Cactus Flower

Cactus Flower is a cute and harmless film, but its dated and kinda corny now. Goldie Hawn is so adorable in this movie, no wonder she won best supporting actress, she's a hoot! Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman are great together, I just love them. Cactus Flower may have a few thorns but it is much-loved by fans so give this film a chance.

WE ENJOYED THE MOVIE. LARRY HAD NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE AND HE KIND OF ENJOYED WHEREAS I HAVE SEEN IT BEFORE AND REALLY ENJOY IT. I LIKE WALTER MATTHAU AND I BELIEVE THAT WAS THE LAST PICTURE THAT INGRID BERGMAN MADE. IT'S A FUN MOVIE--CLEAN--NO SEX AND REALLY NO SWEARING.

It may be sacrilegious to say, but CACTUS FLOWER is a much better picture than those that Billy Wilder was making at roughly the same time. We watched this, then THE FORTUNE COOKIE in rapid succession, and this one wins by a country mile. I bring in Wilder's name because in some quarters CACTUS FLOWER has been looked on as a flimsy Billy Wilder rip-off, due to the use of Walter Matthau and also to the scenarist I A L Diamond, who worked wonders on the original Broadway play script to CACTUS FLOWER and really makes it bloom on the screen. (Only in the cramped dentist set do you feel that you're watching a play transferred to the screen. Could that set have been any smaller, sometimes you watch Ingrid Bergman try to figure out what to do with her hips as she nears a desk or filing cabinet.) Diamond squeezed this one in during the long wilderness years for Wilder, between the ragged comeback that was THE FORTUNE COOKIE, and the 1970 megaflop that became THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Those two shows seem absolutely dour next to the radiance of CACTUS FLOWER. Maybe Diamond felt freed up from his own impossible to live up to legacy, and he could just be really dumb.

Well, CACTUS FLOWER has a Wilder sort of mise-en-scene anyhow, as Walter Matthau plays a swinging dentist who pretends to be married in order to deceive his young girlfriend, Goldie Hawn. All the actors play this out as though it were perfectly normal for a 60 year old guy to be "dating" a 21 year old hippie girl. Last week we watched Clint Eastwood's BREEZY where the exact same situation is played out as a problem picture, nearly a tragedy, and yet here it is a sex romp. Of sorts. Basically Matthau doesn't understand that his own nurse, Stephanie Dickinson, has been devotedly in love with him for years and years. And that she, Ingrid Bergman, is the woman for him.

I wonder if there's a code of reception for audiences in which we mentally dislike the pairing of the old and the young, so we're prepared for Matthau to switch his affections from Hawn to Bergman, and to let Hawn find romance with the kooky writer next door who saves her from a suicide attempt at the beginning of the film (shades of Diamond's APARTMENT script!) . . . What's great about Columbia producing this film is all the commercial tie-ins, the product placement which must have seemed super grating and cheesy in its day, but now floats somewhere in the comfort zone. For example, Goldie works in a Village record shop, and every album on the racks seems to be -- by Columbia records! (I should say, the majority of them are, but here and again a non-Columbia LP is shown, which must have been a triumph of artistic integrity.) And my favorite scene is the disco evening, where Ingrid Bergman invents a new dance called the "Dentist." Listen to the parade of Muzaked chartbusters playing in the background while the beautiful people show it off on the dancefloor--everyone of them a Colgems tune--"I'm a Believer," "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight," really, if the Monkees had made an appearance I wouldn't have blinked an eye. It's a fantastic scene, worthy of Max Ophuls, let alone Billy Wilder.

This is a really sweet little film that is completely and thoroughly 60's. It stars Walter Matthau as a dentist who is dating Goldie Hawn, a young free spirit. He's told her that he's married so he won't have to marry her, but, when he decides he wants to marry her after all, he has to produce a wife. He turns to his faithful nurse, played by Ingrid Bergman (!), who has worked for him for ten years. Hawn's character feels pity for Bergman, and events escalate to the point that the dentist is using one of his patients to play the role of his "wife's" lover.

There's some really witty dialogue in here, and Goldie Hawn, in her first movie role, is irrepressibly adorable. Ingrid Bergman also gives a fabulous performance, once you get over the shock of seeing her in something that isn't Casablanca, looking almost matronly. (But, at age fifty-four, still beautiful.) Walter Matthau also gives a great performance as the sneaky but loveable dentist, and there are a couple of scenes in a dance club that are too great for words.

Classic Walter Matthau film. I enjoyed it very much because of the easy & believeable relationship between Matthau & Hawn, the suppressed attraction between Bergman & Matthau & the sweet storyline. This film was made during a time where special effects didn't fill in for weak plots; instead the story actually makes its point. Well done.

As bachelor dentist Dr. Julian Winston, Matthau tries to convince his mistress, Toni, (Goldie Hawn) that he has a wife who won't divorce him because they have children. Toni's had enough: she fires off a letter (yes, actually walks across the street in her nightgown to deposit the letter in a mailbox)to Julian, telling him she's committed suicide. Her young writer-neighbor, Igor (Rick Lenz), smells gas in the apartment hallway, breaks in & saves Toni.

When Julian receives the letter at his office, he storms off to Toni's apartment, only to find her alive & in the company of Igor. This little stunt persuades Julian to ask Toni to marry him -- he'll get a divorce no matter what. The catch is now Toni wants to meet Julian's wife, she has to get to know her so that Julian's wife won't think of Toni as a home-wrecker. Enter Ingrid Bergman as Miss Stephanie Dickinson, Dr. Winston's long-suffering, never-married dental assistant. Julian convinces Stephanie to pose as his wife for Toni.

What ensues is a calamity of coincidences & misunderstandings that cause true feelings to be revealed. Ingrid Bergman is such a joy to watch, she effortlessly steals the show.

If you want light-hearted entertainment that will leave you with a smile on your face, this film is for you.