I remember Herrmann being very good and Mary Louise Wilson being just right, and I think Nixon and Mundy were good. Converse was miscast. Rabb had wanted to cast John McMartin, and Richmond Crinkley vetoed it, saying he was too old. Converse was handsome but stiff, as he also was when he was a replacement in the Circle in the Square Design for Living a few years later. He's been good in other things, but maybe certain types of comedy just don't come naturally to him.
Much as I love Blythe Danner, something didn't seem to quite click for her in that, at least as I recall it.
It just occurred to me that this production reunited Danner and Converse from the television movie of Dr. Cook's Garden in which Bing Crosby gave perhaps the best performance of his career. |