Lua de Mel com Papai

For the most part this is your standard 60's romance/comedy romp. However there are a few moments which (unless your wrapped pretty tight) will set you laughing. They involve Vito Scotti who played Nazorine the baker in the Godfather films. He has a small part as a cook onboard a cruise liner and even though his scene is small it's highly memorable.

"Swinging" comedy has family from the suburbs getting duped by a low-rent travel agent into taking a cut-rate European vacation. James Garner and Debbie Reynolds would seem to be an ideal screen match, but this leaden script never gives their union a chance (and both are saddled with deadening lines like, "Stop fiddling with your necklace and act like a man!"). Garry Marshall and crack comedy writer Jerry Belson adapted the screenplay from Muriel Resnick's book "The Girl in the Turquoise Bikini", and veteran comedy director Jerry Paris helmed the proceedings, but the results are bathetic; comic support from old pros Paul Lynde, Marcel Dalio, Terry-Thomas and Vitto Scotti doesn't help much. These are not the "Happy Days", although there are fun bits by Erin Moran and Penny Marshall. *1/2 from ****

In his recent memoir James Garner said he hated this film. But he and Debbie Reynolds were enough professional to keep How Sweet It Is at least tolerably amusing for their fans. A nice supporting cast certainly helps in that cause.

Garner is a professional photographer whose job keeps him globe-trotting and both wife Reynolds and son Donald Losby get to trot the globe with him when his boss prevails on him to be the photographer on his daughter's European tour with her student group. Losby goes along as his assistant to spend time with Hilary Thompson who is the boss's daughter whom he's going out with. Reynolds makes it three, but even that doesn't quite work out as they are assigned bachelor quarters with the chaperons and not a married suite on the boat. Now that was a bit too much to swallow.

Even worse Reynolds gets taken by conman Terry-Thomas for a $1000.00 dollars when he rents her a house on the Riviera which is just slightly already owned by French lawyer Maurice Ronet. Debbie gets Ronet's hormones into overdrive especially seeing her in a bikini. Looking real good for the mother of a teenage son.

Garner also has tour guide Mary Michael interested in him. And Losby who Thompson takes for granted perks up when blond bombshell Alexandra Hay shows him some interest and some body.

But as good as this cast is and it also includes Paul Lynde as an officious purser on the ship it's all rehashed and recycled stuff from other and better films.

From a time in which movies were much more innocent, 'How Sweet It Is' is one of many comedies from the sixties that had to rely on script, timing, and facial expression instead of today's toilet humor to make audiences laugh. Not the funniest of the lot, but far from the worst.

James Garner and Debbie Reynolds are a married couple accompanying their teenage son as chaperones on a trip to Europe. Aboard the ocean liner, they are constantly trying to rekindle their romance by interludes in various cubbyholes of the ship. It's worth watching just to see the look of disgust on Paul Lynde's face and hear him sneer "Animals!" when he discovers them hiding in a lifeboat. Misunderstandings, jealousy, a rogue Frenchman, and a close encounter with divorce are in store before their European trip is over.

James Garner displays a knack for comedy, which he will later refine in his "Support Your Local Sheriff/Gunfighter" movies.

Good, clean fun if anyone is interested in that sort of thing nowadays. Kind of like a Rock Hudson/Doris Day movie. (Those were great, too!)

I give this 6 based solely on the fact that it had Reynolds, Garner, & Scotti in it. It was hokey & saccharine 47 years ago, & it's 4.7 times that now. As the saying goes, "Man, I was there then." The thing was written as though it was 1958, not '68. Compare "Boys' Night Out" (also with Garner), done 6 years earlier, & with a similar plot -- vastly superior.

A lot of the humor is weak & sadly forced. The pseudo-psychedelic artwork & intro don't help much, either. I understand & sympathize with those (presumably also of my generation) who like it, but objectively speaking, this just doesn't go higher than about halfway up the scale. :\