One of the lesser of Doris Day's last dozen years of Hollywood film making: mostly non-musical romantic sitcoms, with various mostly high profile men. I mostly prefer her earlier musical romantic comedies, mostly costarring high profile male singers, such as Gordon McRae, Howard Keel, and Frank Sinatra, perhaps peaking with "Calamity Jane". Of her '60s films, I most enjoyed "Lover Come Back", with Rock Hudson, the musical romantic comedy ""Billie Rose's Jumbo", with help from veterans Jimmy Durante and Martha Raye, and 'The Ballad of Jose", which as I see it, is basically a non-musical, historically relevant remake of "Calamity Jane", which ends with the same basic take home message about the independent woman trying to make it in a traditional male role, which by then was no longer politically correct.
In this film, she plays the dumb blond kept trophy wife of a wealthy American wool textiles company executive(Rod Taylor, as Mike Harper), who has been assigned to move to England and figure out why their European market has been doing so poorly , and figure out how to fix it. Thus, Doris is playing the ideal stay-at-home '50s wife she became at the end in "Calamity Jane" and "The Ballad of Josie". The problem is that this is the mid-60s world of women's lib political change. Doris has become bored with her very limited scope life and lack of children, and feels her husband has been neglecting her and possible fatherhood in deference to promoting his career. She seems not too bright in adjusting to her new situation, having much trouble figuring out the UK money system of the time, and proving worthless in finding the way to the commuter train station, to get her husband to work. She spends her time figuring out ways to spend her husband's money in often needless home improvement and decoration projects for their new rented mansion, in taking in some rather unusual house pets(red fox, goat, and chickens), and ultimately being convinced by her busybody landlady, Vanessa, that her husband is having an affair with his new secretary: Claire Hackett, hence justifying her countering with an affair of her own. Her tongue lashing of the fox hunters and their hounds is hilarious.
Vanessa arranges for romantic gifts to arrive for Doris, who confesses to her husband what is going on. Vanessa also recommends to Doris a Paul Bellari as a good dealer in exquisite home furnishings. Paul, a married man with several kids, flies Doris to his shop in Paris. He takes her to lunch in a fun café, and she gets drunk on too much champagne. Can't fly home because of a heavy fog, so they return to his shop, get locked in from the metal store front shutter, she passes out from more champagne, and her husband arrives in the morning to punch Paul and leave.
Her husband is also in Paris for a wool textiles exposition. No wives allowed is the rule of dominant textiles buyer Langsdorf. So, Doris decides to pose as her husband's assistant: Miss Hackett. In her stunning yellow-orange sparking gown, she is the hit of the evening party, which includes many young female escorts. She dances with Langsdorf and other textiles buyers. Langsdorf wants her for his personal assistant and bed partner for the night, but she politely declines. She makes up with her husband over the Bellari affair, then dumps a fruit salad on him when Miss Hackett unexpectedly shows up, presumably as his escort. A little later, she overhears Miss Hackett talking to a handsome French buyer, saying that she wants to become his assistant, as Doris's husband doesn't seem much interested in her. Thus, Doris wants to make up with her husband again, but Miss Hackett gives her Langsdorf's room number instead. She puts on her minimal nightie and gets into bed with a sleeping man, only to realize later it's Langsdorf. He chases her all over his large room, until his wife shows up(?). Doris runs into an adjacent room and hides under s sheet on the bed. Her husband arrives and they bounce around on the bed, which collapses. The take home message is that husbands should not neglect romancing their wives sufficiently, in deference to their career ambitions and other interests, especially if their wife doesn't have sufficient other sources of meaningful activities and ego gratification.
This film rests entirely on Doris's intrinsic likability. After the first segment, most of the humor relates to several suspected cases of infidelity, Doris's doings while drunk, and her impersonation of Miss Hackett: none of which are terribly side-spitting, aside from the flying olive down the back of her dress caper, and the terminal bedroom mix-up farce. Aura McGiveney, as Miss Hackett, is hardly credible competition with Doris for her husband's romantic attention. We don't find out whether her husband achieved his goal of increasing European textile sales, nor whether he learned his lesson long term relating to Doris. Doris as a kept woman, and she and her husband being uptight about little infidelities, was out of sync with the then women's lib and youth counterculture movements. As a young woman, Hollywood actress Hedy Lamar was actually in the situation of being a kept trophy wife, by a much older rich European. She rebelled against her cloistered life and escaped to the US.
In this film, she plays the dumb blond kept trophy wife of a wealthy American wool textiles company executive(Rod Taylor, as Mike Harper), who has been assigned to move to England and figure out why their European market has been doing so poorly , and figure out how to fix it. Thus, Doris is playing the ideal stay-at-home '50s wife she became at the end in "Calamity Jane" and "The Ballad of Josie". The problem is that this is the mid-60s world of women's lib political change. Doris has become bored with her very limited scope life and lack of children, and feels her husband has been neglecting her and possible fatherhood in deference to promoting his career. She seems not too bright in adjusting to her new situation, having much trouble figuring out the UK money system of the time, and proving worthless in finding the way to the commuter train station, to get her husband to work. She spends her time figuring out ways to spend her husband's money in often needless home improvement and decoration projects for their new rented mansion, in taking in some rather unusual house pets(red fox, goat, and chickens), and ultimately being convinced by her busybody landlady, Vanessa, that her husband is having an affair with his new secretary: Claire Hackett, hence justifying her countering with an affair of her own. Her tongue lashing of the fox hunters and their hounds is hilarious.
Vanessa arranges for romantic gifts to arrive for Doris, who confesses to her husband what is going on. Vanessa also recommends to Doris a Paul Bellari as a good dealer in exquisite home furnishings. Paul, a married man with several kids, flies Doris to his shop in Paris. He takes her to lunch in a fun café, and she gets drunk on too much champagne. Can't fly home because of a heavy fog, so they return to his shop, get locked in from the metal store front shutter, she passes out from more champagne, and her husband arrives in the morning to punch Paul and leave.
Her husband is also in Paris for a wool textiles exposition. No wives allowed is the rule of dominant textiles buyer Langsdorf. So, Doris decides to pose as her husband's assistant: Miss Hackett. In her stunning yellow-orange sparking gown, she is the hit of the evening party, which includes many young female escorts. She dances with Langsdorf and other textiles buyers. Langsdorf wants her for his personal assistant and bed partner for the night, but she politely declines. She makes up with her husband over the Bellari affair, then dumps a fruit salad on him when Miss Hackett unexpectedly shows up, presumably as his escort. A little later, she overhears Miss Hackett talking to a handsome French buyer, saying that she wants to become his assistant, as Doris's husband doesn't seem much interested in her. Thus, Doris wants to make up with her husband again, but Miss Hackett gives her Langsdorf's room number instead. She puts on her minimal nightie and gets into bed with a sleeping man, only to realize later it's Langsdorf. He chases her all over his large room, until his wife shows up(?). Doris runs into an adjacent room and hides under s sheet on the bed. Her husband arrives and they bounce around on the bed, which collapses. The take home message is that husbands should not neglect romancing their wives sufficiently, in deference to their career ambitions and other interests, especially if their wife doesn't have sufficient other sources of meaningful activities and ego gratification.
This film rests entirely on Doris's intrinsic likability. After the first segment, most of the humor relates to several suspected cases of infidelity, Doris's doings while drunk, and her impersonation of Miss Hackett: none of which are terribly side-spitting, aside from the flying olive down the back of her dress caper, and the terminal bedroom mix-up farce. Aura McGiveney, as Miss Hackett, is hardly credible competition with Doris for her husband's romantic attention. We don't find out whether her husband achieved his goal of increasing European textile sales, nor whether he learned his lesson long term relating to Doris. Doris as a kept woman, and she and her husband being uptight about little infidelities, was out of sync with the then women's lib and youth counterculture movements. As a young woman, Hollywood actress Hedy Lamar was actually in the situation of being a kept trophy wife, by a much older rich European. She rebelled against her cloistered life and escaped to the US.