not a question of bait-and-switch, red herrings or sleight-of-hand, but down to the believable reactions of the characters.

In the middle of this, romance would be taking a back seat except both Kate and Laurence are aware of the growing distance between them so it’s more of a middle-aged love story, marriage on the rocks, but both parties making the same type of mistakes in trying to rectify the situation as in the usual will-she-won’t-she romantic template.

The central focus could not be more topical – sudden fame, its impact on the lucky person and on those around. And I suppose the newspaper stunt that kicks off Laurence’s sudden notoriety is even more common today.

And I have to mention the kids. One of them gets his head stuck in a chair because “nobody told me not too.” That’s the kind of infuriating children they are, parents driven bonkers trying to anticipate their next unexpected venture. There’s a marvellous scene that pinpoints exactly why this whole picture works – by taking reality as its benchmark: Kate, trying to get ready to go out, is surrounded by apparently docile kids. But one, lying on the couch, has lifted his feet, unseen by her, so that he can tap the bottom of a painting on the wall, swaying it gently from side to side behind her head, just waiting for it to fall off.

Doris Day (With Six You Get Eggroll, 1968) digs a bit deeper than normal into her characterization. David Niven (Guns of Darkness, 1962) acts as if he is in a drama, not a comedy, never playing a scene for laughs, which is why he gets so many. When he does turn on the charm it’s not to seduce but to defuse a situation.

Janis Paige (Welcome to Hard Times, 1967) has a ball as the over-the-top star, posterior a matter of public interest, who is rewarded as much as the rest of the cast with deeper characterization than her initial shallowness could expect. Jack Weston (Mirage, 1965), too, goes through various shades before discovering that he has something unexpected to offer.

There’s a bunch of belly laughs, a joke dog, high-class bitchiness among the cocktail set, and a raft of reversals, but mostly it gets by on charm.

Veteran Charles Walters (Walk Don’t Run, 1966) looks as if he’s having a ball too, pulling the audience in different directions, turning up trumps with every reversal. Isobel Lennart (Fitzwilly / Fitzwilly Strikes Back, 1967) created the cunning screenplay from the book by Jean Kerr.

Made in Paris (1966) ***

She sings, she dances, she shakes her booty. What else would you expect from Ann-Margret in light comedic mode (i.e. The Swinger, 1966) rather than serious drama (i.e. Stagecoach, 1966). While appearing as free-and-easy as in The Swinger, she’s actually a dedicated virgin, as was par for the course before the Swinging Sixties kicked in. But the way she lets it all hang out, you’d be forgiven (if you were a predatory male) for guessing the opposite.

Maggie (Ann-Margret) is a career girl, assistant fashion buyer in a New York store, having come up the hard way, small-town-girl then model then salesperson. When the Paris buyer Irene (Edie Adams) quits her job to get married, Maggie is shipped out as her replacement, not as a reward for all her hard work but as punishment because she refuses to sleep with the boss’s cocky son Ted (Chad Everett). The idea is she’ll be so out of her depth, she’ll return humiliated and only too happy to jump into bed.

*What do poster designes have against certain colors?*
*In the movie Ann-Margret dances in blue. In the poster, the dress turns red.*

Turns out Irene quit so fast she didn’t have time to tell her Parisian boyfriend and fashion designer Marc (Louis Jourdan) so on Maggie’s first night in the company’s luxurious apartment he turns up. Naturally, he expects a bit of the old-fashioned quid pro quo, je ne sais quoi, whatever they call sex when they are being coy about it, and when she refuses to play ball he cables New York to demand her dismissal. Even when the New York boss (John McGiver) relents, she is banned from Marc’s fashion shows, meaning she can’t buy clothes she is forbidden to view.

Enter Ted’s buddy Herb (Richard Crenna), from the same lothario mold. Just to even things up or add further complication, Ted realizes he is actually in love with a girl who said no after a thousand boring girls who said yes. Trying to win her way back into Marc’s good books, with Herb as her guide she tracks the designer through the night clubs, eventually putting on the kind of sexy wild impromptu dance exhibition that the more staid Maggie could only have achieved if she’d taken lessons from Ann-Margret.

That does the trick and they share an impromptu number (“Paris Lullaby”) on the banks of the Seine although Marc still insists she shed her inhibitions before marriage if she wants to be considered a true Parisienne. The arrival of Mark and then Irene, abandoning her husband on their honeymoon when called in to retrieve the situation, adds fuel to the fire and then it’s one mishap after another, especially when Maggie discovers the pleasures of absinthe and ends up in Herb’s bed (yep, she has a hell of a time wondering not just how she got there but if, Heavens to Murgatroyd as Snagglepuss would say, she committed the terrible deed).

Unbelievably, and just as well perhaps from the narrative perspective, Herb isn’t a love rival. Maggie isn’t his type, its transpires. Shoot that man on sight – doesn’t fancy Ann-Margret? Lock him up!

You won’t be surprised to learn that it all sorts itself out in the end but you might be a bit taken aback how quickly a dedicated career girl throws away her career once a marriage proposal comes her way.

You might have expected from the title that Maggie would be a model, the best excuse you could find for the actress to cavort in a series of skimpy costumes, as she does in the pre-credit sequence, an exquisite dialogue-free montage with a clever pay-off that makes you think this is going to be much more stylish – excluding the fashion show of course – than it is.

Ann-Margret has such a dazzling screen persona she makes light work of even the lightest of confections. She does all that her most fervent fans would want but it’s not her fault she’s been cast in a Doris Day comedy that ensures she can only properly express her character by acts of exhibition. Louis Jourdan (Can-Can, 1960) keeps creepy entitlement at bay with lashings of Gallic charm. Despite his character’s playboy tag, Chad Everett (The Impossible Years, 1968) is the squarest of squares.

Richard Crenna (The Midas Run, 1969) spins his normal hard-ass screen persona into something a bit more sympathetic. Edie Adams (The Honey Pot, 1967) and John McGiver (Fitzwilly/Fitzwilly Strikes Back, 1967) add a bit of dash in support.

You’d never guess the director was Boris Sagal of The Omega Man (1971) fame. Stanley Roberts (Come September, 1961) wrote the screenplay.

Ann-Margret at her zingiest. What more could you ask?

The Loved One (1965) ***

If only British director Tony Richardson had seen fit to add some meat to the bones, this satirical look at the American funeral business might have emulated the dramatic impact of Elmer Gantry (1960). As it is, the director is so preoccupied with the funereal inanities that it doesn’t so much lose sight of the plot as pretty much ignore it.

So, yes, the burying of a loved is big business and just like weddings some of the trimmings would make your toe curl. But even when reality intrudes, feet swell after death so require larger shoes and the only way to fit a suit on a corpse is to slit open the back, these are treated in humorous fashion.

And that would all be fine if this was the laff-fest Richardson intended but even with a puffed-out roster of cameos – Liberace as a salesman and James Coburn (Hard Contract, 1969) as a truculent customs officer the pick – this ends up as more documentary than movie. And that’s it’s main attraction for a contemporary audience who might be less concerned about the director’s almighty fall from grace after the stunning critical and commercial success of Tom Jones (1963).

In fact, it’s a shame the story goes anywhere near internment because the initial section concentrating on Hollywood is more successful in achieving a modicum of gentle satire. Wannabe poet Dennis (Robert Morse) has won a trip to America as a prize and lands on upper crust uncle Sir Francis, a Hollywood veteran, tasked with improving the elocution of cowboy Dusty (Robert Easton) so that he can play a British spy akin to James Bond.

That section entails gorillas turning up outside telephone booths, all sorts of monsters dawdling through the studio canteen, and head honcho (Roddy McDowell) running his father’s studio by the seat of his pants until he comes unstuck, resulting in Sir Francis being fired after 31 years. There’s some interesting, almost British, issue-dodging and Sir Francis in true British style, unable to deal the embarrassment of being sacked, commits suicide, leading the nephew into the arms of Whispering Glades funeral operative Aimee (Anjanette Comer). She’s in love with the creepy Joyboy (Rod Steiger) leaving Dennis to woo her using other people’s poems.

There’s another nutcase dropping out of the woodwork every two minutes, and occasionally there’s a mild piece of slapstick or physical comedy. Of course, using rampant sex as the basis for comedy, as with Tom Jones, works far better than death. In the absence of a decent narrative or interesting characters, once the initial heavy-handed points have been made there’s nowhere else to go except be more heavy-handed.

Until Brideshead Revisited (1981) was turned into a triumphant mini-series, the works of British author Evelyn Waugh had difficulty being transferred to the screen. In part, this was due to his idiosyncratic style and in part that, even at his most serious, he was viewed as a comedy writer.

Screenwriter Terry Southern (Candy, 1968) wouldn’t have been my first choice to translate the Waugh essence for the big screen, but co-writer Christopher Isherwood (Cabaret, 1968) was no more successful.

Robert Morse (Guide for the Married Man, 1967) offers little beyond mild buffoonery. While Anjanette Comer (Guns for San Sebastian, 1968) is surprisingly good as the angelic ditzy object of his affections, she can’t carry the entire picture. Robert Morley (Genghis Khan, 1965) manages to keep a straight face while delivering his lines.

Without doubt hits the immediate target but somehow misses the bulls-eye.

Even so, there’s one element of the picture that would have contemporary Hollywood salivating. And that is a producer not frightened of taking risks, willing to go outside the envelope in a bid to deliver the different kind of movie that audiences obsessed over with Barbie and Oppenheimer.

Martin Ransohoff had an enviable track record in the 1960s. For MGM, he was the mastermind behind movies as offbeat as The Americanization of Emily (1964), The Cincinnati Kid (1965) Eye of the Devil (1966) and Castle Keep (1969) as well as big-budget offerings The Sandpiper (1965) and Ice Station Zebra (1968). His name was on such later diverse titles as The Wanderers (1979) and Jagged Edge (1985). As you can see from this random selection, his movies didn’t always come off, but at least they were different.

The Impossible Years (1968) ***

Generation gap comedy driven by unmentionables and the prospect of perplexed father getting more pop-eyed by the minute. By default, probably the last bastion of morality before censorship walls – the U.S. Production Code eliminated the following year – came tumbling down and Hollywood was engulfed in an anything goes mentality. Denial enters its final phase, quite astonishing the mileage achieved by not letting the audience in on what’s actually going on.

Psychiatrist lecturer Jonathan (David Niven) finds his chances of promotion potentially scuppered after lissom teenage daughter Linda (Christine Ferrare) is arrested at a demonstration carrying a banner bearing an unmentionable word. That brings to the boil the notion that Linda may not be quite so sweet as she appears, Jonathan previously willing to overlook minor misdemeanors like smoking and speeding. But it turns out Linda may also have lost her virginity, that word also verboten, and may even be, worse, illegally married.

So the question, beyond just how manic her parents can be driven, is which male is her lover: the main candidates being a trumpet-blowing teenage neighbor and let) or laid-back artist hippie who has painted her in the nude.

Innuendo used to be the copyright of the Brits, in the endlessly smutty Carry On, series, but here the number of words or phrases that can be substituted for “sex” or “virgin” must be approaching a world record, but delivered with gentle obfuscation far removed from the leering approach of the Brits.

It’s a shame this movie appeared in the wake of bolder The Graduate (1967) because it was certainly set in a gentler period and its tone has more in common with Father of the Bride (1950). Setting aside that most of the adults, for fear of offending each other, can’t ever say what they mean, the actual business of a young woman growing up and demanding freedom without ostracising her parents is well done, Linda stuck in the quandary of either being too young or too old to move on in her life.

The scenes where that issue is confronted provide more dramatic and comedic meat than those where everyone is grasping, or gasping like fish, for words that mean the same as the other words they refuse to utter.

Parental issues are complicated in that Jonathan has set himself up as an expert on dealing with the problems growing children present. He views himself as hip when, as you can imagine, to younger eyes, he’s actually square. And he’s also worried his younger daughter Abbey (Darlene Carr) will start to emulate her sibling.

Compared to today, of course, it’s all very innocent and I’m sure contemporary older viewers might pine for those more carefree times. It doesn’t work as social commentary either, given the rebellion that was in the air although it probably does accurately reflect how adults felt at confronted by children growing up too fast in a more liberal age.

David Niven (Prudence and the Pill, 1968) brings a high degree of polish to a movie that would otherwise splutter. He’s playing the equivalent of the stuffy Rock Hudson/Cary Grant role in the Doris Day comedies who always get their comeuppance from the flighty, feisty female. That fact that it’s father-and-daughter rather than mismatched lovers only adds to the fun. And there were few top-ranked Hollywood actors, outside perhaps of Spencer Tracy (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 1967) who audiences would be interested in seeing play a father.

The unmentionable conceit wears thin at times but Niven and Cristina Ferrare (later better known as the wife of John DeLorean) do nudge it towards a truthful relationship. Former movie hellion Lola Albright (A Cold Wind in August, 1961) is considerably more demure as the Jonathan’s wife. Chad Everett (Claudelle Inglish, 1961) breezes in and out.

Although at times giving off a “beach party” vibe, it manages to examine the mores of the time.

Director Michael Gordon has moved from outwitted controlling mother (For Love or Money, 1963) to undone controlling father without dropping the ball. It’s based on the Broadway play of the same name by Robert Fisher and Arthur Marx.

Lightweight for sure but worth it for David Niven and the sultry Ferrare.

For Love or Money (1963) ***

Kirk Douglas (The Brotherhood, 1968) had been so intent on establishing his dramatic credentials as a Hollywood high flier that he hadn’t appeared in a comedy in six years when he was second-billed to Susan Hayward in Top Secret Affair (1957).

So after all the sturm und drang of heavyweight numbers like Strangers When We Meet (1960), Spartacus (1961), and Lonely Are the Brave (1962) it was always going to be interesting to see if he could drop the commanding persona long enough to hit the laugh button. He’s helped by a screenplay that while suggesting he is in control shows him run ragged by a quartet of females.

Millionaire widowed mother Chloe (Thelma Ritter) hires singleton lawyer Deke (Kirk Douglas) for $100,000 – enough to pay off his debts – as some kind of matchmaker, not given the task of finding suitable husbands for her daughters, but to make sure that trio of spoiled women get hitched to men chosen by her.

The plan is for the Kate (Mitzi Gaynor), the most organized, to marry rich playboy Sonny (Gig Young), health nut Bonnie (Julie Newmar) to take up with child love Harvey (Richard Sargent) and hippie art lover Jan (Leslie Parrish) to be landed with dull taxman Sam (William Windom). Sonny is Deke’s best friend, they share a yacht.

Nothing tuns out the way it should in part because Deke is more attractive than any of the other males on offer and in part because the heiresses are disinclined to do what anyone tells them. Deke spends all his time getting into hot water, dashing into another room to take phone calls that inevitably create further confusion, while manfully trying to ensure that the male suitors present their most attractive sides to their potential brides.

There’s not a great deal to it. It’s not exactly farce, but given the daughters live on top of each other, quite easy for Deke to race from one apartment to another, and say the wrong thing at the wrong time. The juggling act is never going to work out, especially as Kate is love struck by Deke, though if she could see how easily he flirts with her siblings she might be less keen. There’s finale on a boat or, should I say, in falling off a boat.

I wouldn’t say it’s a hoot but it’s an excellent lightweight concoction that comes to life by inspired casting. None of the women is your typical Hollywood fluff, all present interesting characters, leaders in their own ways, and with a lifetime of standing up to their domineering mother unlikely to fall over at the sight of any decent male.

Thelma Ritter (Boeing, Boeing, 1965) is easily the pick. The six-time Oscar nominee, generally seen in dowdy parts as a maid or similar, is dressed to the heavens, all glammed up as the millionairess without losing any of her trademark snippiness or drollery. Mitzi Gaynor (South Pacific, 1958), in her final screen role, has a well-written part as an efficient businesswoman and proves more than a match for Deke.

Julie Newmar (The Maltese Bippy, 1969) is a delight as the health nut whose physical demeanor is proof of her regime while Leslie Parrish (The Manchurian Candidate, 1962) bounces along with a coterie of artists. Gig Young (Strange Bedfellows, 1965) can do this kind of role in his sleep but he’s no less effective for having acquired that skill of the guy who never gets the girl. And there’s a rare sighting of Hollywood tough guy William Bendix (The Blue Dahlia, 1946) in a comedy.

But none of this would work without Kirk Douglas. And it works because he plays it straight. He doesn’t give in to the temptation of mugging to the camera, eye-rolling and pratfalls. You could easily get the idea the actor thought he was in a drama, especially as he’s the one in the kind of quandary that we’ve seen him ignore before, when ambition trumps morality or romance, as with Ace in the Hole (1951) or Strangers When We Meet. In some senses, the casting relies on audiences being aware of that sneaky side of his screen persona, the one where he doesn’t always do the right thing. And here, you could easily see him opting for the loot over the girl.

Director Michael Gordon (Texas Across the River, 1966) is adept at winkling out the comedic moments in stories that are played straight. The team of Larry Markes and Michael Morris (Wild and Wonderful, 1964) wrote the screenplay with the emphasis on situation comedy rather than farce.

Good, clean fun and great performances.

A Guide for the Married Man (1967) **

Little has dated as badly as this male supremacy sexist hogwash. While Billy Wilder can manage to inject some sophistication and even elegance into the thorny subject of adultery and male philandering (The Apartment, 1960), director Gene Kelly has little to offer but crudity.

Walter Matthau (The Fortune Cookie, 1966), top-billed for the first time, does little more than act as listener to neighbour Ed (Robert Morse), supposed expert on wifely deception and link man to a series of lame unconnected sketches featuring a battalion of cameo stars.

It’s more likely to be remembered for being the final film Jayne Mansfield (Playgirl after Dark/Too Hot to Handle, 1960) made before her premature death. Her episode might well sum up the depths of hilarity this opus stoops to – the compelling issue of what to do when your illicit companion loses her bra in your bedroom.

Perhaps the only amusing note is the notion that this has come from the pen of the Oscar-winning Frank Tarloff (Father Goose, 1964), responsible also for the source novel, drawing on the experiences of a bunch of “swingers” reputedly enjoying to the full the sexual excesses of the decade, a decidedly middle-aged gang intent on not leaving all the fun to the hippies and the liberated young

The women here are straight out of The Stepford Wives template of female docility, existing only to please their men, any passing woman automatically in the stunner bracket intent on demonstrating every wiggle possible. Worse, one is so weak that she can be easily manipulated into believing that she did not, in fact, catch her husband in bed with another woman once the wily man falls back on that old political adage of plausible deniability.

What makes the antics of Paul (Matthau) and Ed so reprehensible is that their wives are trusting knock-outs in the first place. Ruth (Inger Stevens), Paul’s other half, not just a keep-fit fanatic but a fabulous cook, able to present a superb meal on a miniscule budget.

So we are meant, I suppose, to sympathize with Paul’s flawed efforts at beginning an extra-marital affair. Or at the very least laugh at his failures, rather than mock his inadequacies as a husband. Paul’s main target is divorcee Irma (Sue Anne Langdon) but it’s no surprise Ed beats him to the punch. There’s an old-fashioned morality lesson at the end but I was hoping, instead, for a twist whereby smug Paul discovered his wife was playing away from home. Although, admittedly, that would be out of character for Ruth.

You might get through this if cameos are your thing and you want to spent a whole movie waiting for an appearance by It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) alumni Sid Caesar, Jack Benny, Phil Silvers and Terry-Thomas plus the likes of Lucille Ball (Yours, Mine and Ours, 1968), Polly Bergen (Kisses for My President, 1964), Art Carney (Harry and Tonto, 1974), Carl Reiner (The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, 1966), Linda Harrison (Planet of the Apes, 1968) and Jeffrey Hunter (Custer of the West, 1967).

Walter Matthau just about keeps this afloat and lucky for his career he had The Odd Couple (1968) up next. Inger Stevens (Firecreek, 1968) is wasted.

This was a box office riot on initial release, but times have changed. Gene Kelly (Hello, Dolly!, 1969) directs with a leaden hand.

Guide to a Slimeball might be a better title.

The Flim Flam Man / One Born Every Minute (1967) ***

Throwback to It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), prelude to Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and in the middle of the car chases and town wrecking a character study of a pair of grifters, one veteran, the other his pupil.

U.S. Army deserter Curley (Michael Sarrazin) teams up with veteran con man Mordecai (George C Scott) who teaches him the tricks of the trade. There’s nothing particularly innovative about the older man’s techniques – Find the Queen, The Lost Wallet, selling hooch as genuine whiskey – and the rewards are not particularly rewarding unless you are living at scavenger level in whatever run-down habitat you can find.

The dumb cops, Sheriff Slade (Harry Morgan) and Deputy Meshaw (Albert Salmi), aren’t quite so stupid otherwise they wouldn’t occasionally happen upon their quarry. And the larcenous duo offer nothing more clever by way of escape except to hijack vehicles.

So once you get past the aforementioned car chases and town wrecking it settles down into a gentle old-fashioned drama. Luckily all the good ol’ boy shenanigans are limited to the police, and neither main character is afflicted by over-emphatic accents.

Mordecai ain’t no Robin Hood nor a criminal mastermind who might have his eyes on a big- money heist. His ethos is stealing not so much from the gullible but the greedy. All his suckers think they can make an easy killing from a guy who appears a harmless old duffer.

He’s not looking for a big score because he’s got nobody to settle down with and because, although on a wanted list (as “The Flim-Flam Man” of local legend) he’s not going to exercise the authorities except cops with very little otherwise to do. He is as laid-back a drifter as they come.

Curley offers the drama. He starts to have qualms not so much about stealing from the greedy but about the repair bills for the cars they wrecked, especially one belonging to the young innocent Bonnie Lee (Sue Lyon), to whom he takes a fancy. While she reciprocates it’s only up to a point, having the good sense not to hook up with a criminal, so eventually he has to choose between giving himself up and serving time in the hope Bonnie Lee will hang around and severing his links with Mordecai, whom he treats as a father figure.

How he works that out is probably the best scene, especially given his temporary profession. Whether this is the first picture to feature so prominently incompetent cops rather than either the tough or corrupt kind I’m not sure but Slade and Meshaw take some beating.

In his first starring role, Michael Sarrazin (Eye of the Cat, 1969) is the cinematic catch. All the more so because director Irvin Kershner doesn’t take the easy route of focusing on his soulful eyes, permitting the actor to deliver a more rounded performance. He’s certainly more natural here than any future movie where he clearly relied far more on the aforementioned soulful eyes.

While I’m not sure the ageing make-up does much for him, George C. Scott (Petulia, 1968), in his first top-billed role, tones down the usual operatics and makes a convincing loner who can make one good romantic memory last a lifetime. He switches between completely relaxed to, on spotting a likely victim, sharp as a tack. The harmless old man guise falls away once he smells greed, replaced by cunning small-time ruthlessness.

Sue Lyon (Night of the Iguana, 1964) has little to do except not be the sex-pot of her usual screen incarnation and that’s to the good of the picture. By this stage of his career Harry Morgan was more likely to be found in television so it’s a treat to see him make the most of a meaty supporting part. Look out for Strother Martin (Cool Hand Luke, 1967) and Slim Pickens (Rough Night in Jericho, 1967).

Irvin Kershner (A Fine Madness, 1966) appears on firmer ground with the drama than the wild car chase/town wrecking but I suspect it takes more skills to pull off the latter than the former where the actors can help you out. Though I notice Yakima Canutt is down as second unit director so he might be due more of the credit. Screenwriter William Rose had already plundered the greed theme and, to that extent the car chase, for his seminal It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

The outlandish elements, fun though they are, give this an uneven quality that gets in the way of a tidy little picture.