The Thrill of It All

Beverly Boyer is a doctor's wife and a housewife. At a dinner she mentions the soap she uses to guests who happen to own the soap company; she says it so naturally that they make her the face of the brand. She becomes a national name within weeks, is almost never home, and her family sees her mainly on television. Her husband Gerald cannot take it. Norman Jewison directed. Doris Day plays Beverly and James Garner plays Gerald, with Arlene Francis and Edward Andrews. Carl Reiner wrote the screenplay. The film goes after advertising and television from inside a domestic comedy, and given how much of the television of the period was live commercials the target was current. Its best-remembered scene has Garner driving home from work and into a swimming pool that was not there when he left in the morning. Who it is for: viewers who like the bright Hollywood comedies of the sixties and the pairing of Doris Day and James Garner. Who it is not for: anyone who will question how it resolves. The film frames a woman's career as a family problem and takes its solution from that framing.