The Gazebo

Publish date: 2024-06-30

Gazebo is based on the Alec Coppel play which starred Walter Slezak and Jayne Meadows on Broadway and Tom Ewell and Jan Sterling on the road. In its transfer to the screen, scripter George Wells has spiced the often far-fetched devices of the play with a number of his own delicacies, including a gregarious pigeon named Herman. Director George Marshall, achieving a frisky blend of suspense and tomfoolery, puts it all together with a bright, well-timed hand.

Gazebo is based on the Alec Coppel play which starred Walter Slezak and Jayne Meadows on Broadway and Tom Ewell and Jan Sterling on the road. In its transfer to the screen, scripter George Wells has spiced the often far-fetched devices of the play with a number of his own delicacies, including a gregarious pigeon named Herman. Director George Marshall, achieving a frisky blend of suspense and tomfoolery, puts it all together with a bright, well-timed hand.

Glenn Ford plays a television writer who is married to a Broadway star (Debbie Reynolds). Several years earlier, Reynolds posed without proper attire, and now the possessor of said photographs is blackmailing Ford. Murder is his only out, Ford reasons, and he invites the blackmailer to his home and shoots him. He hides the body on the spot where a gazebo (summer house) is about to be positioned the following day.

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The film is nearly all Ford, and he’s up to every scene, earning both sympathy and laughs as he muddles through his farcical ‘crime’. Reynolds is excellent, but her talents are beyond what her limited role requires. The part on Broadway was very minor and has not changed much. Carl Reiner, as the couple’s district attorney friend, is good but also beyond the part.

1959: Nomination: B&W Costume Design

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