Review of The Thrill of It All (1963) by Sherry L — 20 Jun 2009

Doris Day plays a housewife Beverly Boyer, and a mother of two who gets an offer to "tell her story" in a commercial for Happy-soap. In the begining it just feels awkward for her but later it just comes natural for her to tell America how incredible Happy-soap is and why they should buy it. It makes success cause Day seems so natural and just doesn't belong to the same ole commercial actress- cathegory, cause she is just playing herself and her husband (James Garner) gets pissed off because she is never home and doesn't fix the meals on time anymore.

Boyer finally gets so successful so she gets offered a contract; $80 000/year for continuing playing in commercials, but her husband doesn't approve so then she decides she shouldn't accept. So she ditches the contract and just before she was going to tell her husband, her husband tell her she should do it. Then she tells him she won't cause she loves him sooo much! Isn't it sweet? (ironic).

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of Doris Day. I DO love The Man Who Knew Too Much, but I don't give much for the rest of her movies (and no, I don't like the comedies with her and Rock Hudson that much either). I just don't like her roles or the whole thing she stands for. But I DO like James Garner, who was great in The Great Escape among others.

This movie has aged incredibly and would nowadays be a nice hate-object for the radical feminists. But neither do the jokes work (Doris Day looking awkward and wrickling her nose in the weird way only Doris can do) nor is the music score great (unlike hers and Garners follow-up movie the same year; Move over darling). It's move corny then anything else. I wouldn't recommend this to you unless you have a "silly" sense of humour or is a die-hard Doris-fan.