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The Mating Game
Tax collector Lorenzo Charlton comes to the Larkins' farm to ask why Pop Larkins hasn't paid his back taxes. Charlton has to stay for a day to try to estimate the income from the farm, but it isn't easy to calculate when the farmer has such a lovely daughter.
Release : | 1959 |
Rating : | 6.9 |
Studio : | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, |
Crew : | Art Direction, Art Direction, |
Cast : | Debbie Reynolds Tony Randall Paul Douglas Fred Clark Una Merkel |
Genre : | Comedy Romance |
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Reviews
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
Ma & Pop Larkins daughter, Mariette (Debbie Reynolds) is now of age and can marry. But where oh where will they find a top of the tree branch man worthy of her? Cue Tony Curtis as Lorenzo and IRS agent visiting to find out why the Larkins have paid no income tax. What follows are several romps in the hay and a story that will leave you laughing. Not so sure the story would work in current times. But take it for what it is and you will enjoy.
All movies can do just a bit better, however - this movie is fun and heartwarming in many different ways. Too many times people watch movies now only to 'pick them apart' for errors. Unlike so many people, I watch movies for their entertainment value and suggest the viewer just sit back and enjoy the story and humor as it unfolds.Many recognizable performers are in this film. Tony Randall and Debbie Reynolds make a wonderful combination, shame they didn't make any other films together.This movie, in my opinion, never rated as high as it should. A nice, enjoyable film to share with the family.
I was thirteen when this film came out and back then I spent Saturdays at the matinees. My dad had managed somehow to get free yearly passes to the local theater and I took advantage. My mom and dad maybe saw three or four pictures (movies) a year. But I loved movies. Now some almost 60 years later, I'm watching this on TCM. Without a doubt film making has changed over the decades and this is simple B film escapist fare. Like many films then, casting directors didn't seem to do too well in getting ages correct. Debbie Reynolds was too young and far too attractive to be interested in Tony Randall but who cares. Did Steve McQueen look like a sixteen year old in The Blob? The plot is silly. Reynold's (Marietta Larkin) father Sidney Larkin (Paul Douglas) has upset his wealthy gentleman "farmer" neighbor Wendell Burnshaw (Philip Ober) and he has decided he has had it with his less than desirable neighbor and decides to sic the IRS on Sidney Larkin via the persons of Oliver Kelsey (Fred Clark) and Lorenzo Charlton (Tony Randall). What follows are a series of misunderstandings in which Charlton mistaken believes he may have done something with Marietta which is leading to a shotgun marriage. Of course this is the 50's so we all know nothing happened or will. The plot to have Pop Larkin lose his farm is doomed to fail from the start. Early on Pop mentions his family doesn't deal in money since the government took a bunch of horses off his great grandfather back in 1863 and never paid for them. You know the bleaker the picture looks for Pop that that failure of government to pay its bill will be worth millions in interest. So, a good audience sits back and watches some great character actors do their job and enjoy a young Reynolds in her early days before "Tammy and the Bachelor, " "How the West was Won," "and The Unsinkable Molly Brown."
The corn grows high and the cheese is stinky in this silly comedy about the joys of poverty and the dangers of money. A large family (think: Ma and Pa Kettle) lives on a squalid farm next to a snooty landowner who wants them out, so he gets an IRS man (Tony Randall) to investigate the family's back taxes. When the agent falls for the homespun charms of the oldest daughter (Debbie Reynolds), a happy ending is guaranteed.Talk about Hee Haw Gone Wild...the improbable pairing of ever-bouncy and man-hungry Reynolds with über-nerd Randall is way off-base. He's good as always but she's annoying and they have no chemistry. Paul Douglas, as her father, doesn't look or act like the yokel he's supposed to be. His never-ending platitudes about being happy without money get old fast and plot holes in the script abound.I can see this being a hit in 1959, with less sophisticated and demanding audiences, but for me it's just a tedious story that resorts to slapstick and animal mating jokes for humor.