The Thrill of It All (1963)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

A lot of fun.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

This movie seems at first to be almost feminist for the time. Doris Day's character is a housewife who has always wanted to be an actress. When she finally gets a role in a soap commercial, her husband (played by James Garner) can't stand it. He believes that she should be perfectly contented with being a housewife. He gives her a tough time about not being at home constantly and she goes out of her way to try to be home. Even going to the extreme of taking photoshoots in their bedroom. James Garner's character is a doctor who delivers babies (this is important later on) and is not home very often so he is even more frustrated when she isnt there. While at the hospital he hears a woman say "there's nothing more fulfilling to a woman than having a baby. He decides he wants to get his wife pregnant but gets frustrated when he drives his car into the new pool that the wife got from her soap company. As the story progresses, the husband tries to make Doris Day's character have a break down at work but pretending to have an affair and going to great lengths to portray it as such. The wife does have a breakdown on live television and makes a fool of herself. She starts to doubt herself even more. In the end Doris helps James deliver a baby and the baby "fulfills her". She has never felt this close to her husband (because he does this every day). She decides that she wants to be a doctor's wife again (apperantly she was no longer his wife when she got a job) and leaves acting behind her.

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.

Housewife Beverly Boyer (Doris Day) accidentally becomes a TV star overnight selling soap on commercials. Her successful doctor husband (James Garner) isn't too happy about it and believes she should stay at home and bring up their kids like all women do. This leads to "hilarious" complications.Day and Garner are both charming and great in their roles but the sexual politics and unfunny comedy sometimes make this heavy going. The movie is continuously making it clear that a woman having a career is not a good thing and Garner's antics to get her to stop working are hardly funny. Also some of the comedy is beyond silly--the section with the back yard pool (all installed in a few hours) and soap is just dumb. Still, it was well done and the Garner and Day play off each other very well. If you can ignore the outdated attitudes in this movie you should enjoy it. I give it a 5.

Filmed in living color, The Thrill Of It All is a very dumb, contrived and, generally, a very, very unfunny movie "Sit-Com" from 1963.This naive suburban/family-life story tries with all of its ever-loving might to be adorably cute and highly sophisticated both at the same time. And, unfortunately, it falls flat on its face on both counts, big time.Actress Doris Day is particularly annoying (as usual) as the suburban housewife who suddenly gets her 15 minutes of fame when she becomes the national advertising spokeswoman for "Happy Soap" products.There are definitely much better Comedies from the 1960s out there. I'd certainly pass on this preposterous nonsense if I were you.