
http://www.dorisday.net/move_over_darling.html
MOVE OVER DARLING
Review by Bosley Crowther
New York Times (1963)
More than 23 years ago, Cary Grant, Irene Dunne and Gail Patrick made that rollicking romantic farce called "My Favorite Wife" a deserved favorite of moviegoers. Now, this feeble frolic simply proves that merry marital mixups must either be a state of mind or an extremely fragile framework for a film.
Metamorphosed into "Move Over, Darling" as the vehicle for Doris Day, James Garner and Polly Bergen, which made a Christmas Day landing at the Astor and other theaters, "My Favorite Wife" not only is showing her age but also has turned out to be a largely unfunny ear-bender.
For the record, it should be noted that "My Favorite Wife" was being remade, and scrapped, last year as "Something's Got to Give," starring the late Marilyn Monroe. Essentially, however, it is still the screwy saga of a man who remarries, thinking his wife is dead, and the wacky involvements that follow when the first wife turns up just as he is about to start on his honeymoon. With or without comparisons with the original, however, "Move Over, Darling" appears to be straining and shouting for effects that should be natural and uncontrived.
A viewer is constantly belabored by the obvious and the punches and punch lines are nearly always telegraphed. Will the hotel manager be confused by the presence of one seemingly upstanding citizen with wives in two adjoining suites? He is. Will the second wife's honeymoon hunger remain unrequited? It does. Will a handsome, rugged gent show up as the first wife's companion on that Pacific island for the five years she was thought to be dead? He does. Will it all turn out neatly for all concerned with an assist from mother-in-law? It does, with all the certainty that the principals will live happily ever after in a beautiful Beverly Hills manse complete with two lovely little daughters.
The trouble in this second-hand paradise is that Doris Day, as the first wife; Polly Bergen as the frustrated second wife and James Garner, as the confused man-in-the-middle, spend most of their time being loquaciously redundant and overly energetic in situations that cry for defter and lighter touches.
Under Michael Gordon's direction, a few sight gags are mildly comic, but the supporting cast including Chuck Connors, as Miss Day's desert island man; Fred Clark, as the hotel manager; Don Knotts, as a timid shoe clerk and Elliott Reid, as a psychiatrist, have mighty little to do effectively.
Edgar Buchanan gets a laugh or two as a bumbling, irascible judge and Thelma Ritter is a properly lovable curmudgeon of a mother-in-law. At one point, when some of Miss Day's gambits to recapture her spouse have failed, Miss Ritter acidly suggests, "better think of something else." That advice could apply to "Move Over, Darling," too.