Ne mangez pas les marguerites

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.

Based on the popular book by Jean Kerr, PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISY is probably the best of Doris Day's 1960s comedies--and it finds her surprisingly paired with David Niven. While the two may seem an unlikely couple, they have extremely good on-screen chemistry, and the film neatly balances its story between the two stars so that neither overshadows the other.

Day plays Kate MacKay, mother of four hellions and the long suffering wife of esoteric drama critic Larry MacKay (Niven.) With her husband under siege by every actor, director, and producer in town, Kate decides to move the family to a home in the country--and in the process leaves her husband open to the temptations of Broadway star Deborah Vaughn (Janis Paige.) Before too long, Larry's swelling ego threatens their happy home.

The cast is expert, with both Day and Niven extremely enjoyable and Janis Paige memorable as the Broadway siren who attempts to lead Niven astray; the supporting roles are also expertly handled by a cast that includes Spring Byington. The script is witty with a dash of sophisticated sparkle, and unlike most of Day's later comedies manages to avoid the feel of frantic farce. A truly enjoyable outing; pure fun all the way.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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!

A drama critic, his wife, and four sons move from sophisticated New York digs to community-centered suburbia. Naturally adjustment problems ensue.

All in all, this A-film is a disappointment. Drama critics are just not the stuff of comedies, nor does Niven get help in lightening the mood. Then too, since both stars were at career peaks, the screenplay expands their screen time with a lot of draggy exposition that doesn't help the amusement factor. And since the plight of Broadway critics is not exactly grist for popular audiences, I expect Day was added to provide the needed appeal. Trouble is she doesn't get to do her usual sparkle. It's a subdued role a dozen lesser names could have handled, and even her meager musical numbers are not exactly show stoppers. Moreover, director Walters seems unsure what to do with the bratty boys, who could have been milked for some laughs instead of too many groans. Still, the near two-hours does have its moments, especially with a cowardly canine, and Janis Paige (Deborah) whose ambitious vixen hits just the right notes. Anyhow, the chemistry never really gels and Day fans should stick with Rock who at least gets an honorable mention from the screenplay.