With Six You Get Eggroll ** (1968, Doris Day, Brian Keith, Pat Carroll, Barbara Hershey, George Carlin) – Classic Movie Review 6365

Director Howard Morris’s 1968 movie With Six You Get Eggroll has a lovely title for a genially amusing Doris Day comedy, in which she plays Abby McClure, a widow juggling a career as a lumberyard owner with raising three sons.

At her matchmaker sister’s prompting, she meets, starts dating, falls for and then weds the eligible widower Jake Iverson (Brian Keith), who has a teenage daughter. Then Day tries smoothly to merge their ill-assorted children and pets, who, of course, do not hit it off at all. It is a big problem that Jake’s daughter Stacy (Barbara Hershey) wants to be the woman of the house, and that Abby’s oldest son Flip (John Findlater) hates Jake.

The hit song is ‘You Make Me Want You’ (music by Robert Mersey, lyrics by Bob Hilliard).

It proved the end of Day’s movie career, alas, as it is her final movie. It did modest business, grossing $10,095,200 in the US.

Day’s producer husband Martin Melcher died of a heart attack, aged 52, on 20 April 1968 before the film’s release on 7 August 1968.

Also in the cast are Pat Carroll, Barbara Hershey (in her film debut), George Carlin, Alice Ghostley, John Findlater, Jimmy Bracken, Richard Steele, Herbert [Herb] Voland, Jamie Farr, William Christopher (both from TV’s MASH), Elaine Devry, Milton Frome, and Richard Steele.

With Six You Get Eggroll is written by Gwen Bagni, Paul Dubov (based on their story), Harvey Bullock and R S Allen, shot in colour by Ellsworth Fredericks and Harry Stradling Jr, and scored by Robert Mersey.

It was also known as A Man in Mommy’s Bed.

Out of her 40 movies, Calamity Jane (1953), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961), Move Over, Darling (1963) and The Glass Bottom Boat (1966) are the best of Doris Day.

Harry Stradling Jr, Academy Award-nominated cinematographer for 1776 and The Way We Were, died on 17 October 2017 at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, California, aged 92.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6365

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