Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Awesome Movie

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The acting in this movie is really good.

This film adapts a Jean Kerr novel about her life with a professor-turned-theater-critic. Apparently, the novel is hilarious, but this film is anything but. Even the trailer -- which for a comedy should really capture the best laugh lines -- elicited barely a chuckle. Or maybe audiences then were less sophisticated: who knows? Anyway, the best diagnosis of this film is that David Niven is horribly miscast. Doris Day is her usual charming self, if not a bit anodyne (no surprise there, sorry!), but there is just nothing by way of chemistry between David Niven and her that would make you think that this is anything but an attempt to cash in on two brand-name actors. Niven's character alternates between flying off the handle and almost robotically delivering lines better suited for some boringly handsome American actor than for an actor of Niven's caliber.Moreover, when the story line takes the characters to the fictional Hudson River exurb of Hooton (which sounds more like somewhere in Appalachia or the Mayberry South than anything in that part of the world), the pastiche of crazy local townspeople is almost too much to bear.That it goes on for just under two hours adds insult to injury.

This movie is a charming tale which I enjoy every time that I see it. When drama critic Larry McKay, his wife Kay and their four boys move from a crowded apartment in NewYork City to an old house in the country Larry finds that a house undergoing (what one can only assume) a major remodeling is to noisy to work in. So after he starts complaining Kay decides that Larry is basically becoming a pain and so she sends him off to live (for about a week) in a fancy hotel in the city until the work on the house is completed. What follows is the portrayal of true to life hilarity that we tend to see with children (because if you do not specifically tell your child not to put a chair on his head-- he of course will) after all boys will be boys and the true to life jealously (between husband and wife) that results when living apart.Many eccentric wonderful lovable characters flow easily in and out of the story making this a must see movie for old movie fans.

After playing a sexy interior decorator in "Pillow Talk", Doris Day went back to being homespun in "Daisies", and it's a defeatist move. With her blonde hair darker and swept back in a French bun, she's sweet and homey to her four kids, loving to husband David Niven, but where's the feisty Doris we all know and love? Based on Jean Kerr's book, Niven plays a theater-critic who capitulates on a personal review about a sexy actress, finding himself the Flavor of the Month. The kids are amusing brats, and the opening scenes in New York City have bounce, but the second-half on a ramshackle estate is dire--and so is the title song. It's a disappointment for Day's fans; she's wonderful as a sharp city woman, and she gets off a few good asides here, but bucolic doesn't do much for her, and there's little chemistry between she and fidgety Niven. ** from ****

I found this film to be pretty mediocre overall. The story couples Doris Day and David Niven as a couple who are moving from the city to the country just as the husband, Niven, is beginning to become a famous drama critic. Various entanglements of course arise in their new life in suburbia and in Niven's busy social life. They are surrounded by an unusual tandem of kids including one who is kept in a cage for safety reasons.The best thing you can say about it is that it is "charming". The production is competent, the supporting cast is decent, the dialogue is good. But it's just not the type of film I personally enjoy.