It is a performances centric movie

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Move On Darling (1963) is a Comedy/Romance starring Doris Day as Ellen Wagstaff Arden and James Garner as Nicolas Arden. Nicholas Arden heads to the courthouse with his fiancé to be married, but before he does so he must get the judge to sign a petition pronouncing his old wife, Ellen Wagstaff Arden as dead. She was lost at sea but was eventually rescued and made her way home just in time for the honeymoon. She follows them to the hotel to ensure that they never consummate it.This flick has it all- great acting, a darling cast, hilarious scenes throughout that will have you rolling on the floor laughing and a superb plot. Doris Day is stunning and classy. I would recommend this film to all lovers of romantic comedies.

The plot for this film has been used a couple of times in literature, and a few times with variations in movies. A man is lost at sea and presumed dead, so in time his wife marries another man, only to have the first husband return. "Enoch Arden" was an 1864 poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson that was made into movies in 1911, 1914 and 1915. The first and last were short films. Then, W. Somerset Maugham wrote a play with a similar plot in 1919. It was called "Home and Beauty," but the name was changed to "Too Many Husbands" for a 1940 Columbia Pictures film that starred Fred MacMurray, Jean Arthur and Melvyn Douglas. It was revised and made into a 1955 musical, "Three for the Show," starring Betty Grable, Jack Lemmon and Gower Champion.While "Husbands" was being made at Columbia (released in March of 1940), a team of writers for RKO Pictures had borrowed the original idea and flipped it over. This time it was a woman who was lost at sea and presumed dead, and the husband was just getting married again when his first wife reappears. The film, "My Favorite Wife," came out in May 1940, starring Cary Grant, Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott. While both films did well, the later was a bigger hit than "Too Many Husbands." After the 1940 hit, "My Favorite Wife," 20th Century Fox wanted to remake the movie around 1960. It was to have a substantial makeover under the title, "Something's Gotta Give," and was to star Marilyn Monroe and Dean Martin. It didn't happen. In a nutshell, Monroe was fired for failing to show up at most shootings. Then Dean Martin quit if Monroe wasn't going to be in it. Finally, Monroe was back in, but she died a few days later of a barbiturate overdoseThere's a lot more to the story, and one wonders what to believe. My DVD of "Move Over, Darling," has a bonus special documentary short that delves into the movie that wasn't made and some of the sordid details. But, after seeing the original 1940 story, and then this 1963 film with Doris Day and James Garner, I can't picture a Monroe-Martin combination in the same type of story. I think it would have gone over like a lead balloon. So, with a lot of investment in the film otherwise, Fox picked it up again, dusted it off and rewrote the script, and put out "Move Over Darling" in 1963. The film is a more modern version of the original, with some changes. In the original, Ellen Arden is lost at sea for seven years after the ship she was on sank. Her children were a boy and a girl. In this remake, she was lost five year after her plane crashed in the ocean. Both of her kids are girls. Both supporting casts are excellent. And, while Day and Garner are very good as Ellen and Nick Arden in this film. they are just a notch below the performances of Irene Dunne and Cary Grant in the original. The original script also is a bit more crispy and witty. One very good addition in this film is Day's character impersonating a "Svedish" nurse-masseuse. Doris Day never won an Oscar in her talented career of singing, dancing and acting. But she won Golden Globe Henrietta awards as the world's favorite female actress four separate years. The whole family should enjoy this film. It's just one of those situations when an original has such a character of its own – with its specific cast – that any new rendition with another cast can't quite match the humor of the first. My DVD had a bonus special that I found very interesting. It was about the origin of the story. "Enoch Arden II" was the first film of the story based on a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. It was made as a short in 1911 by D.W. Griffith. It followed the original tragedy of the poem.

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".

As you may know, "Move Over Darling" is a remake of the Cary Grant/Irene Dunne film "My Favorite Wife." This film copies the original almost scene-for-scene, with a few changes. I'm torn on which film is better all around, but this version fixes a few things that bothered me about the original. First of all, the reunion between the two main stars at the hotel toward the beginning is more romantic and emotional here. Also, I didn't like the ending of the original film, which felt tagged on and unsatisfying, whereas the ending to this film wrapped everything up nicely and pleasantly. This film has much better co-stars, including Don Knotts and Thelma Ritter. The only reason I do not say for sure that this film is better than the original is the fact that the original was a very funny film, which is not to say that this is unfunny, but the comedy simply doesn't measure up to the brilliance of Cary Grant. I recommend both versions, and while the original provided more laughs, this gives more emotional satisfaction, but both are enjoyable. Just don't watch them side-by-side or you may feel like you just saw the same film twice.*** out of ****