Cinema: Soap Operator | TIME
The Thrill of It All presents, among other things, what may be the chicest accouchement of all time: Arlene Francis has a baby in the back seat of a Rolls-Royce stalled in a Manhattan traffic jam on—of course—the upper East Side; the doctor, who arrives on horseback, swaddles the infant in a fresh copy of the New York Times, then bundles it in a mink lap robe.
The obstetrical Paul Revere is James Garner, who lives with Wife Doris Day and two small children in an elegant house with a curving staircase and a sleep-in housekeeper, located in that lush preserve of Manhattan suburbia that lies just outside Hollywood. Possibly recalling her hungry working-girl roles of years past, Doris is a pinchpenny; she makes the beds, empties the clothes hampers, and runs off brobdingnagian batches of tomato ketchup in the basement. When she gets an offer to appear on a television commercial praising Happy Soap for $332, Day spends a day before the mirror practicing different ways (surprised, sultry, sincere, brisk, cordial) to say “Hi, there, I’m Beverly Boyer and I’m a housewife . . .” Her winsome incompetence melts the heart of the Happy Soap king, who signs her to an $80,000 contract as his new Happy Girl.
As Doris bubbles her way to the pinnacle of soapy success, Hubby Garner begins to go down the drain out of pure jealousy. The final gurgle comes when —unknown to him—the Happy Soap folks dig a swimming pool for Doris in the backyard where the driveway used to be. That night, whump! splosh! Garner goes down with his convertible as the sound track plays a snatch of sinking-of-the-Titanic music.
Ross Hunter produced The Thrill of It All, and it has all those little Ross Hunter touches—coy tingles over connubial sex (“Is it your wife’s birthday tonight?” “No, but it may be somebody’s”), wise-apple kiddies (“Daddy, Mommy’s down in the cellar with a man”). But one thrill is missing: the will-she-or-won’t-she question that so breathlessly sustained the previous assaults on Doris’ virginity in the recent sudsy cycle of Day comedies. Now that Doris has given in and traded maidenhood for motherhood, life is going to be drabber for the ladies in the balcony. Ross Hunter, how could you?
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