adaptation of Broadway play – Page 2

Behind the Scenes: “Toys in the Attic” (1963)

Producer Harold Mirisch purchased the rights to the 1960 Broadway hit play by Lilliam Hellman as a way of hooking William Wyler. He had originally signed up the director in the mid-1950s when his Paramount contract came to an end. This was before the Mirisch Brothers was an independent production entity and later responsible for films like The Apartment (1960), The Magnificent Seven (1960), West Side Story (1961) and The Great Escape (1963). At that point Mirisch worked for Allied, the upmarket offshoot of B-picture outfit Monogram. Allied backed Wyler’s Oscar-nominated western Friendly Persuasion (1956).

In 1960 Wyler was the most celebrated Hollywood director of the era, not just with three Oscars and ten nominations, but riding as high as anyone ever had after the monumental critical and commercial success of Ben-Hur (1959). He had his pick of the projects and had shown “great eagerness” to do Toys in the Attic. He was friends with the playwright Lillian Hellman and had filmed These Three (1936) from her stage play The Children’s Hour and The Little Foxes (1941) from her original screenplay.

But Wyler decided instead to opt for a remake of The Children’s Hour (1961), assuming that changes in public perceptions would permit him to bring to the fore the lesbian elements kept hidden in his previous adaptation, but, critically, it was a Mirisch production.

In his absence, the Mirisch Bros decided to stick with Toys in the Attic, possibly to bolster their attempt to be seen as a purveyor of serious pictures and hence a contender for Oscars, which would solidify their reputation, as would soon be the case. After consultations with distribution and funding partner, United Artists, “it was decided that…since we had considerable investment in (Toys in the Attic)… we should try and put together a film,” explained Walter Mirisch.

Next in line for directorial consideration was Richard Brooks who had acquired a reputation for adapting literary properties after The Brothers Karamazov (1958), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Elmer Gantry (1960). Initially, Brooks “had been so insistent and enthusiastic” about becoming involved. However, he, too, rejected the opportunity. He, too, after Oscar and commercial success, was riding high. “It was not because he did not wish to work with the Mirisches because he would be delighted to make a picture for them…but he felt it would be wrong for his career to do a film so similar in mood and background as the one he was working on, Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).”

In fact, it was probably more to do with his financial demands. He wanted $400,000 a picture, which was extremely high at the time, plus “a drawing account of $2,000 a week” (i.e. payment in advance of an actual production). While Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Elmer Gantry had been box office hits, they were nothing like Ben-Hur. And Brooks already had other pictures in mind. He had purchased a book called Goodbye My Son – never filmed – and was already revving up for Lord Jim (1965) funded by Columbia.

Walter Mirisch eventually settled on television director George Roy Hill (Thoroughly Modern Millie, 1967). This would have been his debut except preparations for the movie dragged on and in between Hill helmed Period of Adjustment (1962), an adaptation of another play, this time by Tennessee Williams. He would later direct Hawaii (1966) for Mirisch.

The play had been a significant hit, running for just over a year on Broadway at the Hudson Theater, and making $129,000 profit on a $125,000 investment, though it incurred a loss of $48,000 on a subsequent tour. Hellman did pretty well out of it too. She received ten per cent of the gross and twenty per cent of the profit – a total of around $36,000 – exceptionally good going for a playwright, especially when other monies would be forthcoming from movie rights and foreign and amateur runs. Director Arthur Penn’s share of gross and profit came to over $10,000 in addition to a $5,000 fee.

Turning a play or musical into a movie came with one inbuilt problem. It was inevitably subject to delay. No movie could go into production until the play had exhausted its theatrical (as in stage-play) possibilities. In this case, that meant 58 weeks in the original run and then another 20 weeks once it hit the road. Any contract with a significant movie player would have to include the possibility that in the meantime star or director would have lined up other projects while awaiting the green light on this one, and that in itself could cause further hold-ups.

Hill was in greater demand than Mirisch anticipated, juggling four separate projects – Period of Adjustment, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for MGM (never made), and the $2.5 million A Bullet for Charlemagne starring Sidney Poitier (not made) as well as Toys in the Attic.

Jason Robards, star of the play, was the obvious contender for the movie role. But he lacked box office cachet, so he was bypassed in favor of Dean Martin, “an attractive motion-picture figure.” However, in the time it took the movie version of the play to reach the public, Robards was potentially a screen star. He had bought himself out his stage contract after 37 weeks – paying $3,950 for the privilege – having been offered second billing on By Love Possessed (1961) opposite Lana Turner, and in Twentieth Century Fox’s ambitious mounting of Tender Is the Night (1962) opposite Jennifer Jones. While Robards would never become as big a star as Dean Martin, he was the superior actor, later adding two Oscars and one nomination to his name.

In addition to being much better known to cinema audiences than Robards, “we felt he (Martin) would bring humor to it” – Martin having originally made a splash as part of the Martin-Lewis comedy team of the 1950s – “as well as an audience that might expand the normal constituency of that type of film.” Trade magazine Box Office agreed with the decision, viewing Martin as a “good choice for the haunted show-off.”

The play’s other stars – Oscar nominee (and later winner) Maureen Stapleton (The Fugitive Kind, 1960) – and Irene Worth (Seven Seas to Calais, 1962) – were ignored in favor of Geraldine Page, who incidentally scored an Oscar nomination in Summer and Smoke, and Wendy Hiller (Sons and Lovers, 1960), who already had an Oscar. Shooting began on September 16, 1962. Hill tried to “inject more suspense, more action, more melodrama into the movie version,” without cheapening the material. He was convinced the hiring of Martin was inspired, and would prove a personal turning point, as he gives “the best dramatic job of his career.”

Titles didn’t matter so much on Broadway, plays sold on the name of the writer or the star. Mirisch feared Toys in the Attic would either mean nothing to a general audience ignorant of the picture’s origins or be considered so obscure as to serve to confuse them. So, they planned to rename it Fever Street or “some sensational substitute.” Hill was furious, pointing out the “violence of his feelings” to this title. He complained that “others will assume that it is an exploitation title…a cheap gimmick to get people into the theater (cinema) … automatically puts the picture in a low budget quickie picture category that might be appropriate for 42^nd St all-night houses or a second feature at Loews 86 St.”

Hill felt changing the title would demonstrate that Mirisch was “ashamed to have bought the play Toys in the Attic, have no faith in the picture, are resorting to panic tactics to get some money out.” And that Fever Street would have the opposite effect, and “keep people away in droves.” His impassioned plea worked, and the original title remained.

While backing down on the title, Mirisch veered towards the exploitative in the main poster which showed Dean Martin slugging Yvette Mimieux.

However, United Artists remained in two minds about the release policy. Despite the prestige of being chosen for the San Sebastian Festival, United Artists opted to open it in New York as part of a “showcase” run. That was a relativelynew distribution notion, a version of regional wide release. It would eventually be refined to allow several weeks in prestigious first run venues first, but inclusion in this release pattern meant first run was simultaneous with an opening in – in this case – another 20 New York neighbourhood cinemas. Had UA had more faith in the project, it might have benefitted from an opening just in first run. The $55,000 first week from two first run houses on Broadway was judged a “wow” result by Variety. First run in other major cities suggested a prestige title – “very stout” $15,000 in Boston, a “sock” $14,000 in Washington D.C., “neat” $14,000 in Buffalo, while it was “bright” in Kansas City ($8,000), Los Angeles ($10,000) and Chicago ($18,000).

Hill’s concerns about United Artists’ ability to sell the picture were mirrored in the result. “It did not turn out well,” concluded Walter Mirich, “It’s a grim story. It was not well reviewed and was not financially successful.” Part of the reason for its failure, he argued, was that it “probably appeared at the end of a cycle” of American Broadway adaptations of heavy Tennessee Williams dramas.

While the movie came in $70,000 below the $2.1 million budget, the savings were put down to the fact that it was filmed in black-and-white rather than color, as had been originally envisioned. The box office followed a common, but disturbing, trajectory, a big hit in the big cities, mostly ignored elsewhere. But it was not as bad as all that. Mirisch tallied the domestic box office as $1.7 million with another $900,000 from the overseas box office. By its estimation, once marketing costs were considered, it was facing a loss of $183,000. But that was before television revenue entered the equation and that should have at the very least, made up the difference. There were various pickings later on, too, picked up by CPI under the “Best of Broadway” label in 1981.

SOURCES: Walter Mirisch, I Thought we Were Making Movies, Not History (University of Wisconsin press, 2008) p157-159. Leon Goldberg, “Office Rushgram: Final Cost on Toys in the Attic, May 13, 1964, United Artists Files, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research; “Mirisch Pictures Box Office Figures,” UA Files; Letter,” George Roy Hill to Walter Mirisch, March 15, 1963, UA Files; “Lillian Hellman Could Mop Up if Toys Clicks,” Variety, February 4, 1960, p103; “Toys Exit,” Variety, January 18, 1961, p72; “George Roy Hill To Direct Toys for Mirisch Co,” Box Office, January 22, 1962, pE8; “Hollywood Report,” Box Office, February 22, 1962, p16; “George Roy Hill Announces First Film on UA Deal,” Box Office, March 19, 1962, p16; “Bloomgarden Had Varied Fortune,” Variety, August 29, 1962, p49; “Toys in Attic Chosen for San Sebastian Festival,” Box Office, June 10, 1963, pE8; “Premiere Showcase,” Variety, July 31, 1963, p22. Box office figures from Variety issues dated August 7, August 14, August 21, September 4, September 11 and October 23.

Toys in the Attic (1963) ***

Dean Martin is at his best when he’s not playing the character you expect. Coming over as big and brash came to define his screen persona, and that just wasn’t, unless a comedy job where he was being set up to be taken down a peg or two, as interesting as his quieter, slow-burn performances in Rough Night in Jericho (1967) or Five Card Stud (1967). To some extent Geraldine Page was known for over-the-top performances, generally quivering on the edge of some emotional disaster. Even in Dear Heart (1964), which I adored, despite her lively exterior, that was her character.

So you match that pair with relatively raw director George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969) and you can see the problems he has reining them in, especially as the movie is based on a topline Broadway drama written by the highly-venerated Lillian Hellman (The Chase, 1966). Screenwriter James Poe (Riot, 1969) accommodates some scenes outside the smothering atmosphere of the home of sisters Carrie (Geraldine Page) and Anna (Wendy Hiller).

Given it’s set in sweaty muggy New Orleans, the shadow of Tennessee Williams hangs heavily over the picture, though the Deep South twangs are not fully in evidence. Throw in that their brother Julian (Dean Martin) has brought home a child bride Lily (Yvette Mimieux), suspicious not just of her newfound environment but of her possibly already-straying husband, plus that he returns a wealthy man, when normally his entrepreneurship has usually dealt a losing hand, and you have the making of a rather predictable tale of home truths, overheated emotions and a hint of incestuous longing.

This is the kind of tale, reverberating with unhappiness and frustration, that requires an unlikely trigger to get going. It’s not as dumb as the murderer in the recently-reviewed “five-star” so-bad-it’s-good Doctors Wives (1971) who funds an escape from police custody by blackmailing his wife’s extensive band of lovers and getting a colleague to momentarily pretend to take on his identity.

This time it’s an overheard phone call and the conniving Carrie who suggests to the new bride that Julian has taken up with old lover Charlotte (Nan Martin), the source of his newfound wealth by helping him buy up cheaply land that her husband Cyrus (Larry Gates) needs for his business. This not only puts the marriage in danger but, when Cyrus realizes he has been duped by his wife, Julian’s life is threatened.

This is one of those films where the plot threatens to run away with the story which is essentially that the two sisters have come to expect that their wastrel brother is dependent on them and cannot accept it when he is not. Whereas dealing with a depressed loser maintains the family status quo, coming to terms with a winner takes some doing and jeopardizes existing relationships.

The sisters are equally jealous of each other, so there’s constant niggling. Escape is in the offing for too many of the characters. Julian, from his down-at-heel existence, the sisters from their poverty, Charlotte from her clearly over-dominant husband and Lily from what seems like an ill-chosen husband. That, in several instances, escape pivots on revenge makes the situation sweeter.

The sisters have the best scenes, but that’s a limitation. While audiences watching a stage play might remain in rapt awe at actresses dealing with their frustrations, within the confines of a movie, it weighs the picture down, two old maids quarrelling is hardly a concept that would have movie fans signing up.

Stage plays often suffered from translation to screen, if the characters were not sufficiently louder than life. It’s significant that none of the works of Arthur Miller, not even his masterpiece Death of a Salesman, managed this. Tennessee Williams was more successful because of leading characters with explosive temperaments. The Glass Menagerie (1950), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), The Rose Tattoo (1955), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) were showered with Oscar wins and nominations and generally hit the box office mother lode.

Lillian Hellman was largely in the Arthur Miller category when translating her stage plays to the screen. While The Dark Angel (1935) and These Three (1936) had enjoyed some success, The Children’s Hour (1961) had stumbled at the box office.

Fans of Dean Martin didn’t enjoy him going all hi-hat and in truth he comes up short compared to Wendy Hiller (Sons and Lovers, 1960) and Geraldine Page, both nominated for Golden Globes. Yvette Mimieux (Diamond Head, 1962) continues to show promise and Gene Tierney (The Pleasure Seekers, 1964) puts in an appearance.

For fans of Broadway adaptations.

Inherit the Wind (1961) ****

As timely as ever with America seemingly always on the brink of dictating what freedoms people can enjoy. At the time the target was the oppression engndered by McCarthysim, rather than the more basic tale of whether State law could forbid its citizens to talk about evolution. It was set almost a century ago, based on a real-life case, and even now fundamentalists reject Darwin’s theories. Setting aside the context, the principle contested is still the same – not just free speech but the right to be different. You could even argue that scientists and fundamentalists are all agreed these days, that out of nothing came the universe, whether created by a Deity or someone operating a contraption called the Big Bang.

Setting aside the various arguments for and against Darwin’s theory, what we have, nonetheless, is an acting highpoint, a fabulous courtroom battle, of the kind adored by audiences, full of objections sustained, attorneys being warned by the judge, inadmissible evidence, smart remarks and witty rejoinders. This all takes place in a sweltering courtroom, temperature so high that the judge agrees to depart from court procedure and permit the verbal duellists to shed their jackets.

Given further depth because the antagonists, Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) and Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March), were once the best of pals, political allies, on the same side in the latter’s failed bid for the Presidency, and willing to accept the other’s personal foibles. Probably the first legal drama to accept that outside the courtroom the participants could be friends.

Luckily, most of it isn’t long speeches, but sharp comebacks, plus the detours, twists and turns that come about from concentrating more on the court than on any surrounding action, though there is forbidden romance, pastor’s daughter Rachel (Donna Anderson) defying her father over her love for the accused, schoolteacher Bertram (Dick York) whose teaching is in conflict with the Bible.

The most outraged denizens of the town get into a right tizzy, marches, religious songs, protest, but that’s leavened by commercial interests, a bank manager worrying that the town being ridiculed by those cleverer folks back east will harm his business, hoteliers, sideshow operators licking their lips at the financial bounty of reporters and gawkers descending on the town.

This is as you’d like to see Spencer Tracy, not the silent judge of Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), personality reined in by the weight of his decisions and the need to do right by those accused of even the most heinous of crimes, but the exuberant character, confident, up for battle, able to fend off any criticism and come back to any witticism at his expense with stinging repartee.

Fredric March, too, has a ball with a loudmouth character, convinced of his infallibility (except of course in terms of the Presidential Race), apt to stuff his face at dinner, but still with an intellectual thrust capable of parrying anything Tracy can throw at him. Tucked somewhere in between is weaselly reporter E.K. Hornbeck (Gene Kelly) whose newspaper has hired Drummond to defend Bertram in the hope of filling the front pages for days with the Trial of the Century (taking the prize from Leopold and Loeb the year before – both cases in real-life handled by Clarence Darrow).

Harry Morgan (The Flim-Flam Man/One Born Every Minute, 1967) plays the snipppy judge trying to maintain order while Claude Akins (Claudelle Inglish, 1961) the hellfire preacher. With so many interesting characters on parade, there’s never a dull moment, especially with each actor trying to wring every ounce of drama and/or pathos from their part.

Director Stanley Kramer (Judgment at Nuremberg) looks as if early on he made up his mind to give the actors their sway. There’s no reining in, even in the early scenes, with the populace up in arms and carrying very professionally-made signs and banners (no handwritten scrawls here, no sirree). And once Tracy and March hit their stride, it’s all an audience can do to sit back and admire. Sentiments expressed will still strike a chord, but, mostly it’s a testament to two great actors at the top of their game.

If you only remember March from the likes of The Condemned of Altona (1962) or Seven Days in May (1964) you should know he was a huge marquee attaction in his day, double Oscar-winner (and three nominations besides), as at home in swashbucklers like The Buccaneer (1938) as drama and comedies, leading man who could more than hold his own against top female stars – Greta Garbo (Anna Karenina, 1935), Katharine Hepburn (Mary of Scotland, 1936), Merle Oberon (Dark Angel, 1935) and Janet Gaynor (A Star Is Born, 1937).

Written by Nedrick Young (The Train, 1964) and Harold Jacob Smith (The McMasters, 1970) from the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee.

A terrific watch.

The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960) ****

Surprisingly frank, for the times, exploration of a failing marriage that tackles sexuality, racism, bullying, teenage angst. In those days there was no such concept as midlife crisis, so the general attitude of grin-and-bear-it results in a melancholy that suffuses the picture. Adapted from the Broadway hit by William Inge (Splendor in the Grass, 1961), provides more insight into American family life than the more souped-up soap operas of the Peyton Place variety. Except for crisis escalating action, could well have been misery memoir.

Opens with a surprisingly tender scene that’s again pretty raw for the period. In the morning, salesman husband Rubin (Robert Preston) strokes the arms and face of waking wife Cora (Dorothy McGuire), clearly hoping to initiate sex, when she abruptly rebuffs him. Before he sets off on a week-long business trip he tries to toughen up bullied friendless overly-mothered son Sonny (Robert Eyer), afraid of the dark, and bolster the flagging confidence of inhibited teenage daughter Reenie (Shirley Knight), only succeeding in inadvertedly punching his son in the face and triggering a row with his wife.

But, without warning, he’s fired from his job and not equipped to compete in the employment arena with a flood of younger people with college degrees and greater stamina. Pride prevents him owning up to Cora, rejection sends him to the bottle and a lady friend, hairdresser Mavis Pruitt (Angela Lansbury) who scandalizes the town by (and this dates it) always leaving the top button of her blouse open. Cora plans escape, hoping to go and live, temporarily until she can find a job, with bossy sister Lottie (Eve Arden) in Oklahoma City.

Meanwhile, following an accidental meeting, the hesitant shy Reenie strikes up a rapport with the more outgoing confident Sammy (Lee Kinsolving). Lottie isn’t so keen to help out her beleaguered sister. When Rubin finally returns after a four-day absence it’s to a welter of home truths.

He still can’t bear to admit the loss of his job. The uneasy truce is shattered when Sammy is chucked out of a party he attends as Reenie’s escort at the country club for being a Jew. Subsequently, he attempts suicide and dies, leaving Reenie in shock. Cora determines to find out for herself the rumors concerning Rubin’s affair. But it turns out, although Mavis is deeply in love with Rubin, they’ve never slept together, providing Cora with a second chance to make her marriage work.

What distinguishes the movie is the revelatory dialog you’d expect from an award-winning playwright like Inge. Characters reveal their inner selves, not always with prompting, and not always in argument, and such lines often bring characters to life. Included in that are some of the subsidiary characters.

For example, Ralston (Ken Lynch) whom Rubin openly dislikes because he successfully got away with an insurance scam that turned him into a millionaire, hides away in the back room of a pharmacy, drinking away his guilt. “I know what I am. Who I am,” says Ralston, “the town scandal.” And you think this is maybe just a passing character, but this is the guy, guilt or no guilt, who enforces the country club ban on admitting Jews.

The controlling Lottie suspects her husband’s need for a long walk in the evening is to get away from the sound of her voice. Unusually, the sisters broach the subject of intimacy. Lottie confesses, “I never enjoyed it the way most women say they do.”

What’s keeping Cora and Rubin apart is their lack of intimacy, caused by their battles over money, the husband refusing to get into debt to satisfy his wife’s yearnings not necessarily for the finer things of life, but to avoid the endless scrimping and saving, getting maximum wear from a dress for the growing Reenie by turning it into a skirt.

Rudin laments, “Was a time you liked what I had…If you can’t remember sowing all those wild oats with me, I just plain give up.” Finally, they get to the crux of the matter (again bold language for the times). Rubin asks, plaintively, “How come you don’t enjoy sleeping with me any more?” Retorts Cora, “I can’t fight with you all day and then go to bed with you at night.”

If there is a flaw it’s some attitudes that will jibe with contemporary audiences. “If I had a real wife,” argues Rubin, “I wouldn’t have to go high-tailing it to Mavis Pruit.” And I winced at this particular line: “I wished someone loved me enough to hit me,” says a wistful Lottie hearing that, for the first time in his life, Rubin slapped his wife. Lottie clearly equates manliness and ardor with such violence.

But on the whole, the dialog is a cut above. I’m not sure how much came directly from the play itself and how much was added by screenwriters Harriet Frank Jr and Irving Ravetch (Hud, 1963). The opening certainly, such a situation might be mentioned in the play but a bedroom scene like that would never be staged.

More at home in the theater than on screen Robert Preston (he only appeared in five pictures the whole decade including The Music Man, 1962) exudes such energy as the salesman that you can see how denial of sex would destroy his self-confidence. Dorothy McGuire (Swiss Family Robinson, 1960) is excellent as the wife trying her best not to end up as a put-upon stereotype. Shirley Knight (Petulia, 1968) was Oscar-nominated, Angela Lansbury (The Manchurian Candidate, 1962) came across as too wise to be a loose woman, and Eve Arden (in her only movie of the decade) impresses as the bossy sister.

With such terrific material and an excellent cast, Oscar-winning director Delbert Mann (Buddwing/Mr Buddwing, 1966) doesn’t need to do much to guide this one home.

Well worth a look.

Goodbye Charlie (1964) ***

Gender switch comedies were a rarity in Hollywood at this point though of course Billy Wilder had scored big with Some Like it Hot (1959) and I’m guessing the possibility of Tony Curtis repeating his drag act was an audience lure for this one. Alas, that wasn’t to be. This goes the other way. Or several other ways. A woman playing a man who is a woman. That would be catnip these days were it a transgender thing, but it ain’t.

Confused? So sex predator Charlie (a male) drowns while escaping enraged husband Sir Leopold (Walter Matthau) only to reappear, re-born or reincarnated (as the producers decide after googling it, sorry, after they look it up in a book) as a naked woman walking along the highway, rescued by the wealthy Bruce (Pat Boone) and delivered to the nearest house, Charlie’s own pad, now occupied by old buddy George (Tony Curtis).

There’s some light comedy as George tries to safely manhandle the unknown woman, clad only in Bruce’s coat (necessitating his later return of course) and gradually the surroundings seem over-familiar to the woman and then, shazam, George works out from what she knows about him that actually she must have returned as a man, also called Charlie (Debbie Reynolds).

A cosmic joke, in other words. The man who preyed upon women returning as a woman. See how he likes it to be on the receiving end of misogyny. But, mostly, he/she lolls around with legs spread like a man, gulps down whisky and is a dab hand at cards. But that’s not where the humor lies, apparently, because the movie moves on quickly from the woman acting the man and into the man-woman discovering all the female tricks of the trade, visiting a beauty parlor and the hairdresser. Charlie discovers it’s not the same fun slapping a woman’s backside – what a revelation – if you’re a woman.

But, basically, the female Charlie decides to become a female version of the male Charlie, the predator, ripping off friends, chasing the big money, trying to seduce Bruce. So, mostly, it’s one odd plot device after another.

But the sizzle is Debbie Reynolds, not so much the man-woman stuff, but turning into a mean Bette Davis character before your eyes, all hard-edge and shifty moves. There’s sexual tension as well, George initially resisting the woman he knows is or was a man, before finding the attraction too much, and the same going for Bruce. There’s a fair whack of sexual confusion, as the newborn Charlie still finds herself ogling women.

In those far more innocent times, it doesn’t know what it wants to say and lacks the narrative to say it. Audiences had terrific fun with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Some Like it Hot, but that narrative ploy was bang on, and Lemmon enjoying dressing up as a woman and Curtis having to keep his male instincts at bay while ogling Marilyn Monroe was pure catnip.

Here, Curtis is mostly the foil for Debbie Reynolds and by the time it looks as though they might get it together she is way past behaving like a man and is most definitely a desirable woman so it’s kind of difficult to make this work romantically or humorously.

Perhaps the oddest element is that the signs were already there that it wouldn’t work that well. It started as a Broadway play written by George Axelrod (The Seven Year Itch, which was a Broadway smash) but it barely lasted a dozen weeks on stage. By that time, though, Twentieth Century Fox had splashed out $150,000 for the rights. Still, bigger sums have been buried in the annual accounts.

And I guess when Vincente Minelli (Two Weeks in Another Town, 1962) came on board with a pretty decent cast it seemed at least doable. Like many a lightweight comedy from the decade – Dear Brigitte (1965) for example – it’s keep afloat by a terrific performance by the principal star, in this case Debbie Reynolds (Divorce American Style, 1967). You might spot Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist, 1973) in an early role.

Take away Debbie Reynolds and it would limp along.

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.

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 Chalk Garden (1964) ***

You couldn’t make a movie like this now because (plot spoiler, I’m afraid) even the dottiest of old ladies would make at least a better attempt at collecting a reference from a prospective employee for fear she might be hiring someone disreputable. Though I doubt if many employers would expect a governess to turn out to be a murderess.

That this movie chimes with a contemporary trope – the criminal wanting to prevent others from following in their footsteps – makes it far ahead of its time. Made today, of course, the unruly child rather than merely threatening to unleash her arson impulses would probably have burned the house down.

So it’s more a drama of manners, if you like. Very presentable but clearly down-on-her-luck Miss Madrigal (Deborah Kerr) is taken on by Mrs St Maugham (Edith Evans) as governess for her grandchild Laurel (Hayley Mills) because nobody else wants the job. Laurel’s outrageous behavior has sent a score perfectly well qualified ladies scurrying. Madrigal is hardly fazed by anything Laurel can get up to.

But the child is clearly suffering abandonment issues, her beautiful mother Olivia (Elizabeth Sellars) having gone off with another man. Grandmother incites grandchild to hate the mother. But Olivia’s maternal instincts have kicked in and she wants her child back. While Madrigal can deal with Laurel’s tantrums she is less fortified against the child’s inveterate snooping. Finding a mysterious suitcase leads Laurel to fantasize about Madrigal’s past.

Mostly the film is a four-hander, butler Maitland (John Mills) playing a significant role in proceedings, not least in his effortless management of the wild child. Quite why a such a pragmatic and assured gentleman should end up in this remote mansion is another mystery and thankfully there is no attempt made at playing up the cliff-top location in a suspenseful manner.

Mrs St Maugham is imperious but not entirely practical, either in setting child against mother or in trying to grow flowers in such chalky soil, though Madrigal appears to have sufficient horticultural knowledge to set her straight on the latter and attempt to intervene on the former.

There’s a deadline of sorts. Olivia is coming to remove the child. Whether she goes willingly or not doesn’t matter. Madrigal sees her role as trying to prepare a child to love her mother and be more grown-up than the adults around her and forgive her.

Madrigal’s guilt unnecessarily causes her to reveal that she had been jailed for murdering her stepsister, having been as resentful and jealous of the girl as Laurel currently is of her mother. Mrs St Maugham had called on old acquaintance Judge (Felix Aylmer ) for legal advice on how to prevent Olivia getting the child. He was the presiding judge in Madrigal’s case. Imagining he had not forgotten the trial – which of course he has – she feels duty bound to blurt out the truth before she is humiliated. The confession helps Laurel realise how dangerous a path she is on and pushes her towards reconciliation rather than revenge.

It has all the making of a well-made play which is hardly surprising since it is based on Enid Bagnold’s Broadway success, at one time mooted as a film to star Joanne Woodward and Sandra Dee. So it moves along in the traditional three-act manner, plenty space given to establishing characters, introducing the undercurrents and leading to revelation and resolution.

So, mostly, it depends on the acting. Luckily, it is excellent. This was Hayley Mills in transition, far removed from Disney saccharine of The Parent Trap (1961) and about the same distance from the full-blown adult bottom-baring of The Family Way (1966). She projects a great deal more torment than in either of those films and comes across as believable, not exactly a young hoodlum but left to her own devices and starved of parental love only a matter of time before she would commit a crime of some kind.

Deborah Kerr hadn’t made a film in three years but her screen persona had shifted from the passionate – From Here to Eternity (1953), An Affair to Remember (1957), The Sundowners (1960) – to the repressed. Her spinster introduced in The Innocents (1961) had a great deal in common with her spinster of The Night of the Iguana (1965). But this is a different kettle of fish. Here, she exudes capability but with a self-awareness that undercuts such confidence, trying to keep a lid of emotions she struggles to handle.

John Mills (Tunes of Glory, 1960) casts a sardonic eye on the household while Edith Evans (The Whisperers) portrays a sorely wounded matriarch. Director Ronald Neame (Gambit, 1966) cleverly opens up the play, using the cliffs, gardens and rocky beach to considerable effect, but keeps the drama taut. John Michael Hayes (Nevada Smith, 1966) produced a workable screenplay.

Apologies for giving away the story, a good watch more for the acting than the twist.