Walters prefers to keep things in longish takes, which with a comedy / family drama in CinemaScope probably isn't a bad idea, though it sort of makes it feel clunky, I'm not sure why - maybe there isn't enough going on the the frame (the acting?). I was particularly impressed that when the title song is performed by Doris Day and a dozen children it's done in a continuous take with no kids looking into the camera.
She's married to new theatre critic David Niven, who starts becoming bitchy as his friend Richard Haydn (wouldn't have recognised him at all) has predicted. For some reason slutty Janis Paige has set her sights on Niven, also. Jack Weston (again) is a play writing cab driver.
Doris has her hands full with four boys, something Niven can't really appreciate, when they move upstate to Hooton (fictional). Granny Spring Byington is some kind of mediator (the sexual politics sound somewhat dated), and there's a cowardly dog. It was a big box office hit for MGM, taken from Jean Kerr's book, adapted by Isobel Lennart.
Features a hilariously bad song 'Any Way the Wind Blows'.
Handsomely shot by Robert Bronner in Metrocolor, music by David Rose.
Do the above screen shots give a clue? It's almost too perfectly staged.
Anyway it's quite enjoyable. My review of 13th August 1975 is '3/10. Attempted household comedy, with Laurel and Hardy type wife mix-ups.'
Believe it or not, in a 1973 poll of the top box office stars of the decade, Doris Day was No. 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment