Hey, do you like lightweight screwball comedies? How about lightweight screwball comedies from the sixties? Of the frothy kind? On Thursday, TCM is showing The Thrill of It All with Doris Day and James Garner, plus a whole raft of great character actors. In there are, among others, Edward Andrews (who steals every single scene he's in), Arlene Francis, Reginald Owen, Zasu Pitts, Elliott Reid, Burt Mustin, Alice Pearce, Paul Hartman, my old pal Lennie Weinrib, Robert Strauss, Hayden Rorke, Herbie Faye, Bernie Kopell and even (briefly) Maurice "Doberman" Gosfield, plus several of the voices of Paul Frees.
Oh — and Carl Reiner. He plays several very funny cameo moments, plus he wrote the script with Larry Gelbart. In the opening titles, Mr. Reiner is credited on the same card as the person who supplied the jewelry, I believe. It says "Cameos by Carl Reiner." (Also take notice of the title song which is about as 1963 as a movie title song could ever be.)
It's a very silly, easy to watch comedy. James Garner is great in it and you even get to see him drive a convertible into a swimming pool. Doris Day's great, too. If you don't understand why this woman was such a huge star at the box office for so long, this will clue you in.
One caveat: As with a lot of comedies from this era and before, one of the film's working premises is that a good wife doesn't work. A good wife stays at home and raises the kids and has dinner on the table when the husband — the breadwinner — comes home from work. If you can get past that, you might enjoy this film a lot. It's Thursday evening on Turner Classic Movies, preceded by Lover Come Back (Doris, Rock Hudson and Tony Randall) and followed by Boys' Night Out (Garner and Randall).