Send Me No Flowers

Send Me No Flowers is the weak link in the Doris Day Collection of the three movies the three starring actors made together - Doris Day as the perpetual virgin, Rock Hudson as the perpetual virile male-on-the-make, and Tony Randall as the perpetual best-friend and worrywart.

It is the weak link, but someone who had not seen either Pillow Talk or Lover Come Back would most probably find it mildly diverting.

This was made in 1964, and was the final outing for Our Threesome. They are as well-matched as ever, but the scripting and the basic plotline show signs that the formula has reached its use-by date. There certainly could not have been a fourth Doris-Rock-Tony movie; perhaps there should not have been a third.

The story sets up Rock as hypochondriac George, who has managed to convince himself that he is about to die. He has overheard his doctor talking about the imminent death of a patient - well, of course he must be talking about George!

For the rest of the movie George plots to find a replacement husband for his wife, Judy (played, surprisingly, by Doris). And he is aided by an increasingly drunken best-friend Arnold (yes, it's Tony). Unfortunately, while Americans 40 years ago might have found drunks and alcoholics hysterically funny, this gag wears a little thin nowadays.

But it's hard to be too critical - standing by itself, Send Me No Flowers would survive as a lightweight bit of agreeable fluff and nonsense. It just suffers in the company of the other two classic movies in this set.

As with the other two movies in this collection, Doris Day dishes out a song. And as with the other two movies, it is a song which truly plumbs the depths of the songwriters' craft - it's absolute musical garbage.

This is a good workmanlike anamorphic transfer of a respectable but not outstanding print.

There is nothing here to impede enjoyment; a few flecks and film grain are evident, but the colours register particularly well, fleshtones are well rendered and the general tonal details and contrasts are just fine, for a movie coming up for its 40th birthday.

The two-channel Dolby Digital stereo is clear and fine. There is no distortion evident anywhere in this dialogue-driven movie. The bright and bouncy film score, while not at today's level, is agreeably reproduced, free of any abnormal stridency or defects.

There's a huge range of languages to choose from, and while you might not want to listen to the ENTIRE movie in Spanish, it's interesting to hear the different standards of audio as you progress through the options. The English track is definitely the quality one.

The original theatrical trailer reverts from the movie's widescreen presentation to full-screen. Colours are reproduced relatively poorly, though the image is not too badly washed-out. Historically interesting; worthless as an archival item.

I would not recommend buying or renting Send Me No Flowers except for the fact that it forms part of the absolutely indispensable Doris Day Collection which contains two other movies worth dying, or at least fighting, for.