THE REMARKABLE MR. PENNYPACKER

THE REMARKABLE MR. PENNYPACKER (1959). Director: Henry Levin.

"Morality is a matter of geography."

The progressive Horace Pennypacker (Clifton Webb) has one wife and many children in one town in Pennsylvania, and a whole different family in another town in the state -- sooner or later each family will learn of the other's existence and then what? Mr. Pennypacker answers that question and manages to milk much humor out of a decidedly serious situation. It also manages to be surprisingly frank at times, if a trifle unreal. Webb is, as ever, excellent, and there are fine performances from Dorothy McGuire [Invitation] as unwitting wife, Emily; Dorothy Stickney [Murder at the Vanities] as Aunt Jane; Doro Merande [The Gazebo] as the secretary, Miss Haskins; and Charles Coburn as Grandfather Pennypacker; and there's nice support from Jill St. John as Kate. Ray Stricklyn and David Nelson are two other children, and Ron Ely is a young minister who's fallen for Kate. However entertaining the film may be, there is no denying that Horace's reasons for entering into a second bigamous marriage are rather spurious and self-centered. Still, it's hard not to like the movie on its own terms, and it even has some suspense.

Verdict: Another winning Webb performance. ***.

THE GAZEBO

THE GAZEBO (1959). Director: George Marshall.

"Can't you call Hitchcock again?"

"The guest room? You know how long it's been since I cleaned in there!" -- the heroine, upon learning a corpse is to be placed in a guest room.

TV writer Elliot Nash (Glenn Ford) decides to take the law into his own hands and take care of a blackmailer who threatens to send sexy old photos of his wife, Nell (Debbie Reynolds) -- just starting an important Broadway career -- to the scandal sheets. A new gazebo that the wife has just bought might come in handy as the blackmailer's resting place. Unfortunately, things don't go exactly as Elliot plans. [At one point he asks an unseen Alfred Hitchcock, for whom he's working on a script, for help! If only ..! ] Actually. this is a pleasant and reasonably entertaining black comedy with a few minor twists that only goes awry and becomes a bit labored in the final quarter. Ford is fine; Reynolds is perky and competent; Carl Reiner is okay as their friend, Harlow -- but Reiner's on-screen personality in his younger days was never exactly likable. Doro Merande is hilarious as the maid Matilda, who shouts at everyone. Martin Landau shows up late in the game as a hood. Ford and Reynolds appeared together the same year in the pretty awful It Started with a Kiss.

Verdict: Undeniably amusing but somehow unsatisfying. **1/2.