Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960)

Brilliant and touching

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

A drama critic, his wife, and four sons move from sophisticated New York digs to community-centered suburbia. Naturally adjustment problems ensue.All in all, this A-film is a disappointment. Drama critics are just not the stuff of comedies, nor does Niven get help in lightening the mood. Then too, since both stars were at career peaks, the screenplay expands their screen time with a lot of draggy exposition that doesn't help the amusement factor. And since the plight of Broadway critics is not exactly grist for popular audiences, I expect Day was added to provide the needed appeal. Trouble is she doesn't get to do her usual sparkle. It's a subdued role a dozen lesser names could have handled, and even her meager musical numbers are not exactly show stoppers. Moreover, director Walters seems unsure what to do with the bratty boys, who could have been milked for some laughs instead of too many groans. Still, the near two-hours does have its moments, especially with a cowardly canine, and Janis Paige (Deborah) whose ambitious vixen hits just the right notes. Anyhow, the chemistry never really gels and Day fans should stick with Rock who at least gets an honorable mention from the screenplay.

At the back of my mind there lurks an idea that Jean Kerr was a pretty good writer and a dab hand with the one-liners. I recall a play she wrote, Mary, Mary, and a musical, Goldilocks for which she wrote Book and Lyrics in collaboration with her husband Walter, the noted New York Drama Critic, who appears here lightly disguised as David Niven which, of course, makes Doris Day an incarnation of Jean Kerr herself. Isobel Lennart is also no slouch at cobbling a screenplay together yet somehow both writers just miss - at least for me. Not a lot wrong with Day or Niven and they're about 90 per cent believable as a married couple, Janis Paige could phone in the 'other woman' by that stage in her career and if Spring Byington can't play Spring Byington by now she never will. I watched till the end and that's about all I can say for it.

It took four sessions in front of the DVD player to get through watching PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES, about as bland a domestic comedy as I've ever watched. I'm a big Doris Day fan but this was the point in her career when she started making some family films that just didn't hit the mark.The cast is certainly pleasant enough, but the theme of boys being boys is overdone after the first twenty minutes. David Niven has the patience of a saint to put up with the nonsense forced on him here. Neither he nor Doris are able to overcome the inadequacies of an uninspired script that turns out to be a hodge-podge of ideas left over from GEORGE WASHINGTON SLEPT HERE (about a house in the country) and MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE, self-explanatory.To her credit, Day performs with natural ease throughout and even manages to toss off the vapid title song without losing her dignity. Best in support are Janis Paige as a sexy temptress who tries to lure Niven into her clutches and Richard Haydn who seems to be preparing for his subsequent role in THE SOUND OF MUSIC as a theatrical man who knows his way around a script.None of it is very funny, even with Patsy Kelly as a housemaid. The fluffy dog, Hobo, has a genuinely funny scene or two and there's the youngest child kept in a cage who steals a couple of scenes without even trying. But all in all, this one taxes the patience of anyone who develops a bad case of deja vu, having seen it all before.Summing up: Has the flavor of a TV situation comedy that goes on long beyond the half-hour mark. Banal best describes the weak script. The Jean Kerr book must have been mildly amusing.

Please Don't Eat The Daisies (1960) is a little comedy study that is one year too late in celebrating the 50s sexual stereotype of 'the little woman'. It stars David Niven and Doris Day as Lawrence and Kay McKay. He's a Drama critic. She just wants to be a housewife. Their happy, if cramped, in a Manhattan apartment with four sons, David (Charles Herbert), Gabriel (Stanley Livingston), George (Flip Mark) and Adam (Baby Gellert). However, at the behest of Kay, the family departs the elegance of New York for suburbia and clean living. Well, almost.Seems Lawrence can't or won't entirely leave the Big Apple behind. That his work precludes a complete departure from the social depravity of Broadway stage door Johnnies and scheming starlets is an angle played up when it appears as though Lawrence has decided to sack Kay and family for the lovely and flirtatious Deborah Vaughn (Janis Paige). Complications ensue as long time friends Suzie Robinson (Spring Byington) and Alfred North (Richard Haydn) get involved though only manage to make a simple case of mistaken judgment develop into a full blown comedy of errors. And then, of course, there's the whole mix up with Reverend McQuarry (John Harding) that begs to be reconsidered.Based on Jean Kerr's humorous novel, ably adapted by Isobel Lennart, director Charles Walters directs with his usual panache, but is decidedly saddled with, and forced to do damage control over, Niven's central performance as the blundering Lawrence. Honestly, the poor man's made to look ridiculous around every corner – an ill fit for one of the most accomplished and adroit British actors of his time. Day manages to come up with some winning moments, but she too has seem better days and far better material. This film perhaps foreshadows the sort of 'reluctant domestic' role that the rest of her tenure with Rock Hudson would carry over. Apparently, and despite its overall entertainment value shortcomings, there is something to be said for timing. 'Please Don't Eat The Daisies' played to solid box office and even found renewed life as a television sitcom starring Brian Keith. Go figure.The anamorphic transfer from Warner Bros. is just average. Colors are dated and sometimes even muddy. Blacks are not very deep or solid. Whites are generally clean but slightly yellow. Shadow and contrast levels are disappointing. Save Day's rendition of the title song, the audio sounds rather unnatural and strident. Dialogue is decidedly forward sounding with no spread across the channels. The only extra is a theatrical trailer.