While on his honeymoon with a lusty, neurotic bride, widower James Garner discovers the hard way that first wife Doris Day is very much alive. Enjoyable bedroom-farce, a remake of Cary Grant and Irene Dunne's "My Favorite Wife", has a colorful supporting cast, cute kids, a fine score by Lionel Newman and, of course, Day herself, shining brightly while going from happy to sad to frantic to sentimental. Despite some forced bits (shouting from Garner and the tired jokes with the irritated judge),it's a happily brawling slapstick comedy. I loved the scene where Doris, dressed like a sailor, sees her two daughters for the first time in years ("Are you a lady or a man?" they ask her) or when she sings them to sleep and one of the girls recognizes the song, but overcome by memories says she doesn't like it. Doris gives Polly Bergen the massage of her life, trades dry quips with Thelma Ritter, flirts with Don Knotts, and gives Chuck Conners a series of karate moves that leaves him floored. It's a comedic tour-de-force for the actress. *** from ****
Move Over, Darling
1963
Action / Comedy / Romance
Plot summary
Three years into their loving marriage with two infant daughters at home in Los Angeles, Nicholas Arden and Ellen Wagstaff Arden are on a plane that goes down in the South Pacific. Although most passengers manage to survive the incident, Ellen presumably perishes when she is swept off the lifeboat she is on. Her body is not recovered. Fast forward five years. Nicky, wanting now to move on with his life, has Ellen declared legally dead. Part of that moving on includes getting remarried, this time to a young woman named Bianca Steele, who, for their honeymoon, he plans to take to the same Monterrey resort where he and Ellen spent their honeymoon. On that very same day, Ellen is dropped off in Los Angeles by the Navy, who rescued her from the South Pacific island where she was stranded for the past five years. She asked the Navy not to publicize her rescue or notify Nicky as she wanted to do so herself. Upon arrival back home, a shocked Grace Arden, Nicky's mother, informs Ellen that Nicky just got married that morning and that she, as his true wife as opposed to Bianca being his bride, should go to Monterrey to tell Nicky she's alive. She does so. Although Nicky is equally as shocked as his mother was when he sees Ellen for the first time, it places him in a difficult position. Although he loves Ellen and wants more than anything to be with her, he has Bianca's feelings to take into consideration. As such, he finds it difficult to tell Bianca, who is in a honeymoon amorous mood. Nicky's inability to tell Bianca irks Ellen, who believes it is a manifestation of his love for Bianca over her. Nicky, however, ends up with questions of his own about Ellen's faithfulness and love for him when he learns that Ellen was not all alone on that island but with a handsome man named Stephen Burkett, the two who pet nicknamed each other Adam and Eve. Nicky's questions about her faithfulness increase when she purposefully withholds information about Stephen from him.
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Plush, burlesque comedy
Giving this a huge thumbs up for modernizing a classic and being equally as enjoyable.
Doris Day herself even reflects on the original version of this ("My Favorite Wife") where, with a Swedish accent, she asks the new wife of her husband (James Garner) what would happen if the first wife (herself!) came back from the dead, "just like Irene Dunne done....ah, did..." The zaniness of this very 60's remake is obvious from the get-go, taking a good deal of the structure of the original, yet giving it a modern feel thanks to the presence of some of the biggest stars of its time and casting many great actors in smaller parts.
Take the opening courtroom sequence for instance with "Petticoat Junction's" Edgar Buchannan as the irascible judge who declares Ms. Day legally dead and then marries his "widower" to the neurotic Polly Bergen. As coincidence would have it, Doris has just returned from being shipwrecked on a desert island, shocking her mother-in-law (Thelma Ritter) who faints long enough to reveal her secret thrill that the new marriage isn't valid, sending Doris on her way to where the unlucky newlyweds are honeymooning. This creates a lot of confusion for the hotel staff once Garner is forced to get his back from the dead wife a room of her own so he can intelligently think of how he's going to get himself out of this jam.
Garner is a perfect replacement for Cary Grant, equally as dashing, and very much the picture-perfect husband. While Day is more famous for her pairings with Rock Hudson, I think she had equally hot chemistry with Garner, although they only did one other film together ("The Thrill of It All", the same year as this),and only did a total of three with "the Rock". I would also rank this higher than many of her other sex comedies of the late 50's and 60's for being consistently funny and definitely much better written, not rushed together just to get another film out to take advantage of her status as top female box office star, even higher than Liz, Audrey, Sophia, Marilyn (originally assigned to do this film) and Debbie.
Such comical gems as Fred Clark, Don Knotts, John Astin and Max Showalter have nice parts here, and Chuck Connors is (at least from the face down) nice to look at as the body builder Doris was stuck on an island with. There's plenty of slapstick to keep this moving at a steady pace, and a hysterical chase sequence that has Doris covered in car wash soap suds. Even if her character is a bit abrasive, Bergen adds a patheticness to her that you feel sorry for her even though it is obvious that she is fighting a losing battle. Ritter gets in a few of her typical deadpan laughs, and the children (played by Pami Lee and Leslie Farrell) are adorable. While remakes of classic screwball comedies are often a mixed bag, this one scores highly, even though the plot had been done over and over again. 1940's "Too Many Husbands" a sexually reversed version was not nearly as good as the remake, and only made more palatable with campy musical numbers as 1955's "Three For the Show".
My Favorite Wife
Move Over, Darling has a great title song. It is an appealing, silly and contrived goofy romantic comedy made bearable by its winsome stars.
Nicholas Arden (James Garner) declares his wife legally dead after she goes missing in a plane crash in the Pacific ocean. On the same day he marries Bianca (Polly Bergen.)
However as Nicholas is on his way to his honeymoon, his first wife Ellen (Doris Day) shows up after being rescued in a remote island by the US navy.
Nicholas's mother sends Ellen to Monterey at the hotel where he is honeymooning and win back Nicholas before he consummates his second marriage.
What Nicholas does not know yet that Ellen spent 5 years on the island with the athletic Adam (Chuck Connors.)
The film is a remake of My Favorite Wife. Day is tomboyish when she first lands on port. Garner is charming and Bergen's character hints that Nicholas would be better off with Ellen, the mother of his two children.
Move Over Darling, is a little bit too hokey and some of the comedy and acting is overdone. The courtroom scenes were the best with the grouch judge.