The Cavalier daily :: Thursday, March 12, 1970 :: University of Virginia Library

It seems to me as if all I've been
doing for the last two months is
writing favorable reviews. Let me
assure you that my critical senses
have not become numb, but rather
that the average caliber of recent
and stage fare has been
unusually high, I doubt this happy
situation can continue much longer
and fear that someday soon I'll
again have to pick up my poison
pen.

Today, however, is most assuredly
not that day, for the
sharpest, funniest screen comedy of
1969 has just arrived in Charlottesville.
As a play, "Cactus Flower"
was a long-running Broadway hit,
and it has been adroitly transplanted
to film by scenarist I.A.L.
Diamond and director Gene Saks.

The story concerns a playboy
dentist who, in order to protect his
bachelorhood, tells his sensitive girl
friend he has a wife and three
children. All goes well until he
decides to marry the girl, at which
time she, afraid of being a home wrecker,
asks to meet his wife. To
play the part, the dentist recruits
his starchy nurse (who one of his
patients refers to as "sergeant"),
and what follows is a long string of
complications.

this premise tends to be
somewhat slight, it is supported by
Mr. Diamond's barrage of hilarious
one-liners and enhanced by Mr.
Saks' fast pacing and his brilliant
bits of directorial business. Their
work seems to have been greatly
influenced - and rightly so - by
Abe Burrows' highly acclaimed staging
and scripting of the original
Broadway version. "Cactus Flower"
should go down as a classic example
of how a director can get supreme
comic mileage out of what is
basically a one-joke plot.

Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman

In Scene From Columbia Pictures' "Cactus Flower"

If "Cactus Flower" seems richer
on the screen than it did on the
stage (and I tend to think it does),
one of the foremost reasons is the
inspired casting and precisioned
playing of its cast.

Walter Matthau, with droopy
eyes, puffy cheeks, and a facial
expression which suggests terminal
lethargy, makes a shrewdly funny
D.D.S., and the deceptions which
he tosses at his young love are
drolly delivered. Indeed, there is
much humor in his efforts to keep
track of the latest developments
caused by the backfire of his
protective fabrication.

Ingrid Bergman is charming as
his prim Swedish nurse who keeps a
cactus plant on her desk. As her
character begins to shed her inhibitions,
Miss Bergman starts to let
herself go and really enjoy the role,
and the highlight of her performance
(as well as of the film) is
a discotheque scene in which she
proves she can master several of the
modern dances.

But the one to keep your eye on
is that vivacious from LaughIn
with the chipmunk face and the
popping eyes, Goldie Hawn. She is
ideally typecast here as Mr. Matthau's
kooky Greenwich Village
mistress, and she brings to the role
a distinct, off-balance personality
which makes the character much
more believable than it would
ordinarily be. Just as Mr. Matthau
never knows quite what to expect
from her, neither do you.

And Miss Hawn's freshness and
vitality must be contagious, for
these two qualities permeate the
entire film, making it a thoroughly
beguiling comedy treat.

(Now at the Barracks Road)