Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960)

My Review

“Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” is a comedy film about a New York City theater critic, his wife, and four sons who are squeezed into a two-bedroom apartment. They attempt to move to a larger home, but the only place they can find big enough is fixer-upper seventy miles outside of the city. The laughs and drama proceed from there, well-directed by Charles Walters (“High Society” 1956), from a superb screenplay by Isobel Lennart. They keep the interesting storylines from the 1957 book of the same name by Jean Kerr.

The cast is headed by the very popular Doris Day in a role perfect for her. She was one of the top box office draws of the 1950’s and 1960’s. David Niven plays her husband, along with co-stars Janis Paige, Spring Byington, Richard Haydn, Patsy Kelly, Jack Weston, Margaret Lindsay. The four sons are played by Stanley Livingston, Charles Herbert, Flip Mark, and Baby Gellert. The very watchable “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” was a big hit at the box office for producer Joe Pasternak and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. A television series of the same name ran on NBC from 1965 to 1967 starring Patricia Crowley.