Quick, Let’s Get Married [The Confession] (1964, Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Barbara Eden, Elliott Gould, Carl Schell) – Classic Movie Review 10,787

Director William Dieterle’s 1964 comedy drama was produced by Ginger Rogers, who also gives a lacklustre performance as a bordello madam, and her husband William Marshall in the Caribbean in 1964 but withdrawn after its original flop appearance as The Confession and re-shown as Seven Different Ways in 1965, and hardly released till 1971 when it reappeared as Quick, Let’s Get Married to similar public indifference.

Barbara Eden plays a hooker called Pia Pacelli, who is taken for a ride by tricksters Madame Rinaldi and Mario Forni (Rogers and Ray Milland), in this messy, unfunny, bizarrely plotted farce that fires off in lots of directions, but misses every target by a mile.

Bordello owner Madame Rinaldi (Rogers) and thief Mario Forni (Milland) have supposedly found swag of ancient buried treasure hidden deep under a religious statue of St Joseph in a small village, and they get prostitute Pia Pacelli (Eden), who is begging the St Joseph statue to speak to her and help her with her pregnancy, to swear to the priest that there has been a miracle. Indeed, it would have been a miracle if this story had produced a decent film or any laughs.

It is Elliott Gould’s first film, here playing a deaf and dumb man, The Mute.

Also in the cast are Walter Abel, Cecil Kellaway, Michael Ansara, David Hurst, Pippa Scott, Carl Schell, Vinto Hayworth, Leonard Cimino and Carol Ann Daniels.

It is written by Allan Scott.

Victor Stoloff was fired as director and replaced by Hollywood veteran William Dieterle, in his last cinema feature.

It was shot entirely on location in Jamaica, mainly in Spanish Town. The brothel sequences were shot at the Blue Mountain Inn.

Carl Schell, who died on 6 June 2019, aged 91, is the brother of Maximilian and Maria Schell.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,787

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