Having firmly planted herself in the bedroom farce genre, Doris Day tackles Paris, England and Rod Taylor this time time out. It’s a tale of Doris and Rod as a married couple moving to England and the subsequent comedy of errors and jealousies revolving around the duo’s business associates and secretaries of the opposite sex.
Our lovely couple set up shop at a country home outside of London where Rod is working in the fashion industry. Fashion industry means models and Rod’s got a looker for a secretary in Maura McGiveney. Doris has every right to be worried as Maura definitely has designs on the strong jawed Taylor.
Day is a rather flighty homemaker with a penchant for collecting animals. She adopts a goat named Wellington and in one of the better skits saves a fox from the traditional foxhunt while shaming the canines into cowering.
With the help of her landlady as played by Hermione Baddeley, Doris sets out to get Rod’s jealous nature working. She firmly believes he’s carrying on with his good looking assistant. Fortunately for her good looking Sergio Fantoni (Von Ryan’s Express) enters the fray as a decorator who whisks her off to Paris to look at antique furniture and if things go well, seduce the American songstress.
Sure I could go on but it’s all rather pedestrian for Doris and Rod at this point of there careers. Sure there are some bright spots mixed in including a patented Rod Taylor right hook to the chin of Doris’ supposed lover that befits the tough guy image Rod often displayed. There’s also a great turn by an amorous Leon Askin. Askin of Hogan’s Heroes has his sights firmly set on Doris whom he believes is a call girl in the employ of Rod. A mix up of hotel rooms near the fade out is only going to exasperate Doris’ predicament with the stout actor.
Best in joke of the film occurs when some French children approach the American Doris as the tourist in Paris asking her if she knows Rock Hudson or Cary Grant. Need I mention Doris had starred in films opposite both iconic leading men?
Directed by Ralph Levy, this was another film produced by Doris’ then hubby Martin Melcher who one could compare to Col. Tom Parker. As a matter of fact I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to compare the film careers of Doris and Elvis in the latter part of the sixties. Both would sing the theme song to their films and both were pretty much stuck in formula pictures. Had their ages been a bit closer, they could have made an interesting pairing on screen. Then again if their ages were reversed it very well could have happened according to Hollywood’s rules on pairing older actors with younger women. Can you imagine the arguments behind closed doors with their Svengali like promoters over the song rights and top billing?
In the trailer included on the DVD from 20th Century Fox, it serves as a throwback to another era of Hollywood marketing. Little of the film’s scenes are shown. Instead it focuses on a Doris Day look-a-like contest and the opportunity to win a trip to tinsel town and possibly a role in Miss Day’s next feature film.
Doris and Rod would re-team the following year in The Glass Bottom Boat which overall was an improvement on this their first outing together.
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