Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

What a surprise that this classic Doris Day comedy has not been reviewed on the site and that I passed over it until now. Critics have hardly been kind to Day or to this 1963 gem, written by Carl Reiner and Larry Gelbart whose sterling efforts will remind you of their hit TV show, The Dick Van Dyke Show. Some will criticize it as sexist, disregarding when it was made, or call it a cop-out of an ending, but The Thrill Of It All was really progressive in some ways.

In the beginning a woman in her forties (Arlene Francis) is wildly laughing and smiling mysteriously, even seductively, to other men as she scampers through a building and up an elevator to find her husband. To his utter delight, she announces that she is pregnant! They invite the doctor who helped her get pregnant (no in vitro fertilization, just good advice we learn later!) and his wife to a party to celebrate. Dr. Boyer (sexy James Garner, look for long close-up of bare chest, sweet butt cheeks too) and his wife Beverly (Doris Day, look for her in stunning outfits, never more alluring) come to the pregnant womans fathers mansion as their maid watches the adorable, well-mannered children.

The grumpy father happens to be the head of the Happy Soap company and, after hearing Beverly relate a funny experience using the soap, offers her a very profitable job as his Happy Girl, to replace a Marilyn Monroe type whose commercials are not selling his soap. At first Beverly sees her husbands disapproval and refuses to do it, but then the thrill of all that money and the chance to be useful changes her mind.

Beverly appears on the set to go live right after a scene of a show (this scene is replayed throughout with slightly different dialogue and is hilarious) and makes such a fool of herself that only the $80,000 a year promised her overrides her doubts about being on television. The Boyers are happily in love and he gives her his blessings as long as it does not interfere with her being a wife and mother. Of course it soon does, what with the promotion of her to radio, newspapers and on billboards, besides her unrehearsed television spots. He is delivering babies in the hospital at all hours and they barely run into each other.

Finally the company goes too far for the doctor when they surprise him with a free, heated pool in the backyard that he drives into! In a rage he kicks the Happy detergent boxes stacked alongside the pool, then packs a suitcase with Beverly spitting mad as only Day can to milk the humor. As a light romance from the early 60s, we expect and get a feel-good ending finally, but getting there provides a lot of clean, tasteful fun for the whole family. Their love, helped by convincing chemistry between Day and Garner, is never in doubt to us, even if it is to them!

I have never seen Day in finer form, or Garner, and I do not just mean in appearance. She acts like a professional, a real doctors wife, with backbone and sizzle, which will stand up to any performance by the best actresses of our day. It is beyond Pillow Talk in every way. Garner, too, reveals comic genius before he began The Rockford Files, perhaps not with Rock Hudsons very masculine voice, but no doubt women in 1963 were laughing while swooning just the same. Many of the characters were played by veteran comedians like Edward Andrews, Alice Pearce and Elliot Reid.

At an hour and 48 minutes, the Norman Jewison-directed The Thrill Of It All is never dull cinema or unrealistically sexist and guarantees you the right amount of romance and comedy for a date night with the one you love or for a delightful family night.

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This has been an entry into sleeper54s Lean-n-Mean write-off. See http://www.epinions.com/content_4149256324 for more details.



Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD