Please Don't Eat the Daisies Movie Review

When you think of classic romantic comedy pairings, Doris Day and David Niven don't immediately spring to mind. But Niven shows an extremely soft and lighthearted side in this madcap romp, one of Day's best films from her little-seen later years in the business.

The story is really a bunch of vignettes -- as the source book was -- about a woman with four rambunctious boys and a theater critic husband, all of whom move from the city to the country in an attempt to better their lives. Hysteria ensues as Niven's critic tussles with old friends who are all playwrights, and a leading lady (Janis Paige) who alternately slaps him in the face and tries to woo a positive review out of him.

Musical interludes abound, but it's Niven, believe it or not, who steals the show with his gentlemanly self trapped in a series of absurd and sexed-up situations. One musical number, "Any Way the Wind Blows," is a show stopper writ small, a little harmony that immediately makes you rewind to hear it again. Cute little flick, and it has absolutely nothing to do with daisies.