Happy Anniversary

Here's another one of those funny movies the whole family can enjoy. You can really relate to this one, because the funny things here really happen in real life. My favorite is Niven's toast at dinner that starts a family argument. I can just see my family reacting to it now. As usual in the fifties, family values are squeaky clean, but that doesn't deter from the plot or the humor, which is the kind Niven fans expect.

David Niven is great as usual. Patty Duke is excellent and funny. Mitzi Gaynor is the perfect Barbie send-up, and as always, perfect for the time. If I could find it on tape, I would buy it, since this is a classic for its time, like "The Importance of Being Earnest" was decades earlier.

David Niven and Mitzi Gaynor, two talented actors, are miscast in this stagy comedy about a married couple whose past catches up to them just before they celebrate their wedding anniversary. The addition of a new to the household television set is the catalyst for a series of not terribly funny mishaps and lots of arguing. The dialogue is trite and stilted, especially coming from the mouths of the child actors, although all concerned sound as though they're reading their lines directly from cue cards. Had the film been shot in colour, it might have livened things up, but as it stands,the black and white photography just adds to the dreary proceedings.Happy Anniversary bubbles like flat champagne.

"Happy Anniversary" is a 'modern' comedy that tries to be edgy. It just forgot one thing...to be funny. So, with several curse words and references to premarital sex, it's not enough to make the film interesting. I think the problem is that it tries too much to be hip and not enough time focusing on fun.

The film finds a happy couple who have been married 13 years, Chris and Alice Walters (David Niven and Mitzi Gaynor). But when they receive the gift of a TV for their anniversary, trouble is brewing. Chris prides himself for not having a TV in the house and he doesn't listen to his family--he just demands they remove it. Then, though the course of the film, they bicker about not just the TV but other things...none of which is all that interesting.

I just found this comedy to be a bit tedious AND I really hated the character of Chris. He was supposed to be a modern and permissive dad but was actually a selfish jerk. Not much fun.

Mitzi Gaynor and Niven were quite good as a couple celebrating their thirteenth anniversary. I found the children annoying--especially the son. I found the conflict of the film amusing--Niven, after having consumed too much alcohol, lets it be known to Gaynor's parents that he and their daughter had engaged in relations prior to their marriage. This of course scandalizes Gaynor's parents, especially her mother who feels like a fool for having had a deep heart-to-heart conversation with her daughter (presumably about sex) the night before the wedding.

The other conflict in the film is that Gaynor's parents purchase a television set for the family. Niven deems television detrimental to family life and to people's intelligence and does not want one in the house. A running gag is that Niven keeps ruining the television sets. Anyway, the thing I was most surprised about was the amount of language in the film. While I'm used to 1950s films having more colorful words allowed (the word "hell" or "damn" will be heard once or twice in the film), Happy Anniversary seemed to have more of these words than I'm accustomed to in a film that is still technically in the production code era.

I also found the frank discussion of sex very interesting. At the beginning of the film, Niven and Gaynor's characters clearly sneak off to a hotel for a romantic rendezvous, then there's Niven letting the cat out of the bag about he and Gaynor's pre-marital sex, later, their little girl ends up on television to inquire about her parents' pre-marital sex and how that was negatively affecting their relationship.

There seems to be a recurring problem with films that have one foot in the production code era and one in the budding sexual revolution. They can't really figure out what they are about and wind up having neither the courage nor the quaintness of their convictions on either side. This one is mainly saved by Niven's charm and Gaynor's skill.

As a young girl, my all-time favorite film star was David Niven. I went to as many of his films as I could. Happy Anniversary was a hilariously funny film. Of course, since television became such an American staple, some might not find the humor in it. I call TV the plug-in drug! So, I have always felt this very funny film was a masterpiece.