The Thrill of it All!
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Movie Reviews of The Thrill of it All!
Movie Review: 1960's Comedy About A Housewife Turned Advertising Icon
Summary: 4 Stars
Director Norman Jewison is known for directing "The Russians are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" (1966), "In The Heat of the Night" (1967) and "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971), to name a few. Before those films, he directed his second feature film, "The Thrill of it All", in 1963. Co-written by Larry Gelbart and Carl Reiner, the film is a comedic tale about an ordinary housewife, Beverly Boyer (Doris Day), who becomes an advertising icon for a fictitious soap that is named "Happy Soap". This transformation occurs following a dinner party attended by her and her husband, Dr. Gerald Boyer (James Garner), where she makes several honest and sincere comments about Happy Soap. Also attending the dinner party were the company's owners: Old Tom Fraleigh (Reginald Owen, better known as Admiral Boom in the 1964 film "Mary Poppins") and his son Gardiner Fraleigh (Edward Andrews). Initially, Beverly is asked to only appear in a single TV commercial, but the number of responses received encourages Tom Fraleigh to offer Beverly a long-term advertising contract. Beverly accepts, and begins making more TV commercials and her picture begins to appear on billboards everywhere. As time passes, life in and out of the Boyer home becomes increasingly disrupted with Beverly's rise to stardom prompting Gerald to become jealous of her success. He wants Beverly to return to being an ordinary housewife, but she basks in her newfound success and freedom.Other characters who add to the delight of this film include the Boyer's two young children: Maggie Boyer (Kym Karath, better known as Gretl von Trapp in the 1965 hit "The Sound of Music") and Andy Boyer (Brian Nash, better known as Joel Nash in the short-lived 1965 TV series "Please Don't Eat the Daisies"). As Beverly becomes too busy to be with their children, the Boyers hire a German housekeeper/nanny, Mrs. Goethe (Lucy Landau), whose lack of English fluency creates several funny moments in the film. Two of the funniest scenes in the film are when Gerald accidentally drives his car into a swimming pool (built in the Boyer's backyard at the behest of Happy Soap) and when Gerald delivers a couple's baby during a traffic jam. Zasu Pitts makes a brief appearance in the film; she died the same year the film was released. Carl Reiner also makes a cameo appearance dressed as a German soldier.
Some who watch "The Thrill of it All" may regard its humor and story somewhat dated since very few women in the U.S. are housewives today. However, there may still be many married men jealous of their more successful wives. "The Thrill of it All" is not a perfect film, but it is still a very entertaining and well-acted comedy that continues to make many people laugh. Overall, I rate the film with 4 out of 5 stars and highly recommend it. Writer Larry Gelbart went on to write and produce the long-running TV series "M*A*S*H" (1972-1983), and Carl Reiner went on to direct films such as "Oh, God!" (1977) and "The Jerk" (1979).
Movie Review: Still as cute as it ever was....
Summary: 4 Stars
Between "Pillow Talk" and "Send Me No Flowers", Doris Mary Kappelhoff could do no wrong. Though Rock Hudson and James Garner were in the MAJORITY of films she was in back then, (except for one pic, she was usually MARRIED to Garner and chased by bachelor Hudson,) all the flicks she made were funny, topical and great family entertainemnt skewed for adults no matter who her leading man was. This is a shining example.
In this one, Doris plays Beverly Boyer, wife of a successful ob-gyn, played by Garner. They live in a burb in a nice split level with a huge, vintage Chevy Impala convertible for him and a Chrysler station wagon for her. One day, a soap manufacturer's wife, a patient of Garner's, invites them to have dinner with her and her husband and father-in-law out of gratitude for her becoming pregnant under his care in her late middle-age. At this dinner, Do-Do/Beverly charms the father-in-law, a curmudgeon with an eye for his own p.r., and Beverly is suddenly the spokesperson for "Happy" Soap, the soap she herself uses to wash her kids, because the pine tar shampoo smelled, according to her little daughter, "ookie".
What follows are the complications that ensue following Bev's popularity as the soap's spokesperson...everybody takes to her genuineness and wholesomeness. She's never at home when either Garner or the kids need her, dinner goes uncooked, Garner is going nuts from blueballs....the list is endless! The kicker is when the head of "Happy Soap" has a swimming pool installed in the Boyers' backyard, and Garner, coming home one day, drives that huge Chevy ragtop right into it.
Game show perennial Arlene Francis stars as Mrs. Fraleigh, the woman who becomes pregnant under Garner's care and Edward Andrews, who had an entire career based on starring in movies just like this, usually for Disney while Walt was still alive, plays her husband, Gardner Fraleigh, the younger head of "Happy Soap". Reginald Owen plays Mr. "Have A Nut", Andrews' character's dad, "Old Tom" Fraleigh. Eliot Reid, another Disney perennial, plays the smarmy p.r. man for the company who shows signs of rivaling Garner for Bev's affections while she's making the commercials. Oddly enough, Reid and Andrews were in another movie together....They were both in the original "Absent Minded Professor"...where Reid played almost exactly the same sort of role.
If you like good, clean fun and don't want to get TOO safe with your family entertainemnt, you can do no wrong in just picking randomly among the movies made by the great Doris Day, (who, at 83 STILL looks good,) between "Pillow" and "Flowers". (Though "Flowers" is the weakest of the lot...they broke formula with that one...in "Flowers", she was MARRIED to Hudson instead of chased by him....)
However, this one is one that I heartily recommend!
Movie Review: Day, Reiner, Gelbart and Jewison Sharpen Advertising Satire
Summary: 4 Stars
It's no coincidence that this 1963 Doris Day comedy is among one of her smarter concoctions since it has such a strong pedigree - Norman Jewison directed, and the screenwriters were Larry Gelbart and Carl Reiner. In fact, there are traces of Reiner's smart-funny "The Dick Van Dyke Show" in the domestic scenes here with Day and James Garner playing a credible, attractive suburban couple. The fact that the film seems rather chauvinist today just adds to its now rather antiquated charm, as the story revolves around the aptly named Beverly Boyer, a housewife who gets hired as a TV commercial pitchwoman for a soap company much to the chagrin of her obstetrician husband who wants her home with the kids. This concept is tethered to the contrived notion that a fiftyish woman (played by the always sophisticated Arlene Francis) is pregnant, Garner is her dutiful doctor, and her aged father is the blustery founder of the soap company who loves Beverly's homey way of talking about her children.
It's somewhat ironic that Day, who epitomized the mid-century working woman in "Teacher's Pet", "Pillow Talk" and "Lover Come Back", would be playing such an ordinary domestic role here, but I still believe she is among the most underrated of screen actresses. She parlays her underlying intelligence and down-to-earth sensibilities into such likable characters that she makes the silly faux-real Happy Soap commercials quite amusing. Look at the contrived performance of Renée Zellweger in the atrociously over-the-top "Down With Love" as a valid point of comparison. A young, granite-jawed Garner is solid though on the dull side as her frustrated husband who tires of his wife's growing celebrity. Unlike Day's forays with Rock Hudson, this one places Garner's character in a more decidedly secondary role. The funniest scenes relate to the still-sharp jabs at the 1960's Madison Avenue advertising mindset, comparing favorably to Day's other anti-advertising satire, "Lover Come Back". It all ends predictably with Edward Andrews the comic standout as Francis' frantic husband. Definitely one of Day's better films.
Movie Review: Sophisticated memories from childhood.
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Thrill Of It All" was one of my favorite childhood memories. In the days prior to wall-to-wall cable stations, there were certain films that enjoyed a regular place on the weekend matinee lineup on local TV stations. This was one of them. And the funny thing is when I originally saw it, I never thought of it as dated or sexist (this is a memory from about 28 years ago). Even though I grew up in a household where both my parents worked (and my dad never gave it a second thought since there were six of us), I merely accepted the script as a reflection of the 1963 sensibility and not my own. You really can't watch a movie that's older than you are (I'm guessing lots of you are waaay under 40) and expect it to reflect modern-day sensibilities. That said, the film is expertly written taking several stabs and jabs at the TV advertising (as well as the network) industry. Doris Day was the quintessential (and exquisitely beautiful) screen wife and mother, and James Garner was a perfect spousal foil for her. And what you had from Arlene "What's My Line" Francis was a welcome touch of class in the role of a mature expectant mother (heady stuff for 1963!) along with nervous expectant father Edward Andrews. The movie is right in line with the other 60's comedies with Hudson, Grant, and Rod Taylor- fun!!Movie Review: Funny blend of sophisticated humor with slapstick.
Summary: 4 Stars
The Thrill of it All is relatively funny for an early 1960s comedy, perhaps not one of Doris Days best in every sense, but certainly one of her funniest. The movie pokes fun at TV commercials. Doris Day plays a housewife hired to advertise Happy Soap because of her sincerity. She ends up with a year-long contract and various related funny entanglements. It means lots of money, but also problems, worstly the effect on her marriage. Husband James Garner (Maverick, Cash McCall) is out to get even, providing one of the more originally funny aspects of the film as he f
air. There's a good blend of slapstick with the more sophisticated humor, due to the screenplay by Carl Reiner (Your Show of Shows, Dick Van Dyke, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid), who also appears as an actor playing 2 or 3 funny characters on the TV show sponsored by Day's soap commercials. The supporting cast also includes Arlene Francis, Edward Andrews (16 Candles), Reginald Owen, and Zasu Pitts.