'CACTUS FLOWER'............GOLDIE GUSHES, BERGMAN BOOGALOOS.......

Cactus Flower (1969)    Besides its status as a delightful artifact of the late 60's, this one resonated even more with us today........in light of its firmly standard, old Hollywood attitude toward romantic pairings with severe age differences...........just try making this movie in today's climate, with Woody Allen currently being sliced up like a Deli salami in the maelstrom of the #MeToo movement.....

             But in 1969, nobody seemed to mind that the film starts out with a middle-aged dentist,(Walter Matthau), a lecherous lothario, stringing along his barely-out-of-her-teens,  helium-brained Manic Pixie Dreamgirl (Goldie Hawn, charming enough Academy voters into giving her an Oscar.)

              Matthau's character, terrified of commitment as a vampire is to daylight, has concocted a fictitious wife and 3 children in order to hoodwink Hawn and maintain her status as a marriage-free sex toy.  After a failed, comedic suicide attempt, interrupted by an blatantly age-appropriate match-up neighbor,(Rick Lenz), Hawn demands a meeting with Matthau's make-believe spouse.

              That bubbling, congealing sound you hear?  The plot thickening.

              In desperation, Matthau appeals to his prickly, ultra efficient nurse-receptionist (Ingrid Bergman) to play his wife for Hawn's benefit........an insane plot point, if you think about it for more than 20 seconds, but then this movie's an adaptation of an Abe Burrows long-running Broadway hit.....it's one and only function was to keep you laughing with a steady barrage of quips....(about one gag every 5 seconds or so, like a baseball pitching machine that never runs out of balls....)

               Bergman, whom you know right away is a warm, loving person underneath her hard shell, impulsively goes along with it. We won't describe the further laborious complications that arise from this, other than mentioning it throws her in the path of two of Matthau's patients. (Jack Weston, Vito Scotti). Both these guys, like their dentist, are also sleazy, wisecracking skirt chasers, more than worthy of Bergman's withering put-downs.

               One unforgettable sight you don't want to miss........the entire cast ends up in the movie's idea of a nightclub/disco...(all the sets in this supposedly major film are amazingly cheap....Matthau's office looks left over from a "Honeymooners" episode). Not surprisingly, only Hawn can frug with youthful abandon.......while the scene treats us to the bizarre, once-in-a-lifetime sight of Ingrid Bergman inventing her own disco dance, 'The Dentist'.....which involves pretending you have a toothache. (Did you have to ask?)

                 You'll never see another movie that offers you the spectacle of the Icon of "Casablanca" and "Gaslight" gettin' down on the dance floor. We hold up a "10" for the Dancing With The Stars leaderboard.

                 Getting back to the age discrepancy views on display here.....you know you're back in the 60's as you watch Matthau express his disgust and revulsion at the sight of Bergman intentionally slow dance canoodling with young Rick Lenz.

                  No need to worry.......remember this material came from a play that safely entertained legions of matinee theater-party matrons......so everybody ends up with exactly the person you thought they'd end up with.....

                 And pardon the BQ for thinking that the very idea of a long term Matthau-Bergman relationship would have made a rib-splitting Mel Brooks movie.....or a raucous Norman Lear sitcom.......we can only dream. For their unique, one time pairing and their equally nutty romantic triangle with Goldie Hawn .....3 stars (***). Name any other movie where you'd see a cast like this frolicking together......