Spion in Spitzenhöschen

Frank Tashlin directed this sunny comedy that relies heavily on Doris Day, an actress who was at the height of her popularity back when this film was done. "The Glass Bottom Boat" is a fun comedy that mixes science with espionage and mistaken identities that produced a funny movie, even when watched today.

Doris Day in her heyday couldn't do anything wrong, in spite of the silly premises of what was written for her. In this comedy is Jennifer Nelson, a widow, who works in the aerospace industry. The genius scientist, Bruce Templeton, likes what he sees and proceeds to pursue Jennifer, but things get complicated because it appears Mrs. Nelson is a Soviet spy.

The film's pace never lets up. Doris Day is wonderful as the naive, but resourceful woman who can charm us with one of her wonderful smiles. Rod Taylor is the hunky Bruce Templeton who sees in Jennifer not only a beautiful lady, but the right one for him.

The supporting cast in this movie is full of familiar faces. Paul Linde provides one of the best laughs in the movie when, as a security guard, and suspecting Jennifer of the worst, dresses in drag and follows her to the ladies' room. Arthur Godfrey is Jennifer's father. John McGiver, Edward Anderson, Dick Martin, Dom DeLuise, Eric Fleming, Alice Pearce and George Tobias contribute to make this a fun movie. The cameo by Robert Vaughn is a surprise.

The film will not disappoint fans of Doris Day.

This film is classic late 50's 60's mainstream humor. I happened to be in Catalina during part of the filming, and Arthur Godfrey, always gregarious, commented, barring cameos, it was his first full film role. I don't know if correct, but it was his comment. Great Paul Linde and other comedic talent here.

Just think that if Doris Day had not for some reason named her dog, Vladimir there might have been no plot at all for this Frank Tashlin comedy.

That might have been bad because this was the best of Doris Day's films in the late sixties as she was beginning a downward drop in her box office appeal. The Glass Bottom Boat was the second film she did with Rod Taylor as co-star and the first of two she did with Frank Tashlin as director. And this one was the best product in both associations.

Doris works in public relations at a space lab in California where scientist Rod Taylor is developing new stuff for the Defense Department and NASA. She also doubles and helps her dad Arthur Godfrey on his glass bottom boat tourist vehicle. One of the things I like best about The Glass Bottom Boat is Doris sings again on screen, once in a nice duet with Arthur Godfrey on his ever present ukulele. She also sings her most famous song, Que Sera Sera once again for a new generations of film fans.

One thing about Doris's later films, she always had excellent supporting casts and this one is loaded with some very funny people like, Edward Andrews, John McGiver, Paul Lynde, Dom DeLuise, Dick Martin, George Tobias, and Alice Pearce. They all fill roles that you would expect from them.

The Glass Bottom Boat has Rod Taylor concerned with plant security in regard to his top secret work. An overzealous security guard played by Paul Lynde overhears Doris call her dog on the phone. What she does is that in order to give the pooch some exercise during the day she calls her own number, counts the rings and then says something to the unanswered phone. It's for the dog to get exercise because he runs around like a maniac when the phone rings.

From that we deduce that Doris is a Soviet spy and the real CIA in the person of Eric Fleming is called in. This was Fleming's last big screen appearance before he was drowned on location in Peru. A very sad end to a career that might have been the equal of his Rawhide co-star, Clint Eastwood.

Seeing Paul Lynde in drag, questioning an inept spy played by Dom DeLuise is worth seeing this film alone.

This picture wasn't thought to be much when it was released. Most people thought it was a silly sitcom style comedy not up to Day's earlier romantic comedies. Arthur Godfrey gave it some air play on his daytime radio show, with Day and Taylor as guests, but there wasn't much else as I remember. By this point in his career Godfrey had lost his star lustre of just ten years before and his network radio show on CBS was just about all that was left, so his appearance in a major Hollywood movie was a big deal for him.

The picture did get a Music Hall premiere run in New York, but as I say, most people just yawned.

Seen forty years later it has a lot going for it, especially compared to today's cinema "comedies": good writing, expert direction, good pacing and editing, colorful location shots of Catalina and vicinity, good playing by the leads, who look to be having fun, and really good support from that amazing cast of 60s character actors.

There is a surprising amount of frank sexuality in this picture for the time, without nudity or profanity (Doris' character is a widow so she plays her as sexually mature and sophisticated), Godfrey's character has a wife/girlfriend about whom he's absolutely crazy and shows it, often (!), and there's even a surprising gay subplot that's played for laughs of course, but not offensively so. There's even Paul Lynde in drag...priceless!

Forty years later, it still makes me laugh. You will too.

This film has its moments of great screwball comedy, and Tashlin seems to keep alive the finesse and sophistication of a Hawks, McCarey or LaCava. The story built around the attraction between two opposite individuals never reach the sublime heights of `Bringing up Baby' –needles to say, Taylor and Day aren't Grant and Hepburn-, and it seems that this film greatest problem is not to dare going too far in its craze, as other Tashlin's films like `Rock Hunter' or `Artists and Models' did. Probably the cause is the plot dealing with the cold war, a subject pretty much on the focus at the time. Now and them you feel that the director is doing a sort of journalism through a territory that doesn't suit him as good as Hollywood and its superficiality, for example. But Tashlin always manages to insert his comments about the decadence of American life, a circumstance that not even the fanciest of technology can hide. In his anarchic fashion, Tashlin's films counterpart Douglas Sirk's melodramas. Both are about the same, but the path chosen to express its vision are opposite.

This film has a wonderful use of color, an admirable pacing and a freshness rarely seen in the studio comedies of the time (the singing scene in the boat looks totally improvised). But if Tashlin's background as a cartoonist often contributes to his creative ability to take situations beyond the edge, and to destroy a stiff established order, very seldom this very quality can work against him. And this is what happens with all the bad guys in this film. They are a mere caricature, and one can never feel them as a serious threat. The theme demanded something more serious, and these clumsy amateurs certainly fail.

Anyway, watch the film and sing the title's tune; it'll remain with you for ages.