QUICK, LET'S GET MARRIED looks like the cheapest film Ginger Rogers had appeared in since, oh, THE THIRTEENTH GUEST or something like that. It was barely shown in theaters, and then only years after it was made (my guess is that Elliot Gould's later success got it whatever play it did have). A partial reason is that the film was confiscated in Jamaica (where it was shot) before it could be properly edited. Perhaps it might have been more coherent if completed under better circumstances, who knows? As things stand, it was an unmitigated disaster. Rogers said that she would never have made it if it hadn't been produced by her husband (William Marshall, the last of her marriages) and that it cost her the friendships of director William Dieterle, writer Allan Scott, and co- star Ray Milland (perhaps they were never paid?). At least, perhaps not knowing any better, Elliott Gould seems to have relatively fond memories of his first film role. So far as I know, no one else has ever talked about the experience.
It's probably my lousy taste, but I kinda like it.
QUICK, LET'S GET MARRIED is an odd combination of miracle play and Italian sex farce. A remarkably talented group of people were involved in making it, though for the most part they were near the ends of their careers or towards the beginnings. William Dieterle was a fine director (HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME among many other fine films), but he was called out of retirement to do this, and I can't say that I recall any other comedies in his oeuvre. Allan Scott, veteran writer of many a better Ginger Rogers film, authored the script. The cast includes superb veterans like Rogers, Milland and Cecil Kellaway mixed in with talented newcomers like Gould, Barbara Eden and Michael Ansara. Jamaica is a fresh setting for a movie in 1964, though little is made of it. This really should have been a decent flick.
The plot: A professional thief (Milland) buys a map for a hidden treasure in a town in Italy called Toleno. On something of a lark, he goes there to find the treasure. Besides gold and jewels, which he finds buried beneath a stature of St. Joseph, he is attracted to the madame of the town brothel (Ginger Rogers). One of her prostitutes (Barbara Eden) is pregnant and despairingly prays at the statue, threatening suicide. Hearing her from beneath St. Joseph, Milland speaks to her and his voice is taken as the miraculous voice of St. Joseph himself.
Writer Scott's point seems to be that the faith of the people change their lives for the better even if this is really no miracle at all. Bumbling mayor Ansara repents of his corruption (a very nice performance in an unusual role for Michael), the father of the child forgoes his wandering ways to be with Pia (Eden), even the thief and the madame seem to fall genuinely in love. At the end there is the suggestion of a true miracle by way of a convenient earthquake and a deaf-mute (Gould) speaking. Even our guilty couple, Milland and Rogers, are miraculously deprived of their ill-gotten gains, and they take their just desserts with admirably high spirits.
This is almost entirely played for comedy, and Scott gives some clever lines to Milland and Rogers, Ansara and his buddy the pawnbroker, and to tone-deaf bishop Kellaway. Barbara Eden is stuck playing it straight, but she does well in doing so. Some characterizations turn on a dime. Rogers' Madame Rinaldi is very mean towards Eden's Pia originally, but positively maternal towards her afterwards. Much the same can be said of the father of Pia's baby, rejecting her through the first half of the movie and then accepting her for no apparent reason. The film's post- production problems are likely responsible.
All in all, if you can forgive the inherent shoddiness of B-movies, you might enjoy QUICK, LET'S GET MARRIED. At least I did.
It's probably my lousy taste, but I kinda like it.
QUICK, LET'S GET MARRIED is an odd combination of miracle play and Italian sex farce. A remarkably talented group of people were involved in making it, though for the most part they were near the ends of their careers or towards the beginnings. William Dieterle was a fine director (HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME among many other fine films), but he was called out of retirement to do this, and I can't say that I recall any other comedies in his oeuvre. Allan Scott, veteran writer of many a better Ginger Rogers film, authored the script. The cast includes superb veterans like Rogers, Milland and Cecil Kellaway mixed in with talented newcomers like Gould, Barbara Eden and Michael Ansara. Jamaica is a fresh setting for a movie in 1964, though little is made of it. This really should have been a decent flick.
The plot: A professional thief (Milland) buys a map for a hidden treasure in a town in Italy called Toleno. On something of a lark, he goes there to find the treasure. Besides gold and jewels, which he finds buried beneath a stature of St. Joseph, he is attracted to the madame of the town brothel (Ginger Rogers). One of her prostitutes (Barbara Eden) is pregnant and despairingly prays at the statue, threatening suicide. Hearing her from beneath St. Joseph, Milland speaks to her and his voice is taken as the miraculous voice of St. Joseph himself.
Writer Scott's point seems to be that the faith of the people change their lives for the better even if this is really no miracle at all. Bumbling mayor Ansara repents of his corruption (a very nice performance in an unusual role for Michael), the father of the child forgoes his wandering ways to be with Pia (Eden), even the thief and the madame seem to fall genuinely in love. At the end there is the suggestion of a true miracle by way of a convenient earthquake and a deaf-mute (Gould) speaking. Even our guilty couple, Milland and Rogers, are miraculously deprived of their ill-gotten gains, and they take their just desserts with admirably high spirits.
This is almost entirely played for comedy, and Scott gives some clever lines to Milland and Rogers, Ansara and his buddy the pawnbroker, and to tone-deaf bishop Kellaway. Barbara Eden is stuck playing it straight, but she does well in doing so. Some characterizations turn on a dime. Rogers' Madame Rinaldi is very mean towards Eden's Pia originally, but positively maternal towards her afterwards. Much the same can be said of the father of Pia's baby, rejecting her through the first half of the movie and then accepting her for no apparent reason. The film's post- production problems are likely responsible.
All in all, if you can forgive the inherent shoddiness of B-movies, you might enjoy QUICK, LET'S GET MARRIED. At least I did.