I love this movie so much

Really Surprised!

I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One of the better Doris Day-comedies, well-made and enjoyable. It contains quite a few good scenes, such as the disastrous first commercial or the domestic crisis involving giant amounts of soap suds. There are a few possible inconsistencies here and there, such as the fact that a lady gets pregnant at an age where most women have gone through menopause, but still, these things happen. However, I was far from charmed by the underlying message with regard to women. Beverly Boyer (the character played by Doris Day) is very much like one of these miniature ballerina dolls on top of music boxes, who dance for a few minutes and then disappear. She has her little moment in the sun and then it's back to a life of housewifely duties and suburban gentility, mainly because her husband can't cope with the idea (horror of horrors !) that he might have to wait ten minutes before getting dinner. Or else - my hand trembles as I type this - he might come home and discover that his martini was improperly chilled !One does not need to be called Joanna Russ in order to realize there's a lot of contempt towards women hidden here. In case you doubt this, feel free to watch the scene where the said lady of mature years is about to give birth to her child inside a car. Beverly Boyer, a woman who has given birth herself, can console and assist her, but it is the male obstetrician who delivers the child, after riding to the rescue like a knight in shining armour. Aaah, poor silly women, they try their best - but when things get real, it's only a man who can save the day... For clarity's sake, I'm not attacking male obstetricians, doctors or gynecologists - everyone who undertakes long and difficult studies in order to perform a responsible and socially useful job deserves the utmost respect. What I do dislike, is the idea that only males could or should become obstetricians, doctors or gynecologists, with females spending their time on preparing little lobster cocktails for posh dinner parties. I also object to the idea that women are complete ninnies who know bupkas about deliveries or first aid. You might object that I'm looking at an older movie with the eyes of someone living in 2018. This is true, of course, but there is something mean-spirited and dismissive about the movie's intent which must have felt unpleasant even half a century ago.

James Garner once famously complimented Doris Day as having the best fanny in Hollywood. Either she didn't like the praise or they didn't get along for a different reason, because in The Thrill of It All their kisses were some of the most awkward in screen history. They play a husband and wife team whose marriage gets threatened when Doris decides to pursue a career and neglect her "wifely duties". Yes, the premise and execution of the conflict is extremely dated and offensive to modern feminists, so if that rubs you the wrong way, you won't like the movie. The supporting cast is the best part of the movie. Doris's children, Brian Nash and Kym Karat-best known as Gretl from The Sound of Music-are absolutely adorable, unlike many movies from the 1960s that portray children as irritating, annoying brats. Kym was five years old in this movie-what a darling little girl! Arlene Francis opens the film with an adorable and hilarious scene: she's seen hysterically laughing as she gets out of a taxi and walks into an elevator full of somber men. I thought she must have just escaped from a lunatic asylum! Arlene's laughter infects the surrounding men, and soon everyone's laughing. When she approaches Edward Andrew, her husband, she laughs and cries and announces the happy news: she's pregnant. Arlene and Edward are very sweet and touching together, making me wish they'd been the focal point of the film instead of the younger couple.Through the dated man-and-wife roles, there are some very funny jokes sprinkled in. Carl Reiner acts in hilarious cameos as a television star acting the same scene every week in different costumes, and Doris Day manages to inject some real acting into a very accessible scene in which she humiliates herself on national television and tries to hold back her tears. The worst part of the film is James Garner's character, a dated, selfish, misogynistic jerk. It's a wonder David Niven wasn't called in to reprise his role in Please Don't Eat the Daisies, as the characters were so similar and mean-spirited towards their wives.The first half of The Thrill of It All is actually really cute and funny. My recommendation is to watch the movie, and when Reginald Owen says the line, "Get her a swimming pool," turn it off. It just goes downhill from there.

When James Garner died last July, I had a yen to watch some of his movies but when I ordered this from Netflix at the time, it was listed as "long wait". So this finally arrived last week and I just watched it with Mom. Written by Carl Reiner from a story thought up by him and Larry Gelbart, Garner plays a doctor who delivers babies. Doris Day plays his wife who's a housewife. When an older woman played by Arlene Francis becomes pregnant for the first time, she invites Garner and Day to a party at her mansion. They watch a commercial produced by her father who isn't satisfied with the lady doing it and when he hears of Doris mentioning using the product on her daughter and how she loves it, well, he picks her for the next commercial. I'll stop there and just say there are some funny lines and scenes (though I thought the one involving a large bubble was a bit too much) and the movie as a whole was pretty enjoyable despite some sexist demeanor especially on James Garner's character's part. I also enjoyed recognizing some supporting players like Hayden Rorke, Kym Karath who would eventually also appear in The Sound of Music, Zazu Pitts in one of her last movie roles, Alice Pearce, Carl Reiner in various roles depicted on TV, and Bernie Kopell who, incidentally, didn't get a credit here. I guess this was before he became known as Seigfried on "Get Smart". Oh, and Edward Andrews is hilarious as the expectant father especially when stuck in a traffic jam. Of the two films starring Day and Garner, I think I enjoyed Move Over, Darling more. Still, The Thrill of It All has many good moments.

The period right before the sexual revolution of the 60s seems to have produced some movies with an astonishing degree of hatred of women as themes, almost as if America's collective unconscious knew that women were about to take charge of their lives and had to put up a fight. This is one of them. Even though she is provided with a really lovely wardrobe (oddly - or not - at least half the items in it are in the lingerie category -- things you wear only inside the house), Doris Day here plays the infantilized chattel of her handsome, boorish doctor husband, James Garner.She's offered a job as a spokeslady for a soap company looking for a wholesome image, and when she starts to enjoy it, her husband does everything he can to ruin things for her and mess with her head. This is nothing like the sparring of previous eras, among pairs of people like Katherine Hepburn, Myrna Loy, Rosalind Russell, Barbara Stanwyck, and whoever they were dealing with. Here Doris Day is sweet, sincere, and childish -- she can't figure out what $1500 a week would amount to for a year!! -- her husband holds all the power, clearly needs to give her permission to do things, and is not above psychopathy. These games are no fun when only one player has any adult power.