"Happy Soap is Not a New Soap, It's Um, It's an Old Soap" - The Thrill of It All

Let's take a look at one of Doris Day's better comedies, The Thrill of It All from 1963.

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Meet Mrs. Fraleigh (played by Arlene Francis). She's very happy, very giggly, and she's on her way to her husband's office with good news.

Her mood is infectious. 

"Darling," she tells her husband, Mr. Fraleigh (played by Edward Andrews), "I'm pregnant!" 

Cue the fireworks! 

This is The Thrill of It All, and yes, before you ask, there's a title song. You can listen to it here.

This is Dr. Gerald Boyer (played by the handsome James Garner, known to many of my generation as the old man in The Notebook, which is a movie I detest, but that's a rant for another day). He's fresh out of a delivery (he's an OB-GYN) and he's a hotshot. 

He gets a phone call following the delivery... 

...it's Mr. and Mrs. Fraleigh, his patients, calling to thank him for his help in treating her. As a thank you, they extend an invite to dinner that evening for him and his wife, Beverly Boyer. After much prodding (Doc doesn't want to intrude on their hospitality or their happiness), he accepts the invite.

Cut to Beverly Boyer (played by the incomparable Doris Day) at home with the children. It's bath time for Maggie, and Beverly's got her hands full. For starters, Maggie doesn't want to use her usual shampoo because it smells "like the cracks in the school yard. Can't we use the new soap you bought?" 

The telephone rings and she sends her other child, Andy, to answer it. 

In a funny, protracted scene, Doc keeps calling the house to tell Andy to tell Beverly not to cook dinner, that they've been invited for dinner, but the kid keeps hanging up to run and tell his mother snippets of each conversation (or he just nods or shakes his head at his father's questions). 

Anyways, Andy never does tell his mother not to cook dinner that evening...

This is Olivia, the housekeeper, played by Zasu Pitts in her final film role. She passed away six months before the film premiered. 

"I guess Andy didn't pass on my message?" Doc asks, then tells Beverly that they've been invited to dinner with the Fraleighs. 

Doc: Well, you've still got time to dress.

Beverly: I've just roasted a $6.34 standing rib roast.

Doc: I'll eat it for breakfast.

On the way over to the Fraleigh house, in the couple's chauffeur-driven car, Doc fills Beverly in on the couple. They've been trying to get pregnant for 20 years and he's the doctor who finally helped them. How did he do it? He told them to stop trying, and it worked. 

When they arrive, they're immediately taken to the dining room. 

They apologize for being late and blame it on the lack of babysitter, but the Fraleighs aren't bothered: they can't wait to have that problem! 

The Fraleighs own Happy Soap, and the patriarch is obsessively watch their television commercials. The latest one stars a woman named Spot Checker, if you can believe it. 

Spot Checker: Hi! I'm Spot Checker. I've just been signed to appear in a motion picture. Of course, it's just a small part. But all the glamorous movie stars started out by playing small parts. There are so many things a girl must learn before she can become a glamorous movie star. First of all, she has to learn what clothes to wear and what hairstyle. Oh, and how to act. A famous star once said to me, 'Spot,' she said, 'it's not enough that you look like a star or act like a star. You must smell like a star.' So it was there and then that I learned about Happy soap - the heavenly soap. It smells like stars. Won't you join me and find true happiness in your bath? Just you and a cake of Happy.

Beverly chimes in that Happy Soap 'saved her life' earlier in the day, when her daughter refused to use her regular shampoo, and Old Tom Fraleigh immediately snaps to her attention. He listens to her story and then makes her an offer.

Tom: Young lady, how would you like to go on the TV and say what you just said to me?

Beverly: Uh, what?

Tom: On television.

Beverly: Why?

Tom: Why? Because I manufacture Happy soap and I think you can sell it.

Beverly initially turns down his offer to appear on Happy Playhouse the following Friday, but when $332 is dangled in front of her, she decides to accept the offer. 

A few days later, Beverly's in her room practicing her monologue. "Hello. My name is Beverly Boyer and I'd like to tell all of you lovely people about something that happened at my home the other afternoon..." 

Before they go to school, the kids go upstairs to see Beverly, and ask if they can watch her on TV that evening. "It might be a bit late for you," she says, and tells them to ask their father. 

Given that Doc's working a late shift, the kids and Olivia stay up to watch Beverly's television debut during Happy Playhouse. The show this week is set during the Second World War and features a man and a woman verbally sparring (if you've seen this movie, you know what's to come) until she slaps him, calls him a name, and throws a drink in his face. 

The Fraleighs are also watching. 

Beverly's very nervous, but very chic in her dress suit, watching the Playhouse scene unfold. So much so that she misses her cue to commercial. 

Beverly: Oh hello, I'm Beverly Boyer, and I'm a pig. Um, hello, um, my name is Beverly Boyer and I'm a housewife. And what I'd like to tell you is, um, about how Happy soap saved my life. Um, last week I was in such a hassle with my daughter Maggie. Uh, um, she wouldn't let me wash her hair with our regular shampoo. And, um, she said that it, um, um, it smelled like the cracks in the school yard. You know how children can get. And, um, anyway, that afternoon I purchased several bars of Happy soap. And, um...And she insisted that I wash her hair with the new soap. Oh! No. Happy soap is not a new soap, it's um, it's an old soap. I just had never used it before. I haven't. I really have not used this soap before. And anyway, what I want to tell you is that I did use it to shampoo her hair. And she loved it. And she said to me, "Oh, Mommy, now I smell like my piano teacher." She did. And all I want to say is that the soap worked just fine. And it got rid of all the traces of the mud balls. Yeah! Mud balls! Bye.

It wasn't a star-making performance by any measure (she held the wrong soap up, and when she held the right soap it wasn't facing the camera; and she had to be fed stage direction that should have been natural). 

When she gets home, she falls into her husband's arms sobbing and vows that she'll never appear on television again. 

If only Tom Fraleigh felt the same way! He wants her as the new spokesperson for Happy Soap. 

Tom: Yeah, you heard me. I said I want that girl.

Mr. Fraleigh: But Dad, we already have a commitment with Spot Checker; 34 more baths at $1,500 a bath.

Tom: Tell her she's washed up.

Mr. Fraleigh: Dad, I think you're being a little premature.

Tom: You do, huh? Don't you read the papers? "Last night on Happy Playhouse the only moment of originality was produced by a disarming young lady who delivered the commercial. It's a sad day for television when the sponsor's message has more value than the play." Get her! Beverly is my new Happy Girl!

Beverly's in the basement making homemade ketchup when Mike Palmer from Happy Soap shows up to offer her the gig. She doesn't find his joke funny, but he promises her he's not joking: Old Tom loved her performance and wants her back. 

He tells her that there were 1,200 calls to the television studio after her commercial, all of whom said, "you were the most refreshing, sincere person who ever sold a bar of soap."

Beverly tells him she wouldn't do it for $500, and Mike assures her that she'd be doing it for $1,500 per week for a whole year. Now that's nothing to sneeze at! 

Doc gets home just in time for the kids to tell him that a man's in the cellar with his wife, and to learn that he's from Happy Soap. 

In the shower, Beverly tells her husband that she couldn't possibly have turned down $80,000 to be the spokesperson for Happy Soap. 

Maggie: Why is Daddy yelling at Mommy?

Andy: Because Mommy wants to be a TV star and Daddy doesn't want her to be.

Doc tells her that it's not like they need the money, but Beverly wants her own career and her own money to bring to the family. And besides, she says, he's a fraud. 

Beverly: Oh, I've got you now, dear. Right here, and I quote: "In some cases, household duties, important as they are, are not sufficient to gratify a woman's desire for expression. Mrs. America might do well to start early in her marriage a planned cultivation of outside interests and hobbies.

Doc: Ridiculous!

Beverly: Ah, you wrote it, darling.

He tells her that she has hobbies and interests (the PTA, making her own ketchup...) but she says those aren't fulfilling, that being just a doctor's wife isn't cutting it anymore. 

Beverly: Honey. Honey. It's only once a week and I won't let anything interfere with my wifely duties. I promise.

Doc: Shot down by my own artillery.

And that's settled: Beverly Boyer is the new spokesperson for Happy Soap. 

That Friday, she's rushing to get to the studio and gives Olivia a laundry list of chores to do...

...and her children pass her on the stairs. "I'm making Andy's hair smell happy again, like my piano teacher," Maggie says.

And just like that, Beverly has her material for that evening. 

"'Mommy, the happy smell wore off,' Those were his exact words. And, um, well, there he was, standing in the hallway with a head full of shampoo, dripping all over my nice blue rug. He's gonna get it when I get home. Maggie said she was making his hair smell happy. I know it sounds silly, of course, but I always say, 'Don't knock it till you try it.' And, um, tonight, I'm going to go home and shampoo my hair with Happy soap, and I'll let you know. Oh! Oh, um, I meant to tell you, don't forget you can shower with it. And we know it's good for that. Bye."

This was a fairly common practice in the '60s, when colour television started to grow in popularity, for ad executives and company heads to watch side-by-side televisions to see how their commercials looked on both mediums. Pretty cool, no? 

Anyways, the men in the suits are debating Beverly's performance, but once they hear that she was personally hired by Old Tom, they're praising her honest and refreshing point of view. Beverly shows up and they invite her to a party at the Cartier Hotel that evening as the guest of honour. She calls the hospital so that she can invite Gerald once his shift is over...

...but he never gets the message, and instead heads home and tries to call Beverly at the TV station (they tell him to call back at the same time next week, when she'll be back). 

Meanwhile, at the party, Beverly's feted as a celebrity though she brushes it off since she's been so nervous making those commercials. The other guests tell her that's why they like the commercials so much. 

Back at the house, Gerald tries to wake up Olivia...

...but it doesn't go so well. "Do you always sleep with a bat?" he asks her. She tells him that you can't be too careful these days. He asks if Beverly called since she's not home yet, and that sets Olivia off again, since she's not comfortable it being just the two of them in the house. 

When Beverly gets home, she finds that all hell's broken loose. The kids are up and terrified, Olivia's resigning, and Gerald's fuming as he explains everything to her. 

Olivia: I’m leaving. I’ll not linger in this den of iniquity one moment longer.

Beverly: But, Olivia, you're so happy here, and you know we all love you.

Olivia: Well, I don't need that kind of love.

And when she presses Gerald for an explanation, this is what she gets: 

Gerald: If you'd been home where you belonged, whatever went on would not have gone on.

Beverly: Where are you going?

Gerald: It is all right if I take time out from my household duties to deliver a baby?

The next day, Beverly's back to work shooting ads for Happy Soap, but what she really wants is to be home to meet the new maid they've hired. 

The new maid, German Mrs. Goethe, is already having problems. When Gerald calls home and says "This is Dr. Boyer," in greeting, Mrs. Goethe says he's not home and that Beverly's out at the photo studio. 

Gerald then gets one of the nursing assistants to speak with Mrs. Goethe, since she knows German, however it doesn't work. She says she's calling on behalf of Dr. Boyer, and as soon as the maid hears it, she says that he's not home and hangs up.

When Gerald gets home, Beverly's on her way out to film another commercial, but she shouldn't be long since it's only 10 seconds. But when she gets home, she's tuckered out and it's so much later than she anticipated. 

The next time Gerald comes home, he's delighted to hear from Mrs. Goethe that Beverly's upstairs and dressed nicely...

...but he doesn't realize that means she's doing a photo shoot at home. He got all dressed up for an evening in.

Beverly: We've seen each other so little, I thought instead of going to a studio, if I were to do the layout here... 

Gerald: Oh, we'd get a chance to see each other. 

Beverly: Yes. I'll be finished in a couple of hours.

Gerald: I'm due at the hospital in a couple of hours.

Beverly: Oh. I'll just have the photographers wait. They can get their shots after you leave.

Gerald: Oh, and we could see each other while they wait in the hall?

Beverly: Gerald Boyer, where are you going?

Gerald: I'm going to take a drive in an open convertible and try very hard to cool off!

The drive might be working...

...until he sees Beverly on a billboard and stops in the road. 

Police: Hey, why don't you look what you're doin'? Let me have your driver's licence, mister.

Gerald: What? Oh, oh, it's all right, Officer. I'm a doctor.

Police: I don't care if you're Peter Pan. Now, give me your driver's licence.

Gerald: But that's my wife up there.

Police: That's very nice.

Gerald: Wouldn't you stop and look if you suddenly saw your wife staring down at you from a billboard?

Police: I wouldn't stop and look if my wife was hangin' up there. Here. Now, get that car outta here and the next time, look at your wife at home.

Gerald: I would if she was ever there.

To make it up to Gerald, Beverly agrees to the dinner he arranges at the Ritz Pavilion (he had a great appointment with the Fraleighs that turned his mood around). Beverly, nice gown! 

But once again, their idyll is spoiled when diner after diner comes up to Beverly to ask for her autograph.

Back at Happy Soap, the old Fraleigh wants to expose Beverly even more. It's not enough that she's on commercials, advertisements, billboards, radios, or in newspapers, now he wants her to sell Happy Detergent, and he wants his team to buy more advertising to give her that platform.

Oh, this week's movie features the exact same set-up as all the preceding weeks, only this time it's set in the wild, wild West. 

The family's sitting around the TV set waiting for Beverly to appear...

...and here she is! 

Beverly: Hi. You know, it really seems funny talking to you on a Tuesday night 'since Friday's been my day to tell people about Happy soap. Don't get your hopes up because you're still going to hear a commercial. Unless, of course, you decide to go to the kitchen for a sandwich or, um, you know, bottle of beer. I'm going to tell you about another Happy product. Happy detergent. Now, its label makes many claims. It says it's good for dishes, clothes, woodwork, and even the tile around your swimming pool. Of course, I wouldn't know about that because, you see, I don't have a pool. And I'm certainly not about to put one in just to, um, test this. But I do know this: that the Happy people make a fine product. And they wouldn't lie. Bye.

Can you guess what happens next? 

That's right, the Boyers are getting a pool. 

And nobody bothered to tell them that they're getting a pool. 

The faces you make when you get a surprise pool, part one.

Part two. 

Beverly says there's no way Gerald's going to be happy about this. 

It's a nice set-up, at least. 

By the time Gerald gets home, it's late enough that Beverly's already asleep. She wakes up as he comes into the bedroom.

Gerald: Sweetheart, I'd like to apologise for my behaviour. These last few weeks, I've been, well, less than a loving husband.

Beverly: Oh, darling, I haven't given you much of a chance to be.

They're reconciling but then Gerald remembers that he left the top down on his convertible, so he goes back downstairs to put it in the garage. Only Beverly remembers just as he's outside...

...that the garage is gone. 

I'm sure this did wonders for his mood? 

Gerald: Where did the pool come from?

Beverly: You must be chilled to the bone.

Gerald: It's a heated pool. How did it get here?!

Beverly: Please don't shout.

Gerald: I have to to be heard over that bilge pump!

Beverly: It's a filter.

Gerald: I know what it is. I want to know how it got in my back yard!

Beverly: Please be quiet. I'll tell you. Why get so excited, darling?

Gerald: Excited? I just drove my car into a swimming pool!

Beverly: Gerald? You always said you wanted a pool.

Gerald: Don't you think I should be consulted before you spend $5,000 of our money?

Beverly: Oh, so that's what it is. Darling, I didn't spend one cent of our money.

Gerald: Oh, I see. It's come to that!

Beverly: Come to what?

Gerald: Our money and your money. Well, let me tell you. This is still our house and our back yard and our children, and when we build a swimming pool, it will be built with our money.

Beverly: And what is our money?

Gerald: Our money is what I earn by being a doctor.

Beverly: Oh, and what I've earned is not ours?

Gerald: It's yours!

The faces you make when you get a surprise pool, part three.

The fight escalates with Gerald being a bit of a sexist pig. He's incensed that she's earning her own money and that it's on par with what he makes, and thinks she should content herself with being the wife of a doctor and the mother of young children. Honestly...I dislike him totally here. 

He packs a suitcase and says he's not coming back until she's ready to be a wife. And she helps him pack. 

Poolside, the Happy detergent gets into the pool water.

I'm sure this will be fine...

The next morning, the children are sitting at Beverly's bedside trying to determine who's going to wake her up. When she wakes up, they ask if they can go outside and play in the snow. 

Snow? She asks. 

It's got Mrs. Goethe! 

It's everywhere. 

Disposal Man: Did you call about the stuff?

Beverly: Yes. It's in the backyard. Around there.

Disposal Man: I know it's none of my business, lady, but how did you happen to get three truckloads of potatoes in your backyard?

Beverly: Potatoes?

Disposal Man: Says so right here. "Pick up spuds."

Beverly: Oh, no, that's a mistake.

Disposal Man: I figured it was. What kind of a nut would have three truckloads of spuds in their backyard?

Beverly: No, it's suds.

Disposal Man: Suds?

Beverly: Suds.

How do you get rid of suds? "Look, guys. You two take the angel with the wings. You two, take that reindeer. I'll take the naked lady."

Seems...like it's working? 

And once they've cleared the suds, they haul the convertible out of the pool. Such service! 

At the hospital, Gerald's still stewing (unaware of the sudsy morning his wife's had) when he meets with the psychiatrist. 

At home, Beverly's waiting for Gerald to show up. 

Once he arrives, he's in noticeably better spirits. He asks if she'll forgive him for being a Victorian fool and not accepting her career; and that he'll readjust his life to accommodate a working wife. 

Beverly's happy to hear it, and proposes making him dinner when he gets back from the hospital. He tells her that he's attending a bachelor party. 

And then she watches from the bedroom window as he returns to the hospital with a pretty nurse riding shotgun. 

Beverly tells Mrs. Goethe that he's re-examining his life when asked. 

Cut to Gerald at dinner with his passenger posing for the camera. 

He comes home the next morning, and Beverly's instantly suspicious. He ducks into the shower while luring her into finding evidence of his escapades the previous evening...

...uh oh!

Over breakfast, he tells her that it's a shame she doesn't have a commercial to film that evening, since he's got to give a lecture, and then he tells her not to bother waiting up. 

Then when he gets home, he pours liquor all over himself and stumbles up to the bedroom. 

"You're a great woman and I'm a big, fat rat," he tells her when he bursts into the room. She attempts to placate him, but he keeps repeating himself, and then...he calls her Gloria. 

When Beverly gets to work the next evening, she's stewing. 

Mike: You've only got a few minutes before you go on. You'd better start changing.

Beverly: I'm wearing this.

Mike: I'm not talking about your dress. I mean your personality.

Beverly: I'm sorry, Mike. 

Mike: Can't have a nervous, overwrought, unhappy housewife telling America about Happy soap. Look at you. Your eyes are red. You're twisting your hankie. You're biting your lip. That's no way for a career girl to act. 

Beverly: I don't think I'm cut out to be a career girl.

Mike: Our sponsors think you are.

Beverly: Well, my husband doesn't.

Mike: Your husband's a Victorian.

Beverly: My husband is a doctor and I'm a doctor's wife. Or I used to be.

Mike: Used to be?

After her commercial that evening, where she goofed so bad she forgot the name of Happy Soap (she called it Palmolive intead), she's at the Cartier Hotel, where Gerald said he'd be, with Mike and the Fraleighs. Guess who's not there? Gerald. 

And what perfect timing: Mrs. Fraleigh's in labour. 

Beverly rushes to call Gerald at the hospital and tell him that Mrs. Fraliegh's about to have her baby.

And the party tries to rush out of the restaurant, only traffic's at a gridlock. Mrs. Fraleigh insists that she's not going to have the baby in the car, so they're going to try to get to the hospital. She also wants Beverly in the car with her, for reasons of plot development. 

Just as Gerald arrives, Mike intercepts him to say that the party's on its way to the hospital. He's given a drive there and they beat it by taking side roads. 

"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" they all command. 

And now they're truly stuck.

Beverly calls Gerald at the hospital to say that Mrs. Fraleigh's contractions are three minutes apart. 

He gives her instructions on how to deliver the baby, if it gets to that point, so there's a funny sequence that involves Beverly trying to track down items in this gridlock, like shoelaces and a newspaper. Naturally, the well-to-do Fraleighs don't have these items, so they have to buy them from other cars. 

Which leads to a cameo from Alice Pearce, one of my favourite character actresses of the period, trying to goad her husband into charging more for the sundry items as they're needed. 

Gerald, meanwhile, is doing his best to get to Mrs. Fraleigh, and ultimately arrives on horseback (like a knight in white scrubs).

The police and Gardiner Fraleigh do their best to clear traffic...

...and as they finally arrive at the hospital...

...Beverly's pleased to show Gardiner that he has a newborn daughter. 

Naturally, once Beverly and Gerald are clear of the car and the Fraleighs, all is forgiven. She wants to be a doctor's wife again, now that she knows just what goes into delivering a baby. 

When they get home, the kids want to know if Gerald delivered a baby. He says yes, and that Mommy helped. The kids then point out that their parents promised that if Beverly helped with a delivery that'd mean they'd get to keep the baby...

They're adamant that they want a baby, so Beverly and Gerald send them to bed so that the adults can discuss it (a promise is a promise, after all) and if Daddy's not too tired, they'll discuss it for a while. 

Such fun! 

THE END!