This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

A television writer/director on the Bette of a nervous breakdown gets the shock of his life when his stage actress wife purchases a "summer house", aka "a gazebo" where she thinks he can spend beautiful summer days doing his writing. What she has no idea of is his plans for it that don't include thing up the latest masterpiece or romancing her on cool summer nights. With the house already in danger of falling apart, the gazebo seems poised to either fly into space or sink into oblivion if his kind of luck continues.What makes this black comedy work so well is the collection of nutcases, fellow neurotics, blowhards and just plain creepy folk, including a blackmailer, the contractor hired to prepare the space for the gazebo and a screeching housekeeper who seems to think that everyone around her is deaf. There's also a friendly pigeon, an irony considering the dog like seagull from "This Happy Feeling" which also starred this films leading lady, Debbie Reynolds. The real star is Glenn Ford, as dark as they come, but hysterically funny because of how far he's fallen into a neurotic/nervous breakdown state.I don't think that there was any need to give Debbie Reynolds a reason to do a production number, mainly because the one she does here is just a really bad number. The blackmail plot involves lewd photos of Debbie, and that results in Glenn seeking to become the dumbest killer ever to plot a murder on screen. Supporting them are Carl Reiner as Ford's dead pan pal, John McGiver as the most aggravating of contractors, so pompous and boring that while laughing at him for being like so many people you've been forced to deal with you might be cringing out of memory of those unpleasant encounters. Doro Merande reminds me of so many well meaning but ultimately hateful old bags that I've been unprivileged to have been forced to be associated with that I had fun laughing at the character and laughing with the actress. Then, there's Mabel Albertson who seems to keep showing up at the most inconvenient times. I can see why thus might have a cult following, but it's not one that I'd be likely to re- visit. Black and white photography in CinemaScope doesn't really add anything either and genuinely looks quite odd.

Directed by George Marshall, based on a story by Alec Coppel with a screenplay by George Wells, this slightly above average black comedy crime story is intricately written to cleverly tie everything together before its end, making for a satisfying entertaining film.Leads Glenn Ford and Debbie Reynolds are supported by Carl Reiner and John McGiver, as well as Bert Freed and Martin Landau (among others) in minor roles. Two time Academy Award winner Helen Rose received her second to last Oscar nomination for her (B&W) Costume Design.Ford plays TV writer-director Elliot Nash; Reynolds plays his actress-singer wife Nell, who's just gotten her first big show on Broadway. Elliot is an extremely nervous individual because, unbeknownst to Nell, he's being blackmailed by Dan Shelby (Stanley Adams uncredited voice), who has a compromising (if innocent) photograph of her husband in his hotel room with a secretary that was taking dictation for him. Reiner plays Harlow Edison, a New York district attorney that's a neighbor and longtime friend of the Nashs since before they were married; he'd always wanted Nell for himself. One evening, Harlow wheedles his way home with the Nashs, whereupon Elliot tries to get rid of him so that he and his wife can have carnal relations. Elliot decides to ask Harlow about a hypothetical situation involving blackmail ostensibly for a script he's writing. One of Harlow's ideas involves bumping off the criminal, which Elliot takes to heart even though he's such a gentle man that he'd saved, and adopted, a pigeon earlier. Elliot also learns a couple of other pointers about the mythical perfect murder from Harlow.Even though the Nashs had recently bought a home in the (country?) suburbs as a quiet place for his writing, Elliot tries to convince Nell that they must sell it (in order for him to pay the blackmailer). But Nell is nesting, she's just purchased the titled gazebo at an estate sale and is having a country contractor named Sam Thorpe (McGiver) install it, complete with a concrete base. Elliot sees the gazebo's base as the best way to dispose of the blackmailer's body. Mabel Albertson plays the real estate agent Elliot hired to sell their house, which he'd begun booby-trapping to 'force' Nell to consider selling it. Doro Merande plays the Nash's loud talking housekeeper (a trait which is utilized later, for practical if not comical purposes). Armed with Harlow's information, Elliot arranges a final meeting and payment with Shelby at the Nash home; he even types out instructions for himself so that he won't forget anything.Of course, all won't go according to plan. Comedic (slapstick) sequences follow which include Elliot negotiating with his dying victim to land on the tarp he'd put down to prevent carpet stains, Thorpe showing up to fill in the whole and take the shovel, Alfred Hitchcock calling to suggest how Elliot should solve this new problem, Elliot learning that Shelby was NOT the man he'd killed & buried and trying to find out if he'd accidentally killed a friend or relative, rain which compromises the integrity of the cement used to make the gazebo's base, two hoods (Landau and Dick Wessel) that kidnap Nell to find out what her husband did with the body of the dead man and his briefcase filled with money, the booby-trapped house making things difficult throughout, Elliot confessing his crime to Nell and both having to deal with the body, Harlow and police Lieutenant Jenkins (Bert Freed) arriving just in time to catch and accuse the murderer, but Elliot then figuring out that he didn't actually shoot Shelby's assistant (the dead man) and his pigeon absconding with the bullet evidence so that all ends well for the couple.

Turn on the sink spigot and water shoots out the stovetop; flick a light switch and the TV comes on. Add a housekeeper whose voice can be heard in Australia, and you've got a promising comedy. In fact there are a number of clever ideas in this screen adaptation of a stage play. Nonetheless, in my book, the movie's only fitfully funny.Now, Glenn Ford wrote the book on effective low-key acting, a style adapting most readily to a droll brand of comedy, as in The Sheepman (1958). Here, however, Ford's in a perpetual tizzy that would tax even the expert delirium of a Cary Grant. He strives mightily, but the demands of 100-minutes of forced hyper is really over-stretching the effort and grows pretty thin. I agree with reviewer Blanche2—the part calls for a comedic actor like a Jack Lemmon or an Ernie Kovacs.Then too, this is really tricky material. After all, Ford is meticulously intent on a criminal act, namely, murder; still, I was surprised when he actually pulls the trigger. What's needed with slippery black humor of this sort is a light touch all the way through. Wisely, for example, Ford looks the fool in his outlandish murder get-up, while the victim staggers around like an all-night drunk. But the cops and especially Martin Landau appear not to be in on the joke. They're too serious by half, reminding me of an unwanted fact-- that once Ford pulls the trigger, he's morally guilty of a crime whether his bullet finds the mark or not, a sour note the script understandably glosses over. Again, this is really tricky material to bring off successfully.I don't mean to imply the film doesn't have its moments or that players like McGiver and Reiner aren't amusingly droll or that the perky Reynolds isn't more restrained than usual. It's just that the 100-minutes remains a patchwork of promising parts that unfortunately adds up to an uneven whole.

Poor Glenn Ford, talk about problems! His wife is being blackmailed, and his friend, the local district attorney, would like to bed her, and is not shy about showing it. Then there's the problem of disposing of the body of the blackmailer, who he's shot, after luring him to his home. Later he discovers he's killed the wrong man! All this very, very frustrating. I particularly enjoyed the scene where Ford's calling a list of acquaintances and asking various women if they'd seen their husbands ... that is, lately? Seeing the relieved look on his face as the replies came back, yes, was pretty funny. But, this is a comedy so all works out fine at the end. I gave it a *7* -- could have picked an *8*