Já Fomos tão Felizes

i really like this film. unlike some other reviewers i think the chemistry between niven and day is strong - they presented like a genuine married couple. the script is versatile, witty on the one hand, but also able to shift to the more dramatic. the argument between day and niven as he reveals his desire for professional success is very well done. niven himself was laugh out loud funny on many occasions, and the portrayal of parenthoood was quite charming. the song at the school doesn't do anything for me, so i tend to fast forward past that scene. however that is a matter of personal preference: i enjoy doris day as an actress much more than as a singer. it's an amusing, easy going, light hearted film, perfect for afternoon viewing.

Being an honest theatre critic proves unexpectedly challenging for a college professor and his wife in this oddly titled comedy starring David Niven and Doris Day. The film is essentially two tales in one. It is partially about the theatre critic job getting to Niven's head and partially about the impact on Day who has to raise their four bratty children on their own (as he is so busy), something that eventually leads them to moving out of the city to the countryside where they experience new house woes. For a film so clearly structured as two overlapping tales, 'Please Don't Eat the Dasies' works surprisingly well. As an avid film-goer, it is easy to sympathise with Niven's desire to only give credit where credit is due when writing reviews, and as with Bob Hope's subsequent 'Critic's Choice', the film taps into the difficulty of resisting wittiness over descriptions when writing reviews. Day's dilemmas are not quite as interesting (and the film very awkwardly squeezes in no less than three songs for her to sing) but she is solid in her own right, noticeably suffocated under the weight of her children. On the downside, her kids are too obnoxious to ever be cute or really funny, but one might argue this as intentional. It is certainly at least hard to think of another mainstream movie that has managed to get away with playing up the locking up of a kid in a cage for laughs (!). Of course, the film's most unique aspect is its title, modeled on the contrary nature of the couple's kids who think nothing of eating all their daisies because they have never been told not to!

Although made in 1960, this classic sampling of Doris Day fluff is more a product of the 50s than the coming decade of the 60s. As ever, Miss Day is gorgeous and perfectly turned out, this time the mother of four small boys, an aspiring playwright overshadowed by her theater critic husband, coping with a series of domestic crises while she attempts to move her family from a city apartment to an improbably ramshackle English-style country house. 'Improbable' is indeed the word for the entire plot of this movie, but then probability was seldom the reason we went to the movies in the 50s. Bouyed along by the bright force of Miss Day's personality, the light touch and easy charm of David Niven, and ably supported by Janice Paige, Spring Byington, and Richard Haydn, this pic has all the bouncy sweetness and escapism her fans so appreciate in Miss Day's work. So, if you are looking for a 2-hour time trip to what seems like a kinder and gentler time, don't mind bumping your nose against a few cultural idiosyncrasies of the 50s (and no Day fan can avoid that), enjoy discovering some charming but forgotten musical numbers, appreciate really great vintage clothes, and generally believe it is hard for Miss Day to do any wrong, this seldom-mentioned film is just the ticket!

You're glad they made movies like "Please Don't Eat The Daisies" alright, simply to prove there was a time people were more innocent. Sitting through it is another matter.

The central problem with "Please Don't Eat The Daisies" as it stands today is that it suffers from a major case of indecision: Does it want to be about a theater critic who gets a big head, or does it want to be about a Manhattan mom with four sons who finds a new home in Westchester County? Doris Day stars doing what she does best, throwing off clever one-liners with a maternal glow, doing a little bit of singing, and standing by her man, in this case David Niven as theater critic Lawrence Mackay, who probably doesn't deserve her but as played by the winning Niven keeps our sympathies enough to make us happy he convinces her otherwise.

Mackay is quite taken by his new role as the Frank Rich of Mayor Wagner-era Broadway, but she's worried his becoming an influential quipmeister has made him mean, a candidate for a ride on the "down-a-lator" as expressed by a producer who used to be Mackay's friend until one of Mackay's catty reviews sundered their relationship. The producer, played by Richard Hadyn in much the same jaded manner he brought to his impresario role in "The Sound Of Music" five years later, accelerates Mackay's notoriety by having the starlet of his latest play, "Mme. Fantan," slap Mackay across the face for the benefit of a newspaper photographer after he disses her performance.

There's a great idea for a story here, about a critic coming up against the egos of himself and others, but unfortunately the result doesn't give Day much to do. Niven is neither unfaithful to her nor really all that nasty a critic. Instead of trying to make the story work better, which admittedly would risk running against the grain of a Doris Day comedy, the film throws in a subplot, about the couple and their four sons moving up the Hudson River to the bucolic suburb of Hooton and the resulting mild turmoil that causes. Thus, the entire second half of the film feels as awkwardly tacked on as the musical numbers Day performs in the final third of the programme.

It's all rather stupid, yes, but winsome, too, in that nice way that makes one nostalgic for the early 1960s. The scenery is attractively shot. The supporting actors are fun. Of the Day numbers, one, "Any Way The Wind Blows," is a terrific number with a busy bassline and some nice dipping harmonies that recalls Elvis Presley's "King Creole," fetchingly performed by Day and members of the cast as the "Hooton Holler Players." Never mind that groaner of a name, it's a good routine. The other number, the title song sung by Day and a merry band of children, should have been cut but for the fact it's a Doris Day movie and a drippy song with a kiddie chorus was what her audience wanted.

The same can be said for the whole movie. "Please Don't Eat The Daisies" is charming in a way films wouldn't dare be today. The dialogue is unnaturally whipsmart Neil-Simonesque, even when it's Day talking to one of her sons ("All he does is eat and sleep." "He's a dog. What d'ya want from him, blank verse?"). The youngest boy is clearly overdubbed by a woman with a cutesy voice, saying "Cokee Cola" as he drops water bags on people in a way that's supposed to suggest Tom Sawyer, not lawsuits. The dog jumps into Niven's arms at the sight of a squirrel, and he raises his magnificent eyebrows as only David Niven can at the idea of finding himself in a lightweight suburban farce.

Day makes you glad you stopped by, a suburbanite dream in her snug Capri slacks who finds the humor in every scene. Limited, yes, but very good in her genre, enough to make a film like this at least intermittently entertaining. She and Niven do play very well off each other. Like Michael E. Barrett wrote here in another review, the scene of them in the restaurant together after Niven has had his face slapped is a terrifically acted sequence, underplayed well by both stars.

Unfortunately, the rest of film doesn't rise to that same level of subtlety. Instead, she does her suburban mom thing while he plays the non-vicious critic with a vicious reputation, until at the end we are asked to pretend the twain come to meet and all is resolved. It doesn't, but the nicest thing to be said for "Please Don't Eat The Daisies" is that it's so genial it makes you willing to pretend otherwise.

Please Don't Eat The Daisies is an updating of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House from the woman's point of view. It's taken from a humorous book of the same title by Jean Kerr, wife of the New York Herald Tribune theater critic Walter Kerr. The Kerrs have four boys instead of two girls so we're talking about double the trouble.

Trouble the children are indeed. The film actually opens with the four boys getting their baby brother to drop water balloons on poor passersby of their Manhattan apartment. Which in itself is getting too crowded. But when the real estate agent starts showing the apartment off just as their lease is expiring, Doris Day and David Niven have to move and move quickly.

Like Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, they sink quite a bit of dollars into what we would now call a fix-it-up. But where Cary was hip deep in his involvement in the new house, David Niven is all caught up in his work as one of New York's drama critics. It's up to Doris to keep the household together and get the house livable.

Niven's got his own troubles too, he breaks a friendship with an old friend Richard Haydn when he gives producer Haydn's play a bad review. Not to mention a public slap at Sardi's from Haydn's star Janis Paige who will match her fanny with anyone's. Janis did have quite the derrière back in the day.

Haydn's really got a great scheme to get back at Niven for the bad review. It's a pip, you have to see Please Don't Eat The Daisies for.

Doris gets to sing three songs, including the title song which became a big hit for her. It's perfectly suited to her style.

She sings well and David Niven is as debonair and charming as he always is on the screen. The film even spawned a television series later on in the decade. Please Don't Eat The Daisies still holds up well as good family entertainment.