Producers: Martin Melcher, Aaron Rosenberg. Copyright 19 December 1963 by Melcher/Arcola Productions. Released through 20th Century- Fox. New York opening at the Astor: 25 December 1963. U.S. release: December 1963. U.K. release: 8 March 1964. Sydney opening at the Regent. 9,290 feet. 103 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Successful lawyer Nicholas Arden (James Garner) goes before Judge Bryson (Edgar Buchanan) in Los Angeles with his fiancée, Bianca Steele (Polly Bergen) to: 1) petition the court to declare his former wife, Ellen Arden (Doris Day), legally dead, since she has been missing for five years following an airplane crash in the Pacific; 2) request the court to marry him to Bianca. This done, the newlyweds are happily on their way by car to their honeymoon in Monterey. Meanwhile, at the Naval base at nearby San Pedro, a submarine lands with Ellen, who has been rescued from a desert isle.
NOTES: A re-make of "My Favorite Wife" (1940) starring Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Randolph Scott and Gail Patrick.
The script was originally refurbished for Marilyn Monroe as "Something's Got To Give".
COMMENT: A mild comedy, rather flatly directed and rather too enthusiastically played, considering the threadbare and overly familiar nature of the material. Doris Day sings two songs of equally forgettable quality. (I'm told that her son Terry Melcher helped out with the composition of the title tune).
OTHER VIEWS: Feeble frolic. — New York Times.
Heavy-handed and fundamentally irrelevant farce sequences are attached to an intrinsically surefire premise. — Variety.
This one is just awful. Oh, Doris Day is just fine. She has a nice comedic style, mugs real good, and is right in there with the fast and slow burns and the double takes, but there's precious little else in this hokey, pretentious razz-ma-tazz. Garner is, let's not mince words, not the best farce man around... Thelma Ritter, Fred Clark and Don Knotts are wasted, but then so was our time. — Robert Salmaggi in the N.Y. Herald Tribune.
A brightly colored mess. Suspense is lost because it would be inconceivable in the Hollywood scheme of things to have the country's No. 1 box office star lose her husband to Polly Bergen (who was unranked in the last exhibitor's poll)... Those with weak stomachs should leave before the scene in which Doris Day and the children admit they belong to each other. — Hollis Alpert in the Saturday Review.