La blonde défie le FBI

This film is classic late 50's 60's mainstream humor. I happened to be in Catalina during part of the filming, and Arthur Godfrey, always gregarious, commented, barring cameos, it was his first full film role. I don't know if correct, but it was his comment. Great Paul Linde and other comedic talent here.

This film has its moments of great screwball comedy, and Tashlin seems to keep alive the finesse and sophistication of a Hawks, McCarey or LaCava. The story built around the attraction between two opposite individuals never reach the sublime heights of `Bringing up Baby' –needles to say, Taylor and Day aren't Grant and Hepburn-, and it seems that this film greatest problem is not to dare going too far in its craze, as other Tashlin's films like `Rock Hunter' or `Artists and Models' did. Probably the cause is the plot dealing with the cold war, a subject pretty much on the focus at the time. Now and them you feel that the director is doing a sort of journalism through a territory that doesn't suit him as good as Hollywood and its superficiality, for example. But Tashlin always manages to insert his comments about the decadence of American life, a circumstance that not even the fanciest of technology can hide. In his anarchic fashion, Tashlin's films counterpart Douglas Sirk's melodramas. Both are about the same, but the path chosen to express its vision are opposite.

This film has a wonderful use of color, an admirable pacing and a freshness rarely seen in the studio comedies of the time (the singing scene in the boat looks totally improvised). But if Tashlin's background as a cartoonist often contributes to his creative ability to take situations beyond the edge, and to destroy a stiff established order, very seldom this very quality can work against him. And this is what happens with all the bad guys in this film. They are a mere caricature, and one can never feel them as a serious threat. The theme demanded something more serious, and these clumsy amateurs certainly fail.

Anyway, watch the film and sing the title's tune; it'll remain with you for ages.

A star-studded cast with the purist of early 60s silly humor. I first saw this movie on an airplane at age 6. It made me laugh then and it still makes me laugh to this day. Dom DeLouise and Paul Lynde are hysterically funny. Doris Day is as Doris as ever and Rod Taylor made a very dashing scientist! I love watching this movie for all the old styles and realizing that they are all back again. The jokes, though simple and harmless, are still humorous today and they were in 1966.

Amazing how silly I though it was to have vacuum that did the cleaning without the assistance of a human. Amazing how they have those now ... a bit smaller that the movie version and I doubt that they would vacuum up a flip flop, but amazing that even a musical romantic comedy of the 60s would foretell us inventions to come.

Dig those computers in this flick! And Dom DeLouise has been known (and seen) to eat many a gourmet item, but a transistor hors d'oeuvres? Silly, but sooooo funny.

Take a trip to the blue room or red room and enjoy this fun film. But be careful, Doris Day just might be spying on you!

Just think that if Doris Day had not for some reason named her dog, Vladimir there might have been no plot at all for this Frank Tashlin comedy.

That might have been bad because this was the best of Doris Day's films in the late sixties as she was beginning a downward drop in her box office appeal. The Glass Bottom Boat was the second film she did with Rod Taylor as co-star and the first of two she did with Frank Tashlin as director. And this one was the best product in both associations.

Doris works in public relations at a space lab in California where scientist Rod Taylor is developing new stuff for the Defense Department and NASA. She also doubles and helps her dad Arthur Godfrey on his glass bottom boat tourist vehicle. One of the things I like best about The Glass Bottom Boat is Doris sings again on screen, once in a nice duet with Arthur Godfrey on his ever present ukulele. She also sings her most famous song, Que Sera Sera once again for a new generations of film fans.

One thing about Doris's later films, she always had excellent supporting casts and this one is loaded with some very funny people like, Edward Andrews, John McGiver, Paul Lynde, Dom DeLuise, Dick Martin, George Tobias, and Alice Pearce. They all fill roles that you would expect from them.

The Glass Bottom Boat has Rod Taylor concerned with plant security in regard to his top secret work. An overzealous security guard played by Paul Lynde overhears Doris call her dog on the phone. What she does is that in order to give the pooch some exercise during the day she calls her own number, counts the rings and then says something to the unanswered phone. It's for the dog to get exercise because he runs around like a maniac when the phone rings.

From that we deduce that Doris is a Soviet spy and the real CIA in the person of Eric Fleming is called in. This was Fleming's last big screen appearance before he was drowned on location in Peru. A very sad end to a career that might have been the equal of his Rawhide co-star, Clint Eastwood.

Seeing Paul Lynde in drag, questioning an inept spy played by Dom DeLuise is worth seeing this film alone.

What a warm, wonderful actress Doris Day is, what a knockout, what a screen presence. And just think, at the age of 42 (ancient by Hollywood standards in 1966) she was playing a desirable woman lusted after by several men. Glass Bottom Boat is a very '60s comedy in look and subject matter - the space age and spies. Taylor has invented a gizmo and when there's a leak from his project team, suspicion falls on Day, who works for the company and calls someone named Vladimir several times a day. Vladimir, however, is her dog, and she's calling him so he'll run around while the phone is ringing and get some exercise.

The film is loaded with space-age gadgets. Taylor's computerized, motorized kitchen is great, complete with a floor-cleaning robot - wonder if the inventors of today's robot vacuum saw this movie. He also pilots his boat via a remote - but as he points out during a scene where the boat runs amok with Day inside, that needs further work.

There's lots of slapstick and comedy support from Dom Deluise, Dick Martin, and Paul Lynde. Lynde, by the way, looked great in drag, and has some great delivery in his scenes. Some of the scenes, especially those of Deluise, had an improv feel. The late Eric Fleming, Clint Eastwood's boss on "Rawhide," plays a CIA man. This was his last film; he drowned shortly afterwards. Rod Taylor, who, by the way, is younger than Doris Day, is effective as Day's romantic interest. Of note, radio personality Arthur Godfrey plays Day's father. There's also an appearance by Robert Vaughan as an homage to his "Man from UNCLE" character.

Frothy fun, and Doris Day is always a delight.