The Thrill Of It All finds James Garner and Doris Day as typical suburban couple, two kids, big house, live-in maid, and he's a doctor. Could a girl ask for more.
But Garner's the doctor for Arlene Francis who's having one of those late in life babies and she and husband Edward Andrews are excited as all heck. He and Doris get invited to their house for a little get together where Doris spontaneously extols the virtues of Happy Soap to the delight of Reginald Owen who is Edward Andrews's father. Owen is less excited about becoming a grandfather than he is with discovering Doris whom he insists become the new Happy Soap spokeswoman.
After that it's Garner who has a really difficult time in adjusting to his wife's new found celebrity. And Doris is liking the idea of making tons of money, more than Garner's practice brings in.
This was the first of two films James Garner and Doris Day are teamed and while they never became as famous as Rock Hudson and Doris Day they certainly had good chemistry together. Both by this time were becoming pretty old hands at screen comedy.
Best sequence in the film is when the spontaneous gift of a swimming pool for Garner and Day from Reginald Owen plus several boxes of bars of Happy Soap and the chain of events caused. It's still side splitting funny after 45 years.
Owen wanted a wholesome celebrity created for Happy Soap and you can't get more wholesome than Doris Day. The film bears certain similarities to the Jack Lemmon comedy Good Neighbor Sam where company owner Edward G. Robinson sees in Jack Lemmon's family wholesome spokespeople for his dairy products.
So if you want to see Doris Day morphed into Mrs. Butterworth, The Thrill Of It All is your film. Fans of Doris and Jim will be wanting more and they soon got it.
