User Reviews

I almost didn't watch this, because it sounded too much like a Doris Day/Rock Hudson type flick...which were great at the time, but seem so very dated now. But I thought I'd give it my "first 12 minutes" test. What I found was a genuinely funny and offbeat movie.

The script moves along well in this black comedy (which also happens to be in black and white), and the principal actors do a fine job. Glenn Ford is genuinely goofy (and I mean that in the best sense) here -- playing a rather neurotic television writer. His bumbling and nervousness in the murder scene is a hoot. Debbie Reynolds is perfect as the wife...the subject of some nude photos when she was getting started...resulting in a blackmail plot; and I say that as no fan of Debbie Reynolds.

Carl Reiner does well as the district attorney and best friend, although he doesn't seem very Carl Reiner-ish. And John McGiver plays a very different part here, quite humorously.

I actually chuckled out loud a couple of times here...something I rarely do, even when watching a comedy. It's so rare to see Glenn Ford playing this type of role -- a nervous nelly who is clearly neurotic. And, he does it so well!

This film is certainly worth watching for a good hearty laugh. Recommended.

This is a bizarre comedy that seems to try very hard to be kooky--which is a very tough sell due to the darkness of the plot. A dark, dark film combined with kooky is a very, very hard sell! The film concerns a couple (Glenn Ford and Debbie Reynolds). Ford works like a dog and you soon learn that he's working so hard because he's paying off blackmailers--blackmailers that have nude photos of Debbie when she was younger. Now the idea of Debbie Reynolds posing naked is a very tough sell--it just doesn't seem possible. Eventually Ford is so fed up with the never-ending blackmail that he decides to kill the blackmailer and hide the body in the foundation of the new gazebo. But, while the killing seems to go off without a hitch, things only get worse after the evil deed was done.

Killing, nude photos of Debbie and burying a body in the yard--all this is a very tough sell for audiences expecting to see a cute little film. While some of the film is a bit cute and even funny, the overriding black hole which is the plot is just too difficult to make funny! And, by trying so hard to make this a comedy, the film just doesn't quite work. It's interesting...but not all that great. A time-passer and a strange one at that.

A television writer/director on the Bette of a nervous breakdown gets the shock of his life when his stage actress wife purchases a "summer house", aka "a gazebo" where she thinks he can spend beautiful summer days doing his writing. What she has no idea of is his plans for it that don't include thing up the latest masterpiece or romancing her on cool summer nights. With the house already in danger of falling apart, the gazebo seems poised to either fly into space or sink into oblivion if his kind of luck continues.

What makes this black comedy work so well is the collection of nutcases, fellow neurotics, blowhards and just plain creepy folk, including a blackmailer, the contractor hired to prepare the space for the gazebo and a screeching housekeeper who seems to think that everyone around her is deaf. There's also a friendly pigeon, an irony considering the dog like seagull from "This Happy Feeling" which also starred this films leading lady, Debbie Reynolds. The real star is Glenn Ford, as dark as they come, but hysterically funny because of how far he's fallen into a neurotic/nervous breakdown state.

I don't think that there was any need to give Debbie Reynolds a reason to do a production number, mainly because the one she does here is just a really bad number. The blackmail plot involves lewd photos of Debbie, and that results in Glenn seeking to become the dumbest killer ever to plot a murder on screen. Supporting them are Carl Reiner as Ford's dead pan pal, John McGiver as the most aggravating of contractors, so pompous and boring that while laughing at him for being like so many people you've been forced to deal with you might be cringing out of memory of those unpleasant encounters.

Doro Merande reminds me of so many well meaning but ultimately hateful old bags that I've been unprivileged to have been forced to be associated with that I had fun laughing at the character and laughing with the actress. Then, there's Mabel Albertson who seems to keep showing up at the most inconvenient times. I can see why thus might have a cult following, but it's not one that I'd be likely to re- visit. Black and white photography in CinemaScope doesn't really add anything either and genuinely looks quite odd.

Many people have referred to The Gazebo as a "black comedy." I would disagree with that classification and let me explain why. A black comedy is a sub-genre of farce, which has been defined as a type of comedy in which we're "permitted the outrage without the consequences." Black comedy on the other hand also permits the outrage but there are consequences (albeit they are of a mitigated variety).

For example, in a farce a man may be thrown out the window but is never killed by a sympathetic protagonist-instead he'll land on some garbage cans below which break his fall (the victim however can be killed by a suitably unsavory individual). But in a black comedy, the man is intentionally thrown out the window and IS killed. However, in both cases we won't see the actual death (or it's done in such a way so that it's not taken seriously).

In addition, the previously alluded to "mitigation" in black comedy takes place when the victim is depicted as either a buffoon or someone who deserves some kind of comeuppance (usually due to an unpleasant aspect of their personality such as narcissism, arrogance, failed social standing, etc.). Films such as Kind Hearts and Coronets or We're No Angels come to mind.

The Gazebo is a tale of a TV Writer/Director Elliott Nash (Glenn Ford) who's being blackmailed by a character named Shelby who has gotten hold of some nude photos of Elliott's wife Nell (Debbie Reynolds)-a Broadway star-taken when she was 18 while attempting to break into the modeling business.

We learn later on that Shelby initially approached Nell directly and tried to blackmail her first. Nell ended up calling his bluff by refusing to pay any money, pointing out that such a scandal would probably end up promoting her career. Elliott on the other hand truly loves his wife and will do anything to prevent the scandal from enveloping her.

At first he tries to think of ways of raising the $25,000 (equal to $225K in today's money) that the blackmailer demands. Finally he settles on murdering Shelby after agreeing to pay the requested amount and enticing the man to come over to his house. He gets the idea of burying the body under the recently purchased gazebo which Nell found to be a neat, quaint addition to their suburban home.

Elliott goes through a completely goofy routine in preparation to commit the murder and at this juncture one prays that there won't be anymore of this silliness for the rest of the picture. After Elliott shoots an intruder who appears to be the blackmailer, he soon learns from his DA friend Harlow Edison (Carl Reiner) that Shelby actually was murdered in the city in his home.

So who did Elliott end up shooting? This twist propels us into unexpected territory and our interest is piqued for the rest of the film. However killing an innocent person would violate the sacred canon of farce in which the outrage is permitted but without the consequences. So how do the film scenarists get around this? They reveal first that Elliott's victim was Joe the Black, one of Shelby's associates who made off with the blackmailer's money, only seemingly cut down inadvertently by the hapless TV writer.

It's also revealed that Shelby was killed by two of his other associates, The Duke (Martin Landau) and Louis the Louse (Dick Wessel), who kidnap Nell, looking for the stolen loot. They find it after The Gazebo's foundation crumbles during a rainstorm along with Joe the Black's body which they drag into the Nash household.

Elliott however is not completely off the hook as he could still be held legally responsible for the man whom he gave permission to enter his house and subsequently shot. The farce is preserved when Elliott discovers he missed shooting the intruder, with the bullet lodging in a book and the confirmation received from the coroner that the victim died from a pre-existing heart condition.

The police are unable to find the bullet which ends up in the possession of a pigeon who flies away with it without the knowledge of any of the investigating team of law enforcement.

Despite some goofy shenanigans in the first half, things pick up in the second in which the plot actually turns out to be quite clever. Some say Jack Lemmon would have been better in the role of Elliott than Glenn Ford who puts in a decent enough performance (despite being a bit too whacky at times). Debbie Reynolds doesn't have much to do although she performs a nice song and dance routine toward the beginning of the picture.

The Gazebo is worth a look and fulfills its promise as genuine farce, a superior brand of humor than the more distasteful and less effective genre of black comedy.