Pousse-toi, chérie

I really like this Doris Day flick. Doris does more slapstick in this feature than all her other movies put together. James Garner thinks Doris has been dead for 5 years. He is now on his honeymoon with new wife Polly Bergen and guess who shows up after being rescued off a deserted island? You got it. Doris hilariously ruins the honeymoon (this was when couples waited until the honeymoon to make love, YEAH RIGHT!) Anyway, Polly is quite frustrated not getting any action from James Garner. Several scenes are classics. especially when Doris poses as a Swedish Masseur and practically beats Polly to a pulp. The best scene of all is watching Doris drive a brand new 1963 Imperial Conv. into a car wash and then accidentally putting the top down.

Don Knotts makes a funny cameo as a randy shoe salesman and Edgar Buchanan (Petticoat Junction) is funny as a surly Court Judge. Thelma Ritter is always funny and she is up to par here. This movie was apparently re-worked for Doris Day after the death of Marilyn Monroe who was essentially filming the same movie when she died. Even the sets were basically the same. I guess 20th Century Fox needed the money after the Liz Taylor fiasco "Cleopatra" almost put them in bankruptcy. Overall, a very cute, sexy (for the era) funny movie. They don't make cute movies like this anymore. Too bad.

Move Over, Darling (1963)

The situation is hilarious--a man finally gives up his wife as dead in a plane crash in the South Pacific and remarries. Then she comes home, just hours after the ceremony. And in time to avoid the classic consummation at the ritzy hotel. Doris Day plays the lost wife returning home and her hubby is the charming James Garner. And Garner's mother--Day's mother in law--is played by the impeccable Thelma Ritter.

So what could go wrong here? Nothing much really. It's colorful, plasticky, fun, goofy, and well written. Except that it's a remake of a more famous and in many ways better movie starring the snappy on-screen couple: Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. The original is called "My Favorite Wife," and I totally recommend it.

It must have occurred to these newer actors that they had huge huge shoes to fill. And to make things more weird, Doris Day is basically filling in for Marilyn Monroe, who died during the filming of this same kind of plot (though this movie started the idea almost from scratch, only Ritter and some of the sets being carried over).

One way to avoid comparisons is to never see the original. We all know the dangers there--who wants to only see the second or third "King Kong" or the second "The Women" and so on? But there is also the truth that Doris Day is her own commodity. She is convincingly regular, a true 50s/60s mom type for middle class America (though be sure, these are all extremely rich people here, part of the glamorizing that the audience craves).

So go back to the start here--this is a well made, fast paced, silly movie in the Doris Day vein. She's the true star, though Garner does his best to be a somewhat more conventional Grant. There are a couple of scenes that will crack you up beyond the endless smaller jokes and gags. One is where Day pretends to be a Swedish masseuse and ends up "massaging" that is torturing the new wife. The other is a wonderful automatic car wash scene in a classic car with suds flying--and the top to the car goes down by mistake. Day is an amazing sport for all of this.

Despite my not being around when this was released, (I am 14) James Garner is really a dish. I enjoyed this movie a lot. It was done in a way you don't see anymore. James and Doris look so cute together. I really liked the story and am hoping to see the original with Cary Grant/Irene Dunne. I especially have a place in my heart for Doris Day's 60's comedies and I rank this with the best of them. I love the car wash scene...It was so cute. And Doris's and James's jealousies at what they had been doing when they were away, (just the measures they took), just was funny. If you wanna feel good, watch this movie!!!

This is the somewhat "infamous" film that has the distinction of being Marilyn Monroe's final film (titled "Something's Got to Give"), however she doesn't appear in any scene of it whatsoever. That's because by the time this film ended up being made, she was sadly already dead. Nevertheless Doris Day, James Garner, Polly Bergen and Don Knotts step in to replace Marilyn, Dean Martin, Cyd Charisse and Wally Cox and the results are simply hysterical.

This is a classic early 1960's "Kennedy-era" screwball comedy with jokes, gags, comic pratfalls and the like. Who out there will ever be able to forget Doris Day as the scheming "Swedish Nurse" and Thelma Ritter as the up to no good meddling mother-in-law? Move Over, Darling is a film that I like to watch at least twice a year whenever I need a good laugh.

My only wish is that Rock Hudson would have teamed up with Doris yet again to reprise their earlier success of "Pillow Talk". James Garner to me always seemed a bit wooden in the role of Nicholas Arden. Both Polly Bergen and Thelma Ritter singlehandedly steal the show.

One final note: in the original "Something's Got To Give" film that Marilyn did, there was a nude swimming pool scene. I would have liked to have seen Doris try to pull that one off, but alas, was it too "impure" for her to even think of doing in the first place?

My rating: 3 stars

(For an excellent analysis of Marilyn Monroe's final film with 20th Century Fox check out the book "Marilyn the Last Take". You won't be disappointed, trust me.)

Although this glossy remake of the 1940 comedy "My Favorite Wife" did not turn into the funniest Doris Day vehicle, it does provide several highly amusing moments (Doris's posing as the Swedish nurse is priceless). There are a couple of scenes that could have done with some trimming (Day and Garner's scene in the hotel room and the opening courtroom sequence come to mind) but the film benefits from an excellent supporting cast, Thelma Ritter being the stand-out.