Please don't eat the daisies

I just stumbled upon a very peculiar movie in the replay machine tonight. We recorded everything that was possible to record right before we moved so that we would have stuff to watch before the satellite gets installed in our new place.

It was called Please Don't Eat the Daisies. I have pages of pre-pubescient diary pages about random movies that I stumbled upon on cable, so this text going to be very similar to those.

It has Doris Day and David Niven as a couple with 4 children, all boys and 3 of which appear to be about the same age. The youngest son is kept in a cage because he is really silent and clever and gets into trouble(?) Strangers ask if he is queer.

It is your typical late 50's early 60's movie. Doris wants to move out to the country. David wants to stay in the Big Apple (the chores! the stores! kind of thing). In this case, Doris wins. The next thing that surprised me was the scene when the neighbors come over to welcome them. I think that these characters, a minister, a dowdy woman, and a veterinarian, are supposed to especially annoy the David Niven character, who is professor/theater critic. That is the only reason that I can think of to introduce such a motley crew. One of the boys rudely asks the veterinarian, "Hey, are you a man or woman" and the veterinarian cheerfully responds, "I'm a veterinarian!"

The other thing that I surprised me is that Doris never broke out into song in the normal fashion. Of course, she got to sing, but there were excuses worked in, for example, once she is singing because she got the lead in the community theater production. Or she was singing because she was taking care of elementary school students in the afternoon.