Send Me No Flowers: a 1964

1964 in film

The year 1964 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 29 - The film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is released....

 American

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 comedy film

Comedy film

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

, directed by Norman Jewison

Norman Jewison

Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. Highlights of his directing career include In the Heat of the Night , The Thomas Crown Affair , Fiddler on the Roof , Jesus Christ Superstar , Moonstruck , The Hurricane and The...

 and starring Rock Hudson

Rock Hudson

Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...

, Doris Day

Doris Day

Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...

, and Tony Randall

Tony Randall

Tony Randall was a U.S. actor, comic, producer and director.-Early years:Randall was born Arthur Leonard Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Julia and Mogscha Rosenberg, an art and antiques dealer...

. After Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back

Lover Come Back

Lover Come Back is a 1961 Eastmancolor romantic comedy released by Universal Pictures. The film stars Doris Day and Rock Hudson in their second film together. The supporting cast includes Tony Randall, Edie Adams, Ann B. Davis, and Donna Douglas....

, it is the third and final film in which Hudson, Day and Randall starred together.

The screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Julius J. Epstein

Julius J. Epstein

Julius J. Epstein was an American screenwriter, who had a long career, best remembered for the adaptation - in partnership with his twin brother, Philip, and others - of the unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's that became the screenplay for the film Casablanca , for which its team of writers...

 is based on the play by Norman Barasch and Carroll Moore, which had a brief run on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 in 1960.
The title tune was written by Hal David

Hal David

Harold Lane "Hal" David is an American lyricist. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York. David is best known for his collaborations with composer Burt Bacharach.-Career:...

 and Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach

Burt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...

.

Synopsis

When he experiences chest pains, chronic hypochondria

Hypochondria

Hypochondriasis or hypochondria refers to excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness. This debilitating condition is the result of an inaccurate perception of the body’s condition despite the absence of an actual medication condition...

c George checks into the hospital for a checkup and overhears his doctor discussing the diagnosis of a terminally ill patient with an associate. Assuming he is the one scheduled to die, he asks his friend Arnold to help him find a new husband for his wife Judy so he'll know she won't be alone once he's gone. He locates Judy's old college beau Bert, now a Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 oil baron

Business magnate

A business magnate, sometimes referred to as a capitalist, czar, mogul, tycoon, baron, oligarch, or industrialist, is an informal term used to refer to an entrepreneur who has reached prominence and derived a notable amount of wealth from a particular industry .-Etymology:The word magnate itself...

. Meanwhile, Judy mistakes her husband's machinations for an attempt to cover up an extramarital affair and throws him out of the house.

Principal cast

• Rock Hudson
  Rock Hudson
  Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
  
   ..... George
• Doris Day
  Doris Day
  Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
  
   ..... Judy
• Tony Randall
  Tony Randall
  Tony Randall was a U.S. actor, comic, producer and director.-Early years:Randall was born Arthur Leonard Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Julia and Mogscha Rosenberg, an art and antiques dealer...
  
   ..... Arnold
• Paul Lynde
  Paul Lynde
  Paul Edward Lynde was an American comedian and actor. A noted character actor, Lynde was well known for his roles as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched and Harry MacAfee, the befuddled father in Bye Bye Birdie...
  
   ..... Mr. Akins
• Clint Walker
  Clint Walker
  Norman Eugene Walker, known as Clint Walker , is an American actor best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the TV Western series, Cheyenne.-Life and career:...
  
   ..... Bert
• Hal March
  Hal March
  Hal March was a Jewish-American comedian and actor.-Early career:March first came to note as part of a comedy team with Bob Sweeney. The duo had their own radio show for a time and performed, in the early 1950s, as "Sweeney & March." He also partnered with actor/comic Tom d'Andrea in the early...
  
   ..... Winston Burr
• Edward Andrews
  Edward Andrews
  Edward Andrews was an American actor, one of the most recognizable character actors on television and films between the 1950s and the 1980s...
  
   ..... Dr. Morrissey

Principal production credits

• Producer
  Film producer
  A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
  
   ..... Martin Melcher
  Martin Melcher
  Martin Melcher was an American film producer. With the exception of one movie, all of his projects were starring vehicles for his wife, actress Doris Day....
  
  
• Original Music
  Film score
  A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
  
   ..... Frank De Vol
  Frank De Vol
  Frank Denny De Vol, also known simply as De Vol was an American arranger, composer and actor.-Early life and career:...
  
  
• Cinematography
  Cinematography
  Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
  
   ..... Daniel L. Fapp
  Daniel L. Fapp
  Daniel L. Fapp or Daniel L. Fappani was an American cinematographer, best known as director of photography for West Side Story , for which he won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and The Great Escape...
  
  
• Art Direction
  Art director
  The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
  
   ..... Robert Clatworthy, Alexander Golitzen
  Alexander Golitzen
  Alexander Golitzen, oversaw art direction on more than 300 movies.Prince Alexander Golitzen was born in Moscow, but fled the country with his family during the Russian Revolution. Travelling via Siberia and China, they arrived in Seattle, where Alexander graduated from high school...
  
  
• Set Decoration
  Set decorator
  A set decorator is in charge of the set dressing on a film set, which includes the furnishings, wallpaper, lighting fixtures, and many of the other objects that will be seen in the film. Props and set dressing often overlap, but are provided by different departments...
  
   ..... John McCarthy, Jr.
  John McCarthy, Jr.
  John McCarthy, Jr is a set decorator with an extensive filmography of over 600 films that began in 1935, when he dressed the set for His Fighting Blood....
  
  
• Costume Design
  Costume design
  Costume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
  
   ..... Jean Louis
  Jean Louis
  Jean Louis was a French-born, Hollywood costume designer and an Academy Award winner for Costume Design. Louis worked as head designer for Columbia Pictures from 1944 to 1960...
  
  

Critical response

In his review in the New York Times, Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...

 called it "a beautiful farce

Farce

In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...

 situation" and added, "Julius Epstein has written it . . . with nimble inventiveness and style. And Norman Jewison has directed so that it stays within bounds of good taste, is never cruel or insensitive, and makes something good of every gag."

Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

felt "[it] doesn't carry the same voltage, either in laughs or originality, as Doris Day and Rock Hudson's two previous entries."

Time Out London calls it "probably the best of the Doris Day/Rock Hudson vehicles . . . nicely set in a pastel-coloured suburban dreamworld, but the ineradicable blandness gets you down in the end."

Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

says, "it would be churlish to complain that it is a little bland, fairly predictable and has an unsurprising happy ending. There's enough humour in the ensuing misunderstandings and enough skill in the playing and direction to stifle not just criticism but even the odd yawn."

External links

• Send Me No Flowers feature article at Turner Classic Movies