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The Glass Bottom Boat
During the final decade of her film career, the late Doris Day made several less than stellar comedies and 1966's The Glass Bottom Boat, a silly slapstick comedy only goes so far on Doris' charisma and an impressive veteran supporting cast.
Day plays Jennifer Nelson, a widow who works as a secretary at a space research center on Catalina Island during the weekend and as a mermaid on her father's boat tour during the weekend. Jennifer meets cute a couple of times with Bruce Templeton (Rod Taylor) the wealthy scientist who has just invented a gravity-defying formula who is attracted to Jennifer but she won't give him the time of day. In order to spend time with her, Bruce pulls Jennifer from her secretarial duties and asks her to be his biographer. Things are gong OK until important people around Bruce begin investigating Jennifer and have come to the conclusion that she's a Russian spy.
Everett Freeman's screenplay actually asks the audience to believe that sweet little Doris Day is a Russian spy, which never really washes. There are reasons that these suspicions come to light, but they're pretty thin and make a pretty silly premise upon which to base a comedy. Frank Tashlin, who spent a lot of the 50's and 60's directing people like Jerry Lewis, and Danny Kaye displays his affinity for slapstick here which Doris invests in, though leading man Taylor seems a lot less comfortable with it than she does.
There is selected fun to be found here, if the viewer looks for it. The scene in Bruce's automated kitchen that worked like something out of The Jetsons was a lot of fun as was Doris' wild adventure on an out of control motor boat that causes major havoc on the ocean off Catalina, but a lot of what happens here just doesn't offer an hour and fifty minutes of entertainment.
Day and Taylor create a semblance of chemistry here and it was nice to see television icon Arthur Godfrey make a rare movie appearance as Doris' father. The terrific supporting cast is the real selling point here. Dom DeLuise, Dick Martin, Paul Lynde (who appears in drag in one scene), John McGiver, and Edward Andrews do garner major laughs. I was also amused by the casting of Alice Pearce and George Tobias, the original Gladys and Abner Kravitz on Bewitched, as Doris' next door neighbors here. It's better than a hot poker in the eye, but not much.
During the final decade of her film career, the late Doris Day made several less than stellar comedies and 1966's The Glass Bottom Boat, a silly slapstick comedy only goes so far on Doris' charisma and an impressive veteran supporting cast.
Day plays Jennifer Nelson, a widow who works as a secretary at a space research center on Catalina Island during the weekend and as a mermaid on her father's boat tour during the weekend. Jennifer meets cute a couple of times with Bruce Templeton (Rod Taylor) the wealthy scientist who has just invented a gravity-defying formula who is attracted to Jennifer but she won't give him the time of day. In order to spend time with her, Bruce pulls Jennifer from her secretarial duties and asks her to be his biographer. Things are gong OK until important people around Bruce begin investigating Jennifer and have come to the conclusion that she's a Russian spy.
Everett Freeman's screenplay actually asks the audience to believe that sweet little Doris Day is a Russian spy, which never really washes. There are reasons that these suspicions come to light, but they're pretty thin and make a pretty silly premise upon which to base a comedy. Frank Tashlin, who spent a lot of the 50's and 60's directing people like Jerry Lewis, and Danny Kaye displays his affinity for slapstick here which Doris invests in, though leading man Taylor seems a lot less comfortable with it than she does.
There is selected fun to be found here, if the viewer looks for it. The scene in Bruce's automated kitchen that worked like something out of The Jetsons was a lot of fun as was Doris' wild adventure on an out of control motor boat that causes major havoc on the ocean off Catalina, but a lot of what happens here just doesn't offer an hour and fifty minutes of entertainment.
Day and Taylor create a semblance of chemistry here and it was nice to see television icon Arthur Godfrey make a rare movie appearance as Doris' father. The terrific supporting cast is the real selling point here. Dom DeLuise, Dick Martin, Paul Lynde (who appears in drag in one scene), John McGiver, and Edward Andrews do garner major laughs. I was also amused by the casting of Alice Pearce and George Tobias, the original Gladys and Abner Kravitz on Bewitched, as Doris' next door neighbors here. It's better than a hot poker in the eye, but not much.