the audience applauded

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Blistering performances.

The four brats in this movie are appalling. Both parents are totally out of control. They need that nanny of a recent TV series. Seriously, the parents need some education. Besides, who nowadays have four children in ten years? What college graduate woman nowadays defers her career and her sanity to make all those Quick Quaker Oats of three-time (I saw them) product placement? Another product placement was North American Van Lines. I love oatmeal, but I always buy the Brand-X version.Niven was very good. His character became obnoxious, however. He did not appreciate his self-sacrificing wife, although both, as mentioned, needed coursework in childcare and loving discipline. Niven's attention to the bimbo (Paige) was appalling, and her attention to him predated later decades of women asking men out, asking men to marry them, etc. You would never have caught Deborah (Paige's character) dishing out the oatmeal. She may have smacked the kid, however, not putting him in the cage. Nowadays (again, I am harping on 2013), the kid would have used his smarts to call the police and put her in jail for child abuse.Patsy Kelly was good to see, although I wished she had appeared in greater space of time. It was also good to see Spring Byington. I thought her pet shop was just too divine. Richard Haydn was good to see, also, he of Sound of Music appearance.Doris was just wonderful, as always. I thought the dog was Tramp from My Three Sons (was that dog Tramp?), though his name was Hobo. My Three Sons was represented here, anyway, by Stanley Livingston (Chip). I loved Doris singing and dancing, and having the lead in the local play was shortchanged to me the audience. I hoped the finale would have her in the actual play, and not just at rehearsal where her husband got hopping angry.It took me tons of decades to see this movie. Thank you, TCM. I always remembered the theme song.Inside reference: Doris talked to her husband about having a possible affair with Rock Hudson. That was priceless. I think Rock was more famous than Janis Paige, IMHO.This was a very enjoyable movie. It spoke for much of the time period, with frustrated, unfulfilled women plus out-of-control children. I think the children needed the sedatives, however.

Please Don't Eat The Daisies is an updating of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House from the woman's point of view. It's taken from a humorous book of the same title by Jean Kerr, wife of the New York Herald Tribune theater critic Walter Kerr. The Kerrs have four boys instead of two girls so we're talking about double the trouble.Trouble the children are indeed. The film actually opens with the four boys getting their baby brother to drop water balloons on poor passersby of their Manhattan apartment. Which in itself is getting too crowded. But when the real estate agent starts showing the apartment off just as their lease is expiring, Doris Day and David Niven have to move and move quickly.Like Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, they sink quite a bit of dollars into what we would now call a fix-it-up. But where Cary was hip deep in his involvement in the new house, David Niven is all caught up in his work as one of New York's drama critics. It's up to Doris to keep the household together and get the house livable.Niven's got his own troubles too, he breaks a friendship with an old friend Richard Haydn when he gives producer Haydn's play a bad review. Not to mention a public slap at Sardi's from Haydn's star Janis Paige who will match her fanny with anyone's. Janis did have quite the derrière back in the day.Haydn's really got a great scheme to get back at Niven for the bad review. It's a pip, you have to see Please Don't Eat The Daisies for.Doris gets to sing three songs, including the title song which became a big hit for her. It's perfectly suited to her style.She sings well and David Niven is as debonair and charming as he always is on the screen. The film even spawned a television series later on in the decade. Please Don't Eat The Daisies still holds up well as good family entertainment.

I found this film to be pretty mediocre overall. The story couples Doris Day and David Niven as a couple who are moving from the city to the country just as the husband, Niven, is beginning to become a famous drama critic. Various entanglements of course arise in their new life in suburbia and in Niven's busy social life. They are surrounded by an unusual tandem of kids including one who is kept in a cage for safety reasons.The best thing you can say about it is that it is "charming". The production is competent, the supporting cast is decent, the dialogue is good. But it's just not the type of film I personally enjoy.

Please Don't Eat The Daisies (1960) is a little comedy study that is one year too late in celebrating the 50s sexual stereotype of 'the little woman'. It stars David Niven and Doris Day as Lawrence and Kay McKay. He's a Drama critic. She just wants to be a housewife. Their happy, if cramped, in a Manhattan apartment with four sons, David (Charles Herbert), Gabriel (Stanley Livingston), George (Flip Mark) and Adam (Baby Gellert). However, at the behest of Kay, the family departs the elegance of New York for suburbia and clean living. Well, almost.Seems Lawrence can't or won't entirely leave the Big Apple behind. That his work precludes a complete departure from the social depravity of Broadway stage door Johnnies and scheming starlets is an angle played up when it appears as though Lawrence has decided to sack Kay and family for the lovely and flirtatious Deborah Vaughn (Janis Paige). Complications ensue as long time friends Suzie Robinson (Spring Byington) and Alfred North (Richard Haydn) get involved though only manage to make a simple case of mistaken judgment develop into a full blown comedy of errors. And then, of course, there's the whole mix up with Reverend McQuarry (John Harding) that begs to be reconsidered.Based on Jean Kerr's humorous novel, ably adapted by Isobel Lennart, director Charles Walters directs with his usual panache, but is decidedly saddled with, and forced to do damage control over, Niven's central performance as the blundering Lawrence. Honestly, the poor man's made to look ridiculous around every corner – an ill fit for one of the most accomplished and adroit British actors of his time. Day manages to come up with some winning moments, but she too has seem better days and far better material. This film perhaps foreshadows the sort of 'reluctant domestic' role that the rest of her tenure with Rock Hudson would carry over. Apparently, and despite its overall entertainment value shortcomings, there is something to be said for timing. 'Please Don't Eat The Daisies' played to solid box office and even found renewed life as a television sitcom starring Brian Keith. Go figure.The anamorphic transfer from Warner Bros. is just average. Colors are dated and sometimes even muddy. Blacks are not very deep or solid. Whites are generally clean but slightly yellow. Shadow and contrast levels are disappointing. Save Day's rendition of the title song, the audio sounds rather unnatural and strident. Dialogue is decidedly forward sounding with no spread across the channels. The only extra is a theatrical trailer.