Shown on BBC TV as a tribute to the late Miss Day, it's easy to see from this why the singer / actress was so popular for so long. Recycling the old Cary Grant / Irene Dunne vintage Hollywood classic "My Favourite Wife", helpfully referenced by Day's character as the wife who returns from the dead five years after going missing only to find her husband has that very day remarried. What follows is a madcap adjoining hotel room farce as James Garner flits between his two wives next door, the one desperate to consummate their wedding night, the other screaming at him to reveal her existence to her apparent successor.
From there, via a car chase where Garner fantasises about Day's now revealed five years on a tropical island with a hunky Adam, played by Chuck Connors, to her Eve, the film comes to its inevitable upbeat conclusion with everyone ending up happy ever after.
Helped by the hit title song which sets it off nicely, it actually takes about ten minutes for Doris's character to appear or should that be reappear but once she does there's no doubt who the star is. For me, if now seeming a little old and square in her part and resorting a little too often to her tried and tested mannerisms, although she's not helped either by a rather outdated wardrobe, still, when she flutters her eyebrows and casts that smile, you know she's not going to lose her man. Her best scene is when you almost see her improvise as she impersonates a Swedish au-pair in an accent which anticipates the Muppets' chef by almost twenty years.
James Garner is an able successor to Grant and Hudson as the befuddled widower / husband, Polly Bergen, while inevitably over-shadowed by the star, thankfully doesn't portray her character as a bad woman and Thelma Ritter as usual shines in support, this time as Garner's disbelieving mother.
A big box-office hit on first release, the film is easy-to-watch entertainment and a nice encapsulation of the talents of Miss Day.
R.I.P. Doris.
From there, via a car chase where Garner fantasises about Day's now revealed five years on a tropical island with a hunky Adam, played by Chuck Connors, to her Eve, the film comes to its inevitable upbeat conclusion with everyone ending up happy ever after.
Helped by the hit title song which sets it off nicely, it actually takes about ten minutes for Doris's character to appear or should that be reappear but once she does there's no doubt who the star is. For me, if now seeming a little old and square in her part and resorting a little too often to her tried and tested mannerisms, although she's not helped either by a rather outdated wardrobe, still, when she flutters her eyebrows and casts that smile, you know she's not going to lose her man. Her best scene is when you almost see her improvise as she impersonates a Swedish au-pair in an accent which anticipates the Muppets' chef by almost twenty years.
James Garner is an able successor to Grant and Hudson as the befuddled widower / husband, Polly Bergen, while inevitably over-shadowed by the star, thankfully doesn't portray her character as a bad woman and Thelma Ritter as usual shines in support, this time as Garner's disbelieving mother.
A big box-office hit on first release, the film is easy-to-watch entertainment and a nice encapsulation of the talents of Miss Day.
R.I.P. Doris.