SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Micransix Crappy film

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

mark.waltz A television writer/director on the Bette of a nervous breakdown gets the shock of his life when his stage actress wife purchases a "summer house", aka "a gazebo" where she thinks he can spend beautiful summer days doing his writing. What she has no idea of is his plans for it that don't include thing up the latest masterpiece or romancing her on cool summer nights. With the house already in danger of falling apart, the gazebo seems poised to either fly into space or sink into oblivion if his kind of luck continues.What makes this black comedy work so well is the collection of nutcases, fellow neurotics, blowhards and just plain creepy folk, including a blackmailer, the contractor hired to prepare the space for the gazebo and a screeching housekeeper who seems to think that everyone around her is deaf. There's also a friendly pigeon, an irony considering the dog like seagull from "This Happy Feeling" which also starred this films leading lady, Debbie Reynolds. The real star is Glenn Ford, as dark as they come, but hysterically funny because of how far he's fallen into a neurotic/nervous breakdown state.I don't think that there was any need to give Debbie Reynolds a reason to do a production number, mainly because the one she does here is just a really bad number. The blackmail plot involves lewd photos of Debbie, and that results in Glenn seeking to become the dumbest killer ever to plot a murder on screen. Supporting them are Carl Reiner as Ford's dead pan pal, John McGiver as the most aggravating of contractors, so pompous and boring that while laughing at him for being like so many people you've been forced to deal with you might be cringing out of memory of those unpleasant encounters. Doro Merande reminds me of so many well meaning but ultimately hateful old bags that I've been unprivileged to have been forced to be associated with that I had fun laughing at the character and laughing with the actress. Then, there's Mabel Albertson who seems to keep showing up at the most inconvenient times. I can see why thus might have a cult following, but it's not one that I'd be likely to re- visit. Black and white photography in CinemaScope doesn't really add anything either and genuinely looks quite odd.

MartinHafer This is a bizarre comedy that seems to try very hard to be kooky--which is a very tough sell due to the darkness of the plot. A dark, dark film combined with kooky is a very, very hard sell! The film concerns a couple (Glenn Ford and Debbie Reynolds). Ford works like a dog and you soon learn that he's working so hard because he's paying off blackmailers--blackmailers that have nude photos of Debbie when she was younger. Now the idea of Debbie Reynolds posing naked is a very tough sell--it just doesn't seem possible. Eventually Ford is so fed up with the never-ending blackmail that he decides to kill the blackmailer and hide the body in the foundation of the new gazebo. But, while the killing seems to go off without a hitch, things only get worse after the evil deed was done.Killing, nude photos of Debbie and burying a body in the yard--all this is a very tough sell for audiences expecting to see a cute little film. While some of the film is a bit cute and even funny, the overriding black hole which is the plot is just too difficult to make funny! And, by trying so hard to make this a comedy, the film just doesn't quite work. It's interesting...but not all that great. A time-passer and a strange one at that.

bkoganbing I've maintained this before, one day someone is going to do a study of the director/actor team of George Marshall and Glenn Ford. They did some really great work together such as The Sheepman, Imitation General, Texas and Advance To The Rear to name a few. The Gazebo falls in that category as well.The Gazebo was originally presented on Broadway as a play by Alec Coppel and ran for 218 performances in the 1958-59 season. The roles that Glenn Ford, Debbie Reynolds, and Carl Reiner play were done on Broadway by Walter Slezak, Jayne Meadows, and Edward Andrews. I'm still not fathoming a role originated by Walter Slezak done by Glenn Ford. I'm betting the role had to have been rewritten for the screen.I'd like to describe it as a black comedy, but in the end it does turn out all sweetness and light. Ford is a television writer who lives with wife and musical comedy star Reynolds in the suburbs with Reiner as their neighbor. Oh, Reiner happens to be an Assistant District Attorney and Ford just loves picking his brain on how to avoid capture by the police when you commit a homicide.Which is what Ford has in mind, not suggestions for a television script. Someone's attempting blackmail because they've got some nude photographs of Reynolds in her salad days. He lures the blackmailer to his home and what follows is hilarious.A lot of the problem has to do with a gazebo that Ford and Reynolds have put in their yard. It might serve as a place to bury a body, but it doesn't quite work out that way.Besides those already mentioned Marshall put together a good cast to support the leads with Doro Merande as their housekeeper whose normal conversational tone is a roar and John McGiver as the head of the work crew installing The Gazebo.Special mention should go to a pigeon named Herman who Ford took in and nursed back to health. Some of The Gazebo's funniest moments are provided by Herman. The Gazebo did get an Oscar nomination for Costume Design, but I think Herman should have been up for a CLIO award.

rwint 7 out of 10 Fun time filler involving Ford and his attempts at murdering a blackmailer and then burying the body underneath a newly constructed gazebo. Nothing profoundly exceptional here, but it is genuinely and consistently offbeat. There are some good laughs and a couple of uniquely comical moments. Ford and his rather timid delivery really carries the picture. In many ways he was much better at comedy than drama and this film not only proves it, but takes full advantage of it. The very nervous way he proceeds with the murder is a real riot alone. The very high strung way he tries to direct a live on air broadcast, that is shown at the beginning of the film, is not only funny but completely on target. Their are a lot of twists and turns here and they all become much quicker in pace near the end. None of it is predictable. The best sequence may actually be the one involving a pigeon named Herman. Also don't miss the comment by the police chief at the very end as he is leaving the house. Reiner adds good energy in support playing a lawyer that never stops deliberating. Character actor McGiver is pretty good also playing against type. Usually he plays very stuffy type characters who enjoy pontificating. Here he plays a gruff laborer who speaks sparingly.