HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

US, 1959, 83 minutes, Black and white.
David Niven, Mitzi Gaynor, Carl Reiner, Loring Smith, Patty Duke.
Directed by David Miller.

Happy Anniversary is a light piece of froth - the type of romantic comedy that David Niven specialised in the '50s and '60s. He teams quite well with Mitzi Gaynor and there is comic support from Carl Reiner. The film is based on a play, Anniversary Waltz, but is also a tilt at the growing popularity of television and the style of American advertising. Direction is by David Miller, who has made few but several interesting films from Billy the Kid to Sudden Fear to Executive Action.

1. A romantic comedy of the '50s? Impact then? Later?

2. Black and white photography, special effects - the presentation of television programmes, discussion games, commercials? Musical score, songs?

3. The presentation of the conventional American family? Husband and his professional work? Wife and her bringing up the family? Love for each other? The in-laws? Children - precocious? The surface happy family? Differences and difficulties? Break-up? Happy resolution?

4. The plausibility of the plot? Chris and Alice? Their children? Sufficiently delineated for plot? For the credibility of the genre? Clashes? The 13th. wedding anniversary? The celebration? The indiscretion? Its repercussions? The resolution?

5. David Niven's suave style as Chris? The gift of the television set? His antipathy towards it? Love for Alice? Treatment of the children? Domestic detail? The drinks? The bravado and its consequences? The repercussions of Debbie on the television panel? Chris' reaction to the television set? Smashing it? Leaving home? The clash with Alice? The pregnancy? Another television set! The David Niven style of hero?

6. Mitzi Gaynor and her comic style as Alice? The celebration? Her reaction? Anger? Her deciding to leave? Her pregnancy? Her relationship with the children? Her parents? Jeanette? Millie?

7. Carl Reiner as Bud - friend, support? Comedy and criticism?

8. Jeanette and the touch of provocation and glamour?

9. The children - especially Debbie and her precocious attitude, her discussion on the television programme? Children in the American household?

10. The in-laws - and the comedy? The criticism?

11. Themes of surface morality, the parent generation and moral standards? Children and their reaction? Indiscretion and revelation?

12. The satire on television, advertising, programmes? The effect of television on American families in the '40s and '50s?