Ne pas déranger S.V.P.

Doris Day's later films were routinely criticized by critics. However, as a fan, I found many of them to be sublime. Just watching Doris was a wonder for me as a teenager. I rather enjoyed Doris in this film, trying to turn an old house into a palace for her husband, Rod Taylor. I enjoyed Hermione Baddeley as her caring landlady. For me, the whole point of this film was Doris' entrance into the no-wives party for wool distributors. When she arrives, takes off her white coat to reveal a figure-clinging, gold sequined gown, I was absolutely captivated! Of course, I'm a big Doris Day fan, and the sight of her walking down steps into the party was a special highlight for all my years of adoring Doris! It's not a bad film, I just think people expect too much of a romantic romp. Doris is superb at playing someone who has had too much to drink. Actually, she is superb at just about everything she does. That's my take on it.

DO NOT DISTURB has been hastily conceived as a star vehicle for the ever-frothy Doris Day, playing a wife whose love has gone out of her marriage to hard-working husband Rod Taylor. She decides to try to win his heart back by pretending to embark on a passionate affair, but things don't exactly go according to plan...

The whole film is designed to show off Day at her quick-thinking best, to show off her comedic skills as she goes from one situation to the next. I have to say that, while I like Day (in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, for example), her performance soon started to grate on me here. The absolute pits is the scene where she gets drunk; I hate these old comedies where women get drunk and act stupid, because they're just over the top and embarrassing. There were similar moments in a lot of Audrey Hepburn movies.

Still, DO NOT DISTURB isn't too bad, and as a light-hearted comedy you can enjoy it if you don't expect too much from the premise. Taylor is a delight as the foil to Day's wit, and a supporting cast do their best with the material they're given.

You can't ever complain about a Doris Day film, she brings a smile to the screen whenever she appears. This particular film, however, isn't quite in the league of most of her others. I'm not certain why that is, maybe it's because I find Rod Taylor very 2D or maybe it was because the plot became annoying as it got more contrived. This was obviously a film made from a play and you struggle to buy-in to the fact that this couple don't have a really serious problem if they are so swiftly prepared to believe in each other's infidelities.

The drunken Doris in Paris is almost upsetting because you just want to protect her and the modern view of the rest of the goings-on that the business convention seems to require don't sit comfortably. Doris is tremendous throughout, of course, and it's good to see the feisty side as well as the cute. I wasn't going to bother re-watching it if it came onto the telly again, but now I know you can spot Raquel Welch in the hotel lobby I might. A Doris and Raquel film.....there's a thing!

I caught this on American Movie Classics, thinking it would be a match for Doris' earlier comic work in, e.g., "Lover Come Back" and "Pillow Talk". The sparkling, fizzy, dialogue and non-stop comedic capering of those earlier films is here replaced by elephantine pacing and a leaden, unfunny script. Even Doris' valiant attempt to inject some carbonation into this flat brew falls, well, flat. The film really makes you appreciate the work of truly master comic writers such as Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning, who made such a difference in her earlier work with Rock Hudson. And, by the way, Rod Taylor is no Rock Hudson. And - just to keep kicking while the victim is down - the phony portrayals here of English customs and character types, in conformity with the stalest and most parochial American stereotypes, is both unfunny and demeaning. A sad waste of Doris Day's talents.

I am a big doris fan, but the disappointment for me started with the clutzy and mindlessly simple intro song, followed by a poor opening scene concerning learning how to calculate a taxi fee in British sterling...the movie really never does get off the ground, and just becomes an endless stringing together of one boring scene after another...the scene with the fox was amusing, and Doris's figure in the shimmering gown during the party scene was nice, but pretty much everything else left me cold and wishing I was watching pillow talk instead....worth watching, but only once, that is if you can stay awake.