Toni Simmons (Goldie Hawn) tries to commit suicide by gas stove, after getting stood up, only to be rescued by writer neighbor Igor Sullivan. She's a 21-year-old record shop girl desperately in love with Dr. Julian Winston (Walter Matthau). What started out as a fling with the married dentist with three kids has become a year long love affair. Julian agrees to get a divorce and marry Toni. In reality, he's a commitment-phobic playboy who created a fake marriage with kids to avoid every single women pushing to get married. Now he's finally ready for marriage but he has to fix the lie. He recruits his cold and efficient assistant Stephanie Dickinson (Ingrid Bergman) to play his wife. Despite working together for many years, all he knows about her is her prickly cactus on her desk. After Stephanie's talk to Toni about the divorce, Toni becomes convinced that Stephanie still loves Julian. Julian tells Toni that Stephanie already has a new boyfriend and recruits his weasel friend Harvey Greenfield (Jack Weston) to play the part. It only gets more complicated from there.Goldie Hawn has a fun energy. Ingrid Bergman has a Scandinavian coldness with a hot interior. It's a little harder to believe Walter Matthau as a playboy but he is able to keep the character as a good guy. It fits the times. The chemistry between the three stars is terrific. The story is a solid rom-com. There isn't any surprising twist but that's perfectly fine. The final pairings are never in doubt. This is a great crossing between two iconic goddesses, one starting her journey and one nearing the end. The fun material is elevated by the actors.

it is great. for the flavor of a period who remains fresh against passing decades. for the humor . for the clothes and music and atmosphere. for Ingrid Bergman and Goldie Hawn in a brilliant dispute. for the courage to use not comfortable themes for its time. and for the special sensuality who escapes from expectations . or definition. it is one of the most exciting films for the smart manner to use a play not only for a good adaptation but for the exposure of the spirit of time. it is not real easy to discover the source of its charm. because the dialogues, the metamorphose of loyal miss Dickinson, Walter Mathau as shadow between his women, Goldie Hawn in a role who remains fascinating against the presence of the same model in many other films are pillars for a lovely, smart, almost spiced comedy who must see. again and again.

This typically liberated late 1960s farce is best-remembered for being Goldie Hawn's star-making role for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Walter Matthau (himself a recipient of the male equivalent of that award just three years previously – with Billy Wilder's THE FORTUNE COOKIE) had by this time been promoted to full- fledged leading man; incidentally, that film was co-written by I.A.L. Diamond, who here adapted the Americanized version of the original French play. His co-star, then, was Ingrid Bergman – who had very rarely ventured in this light field before and, while demonstrating herself quite able to handle herself (especially since much is made of her traditional Scandinavian coldness), she is also required to embarrass herself somewhat by trying to appear hip during the obligatory nightclub dance floor sequences!The complicated narrative involves bachelor dentist Matthau lying to his much-younger music-store clerk girlfriend Hawn by saying he is married and even breaking a date with her so as to keep up this illusion; however, she takes it for lack of commitment and attempts suicide – but is saved by a young wannabe playwright neighbor. When he realizes what has happened, Matthau assures her he will get a divorce – but she begins to pity his wife and asks to meet her! The dentist then asks his middle- aged secretary, Bergman, to impersonate his presumed spouse – only, to ease her conscience, he also tells Hawn that the woman has a lover…so Matthau has to dig one up as well (settling on sycophant pal Jack Weston) when his girl wants to meet him, too, in order to make sure she is happy and herself not a "homewrecker"! Things get even more knotty when the blossoming Bergman (incidentally, she keeps the titular plant in her receptionist's office) also attracts the attention of a wealthy Spanish client of her boss' and even Hawn's impressionable fellow tenant!The film is harmless fun throughout, occasionally sparkling and generally stylish – complete with a theme song, as much of its era as the classic films (IF…., ROMEO AND JULIET {both 1968}) and albums (The Beatles' RUBBER SOUL {1965}, REVOLVER (1966) and SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND {1967}, The Beach Boys' PET SOUNDS {1966}) that can be seen, respectively, at the marquee or on the stalls of the afore- mentioned record shop!

In her Greenwich Village apartment, bubbly blonde Goldie Hawn (as Toni Simmons) attempts suicide by gas, but is saved by writer Rick Lenz (as Igor Sullivan). Looking sexy in her pink bed clothing, the 21-year-old Ms. Hawn is the girlfriend of middle-aged dentist Walter Matthau (as Julian Winston). To avoid marriage, Mr. Matthau has told Hawn he has a wife and three children. When Matthau decides to wed Hawn after all, he asks his beautiful but straight-laced nurse Ingrid Bergman (as Stephanie Dickinson) to pose as the wife he wants to divorce. To give the story more credence, Ms. Bergman looses up by dating actor Jack Weston (as Harvey Greenfield) and diplomat Vito Scotti (as Arturo Sanchez)...Filmmaker M.J. Frankovich and the studio executives took a chance on this one, and produced chance art. Director Gene Saks, comic actor Walter Matthau and the crew are dependable - but the decision to cast ditsy "Laugh-In" TV star Hawn and golden age drama diva Bergman in the co-starring roles had to make some people doing a double take. But Hawn proved she could impersonate a character from the inside out; Bergman went the Garbo route, especially emulating the actress' comic dance from her final film as "She Hangs Out" (the other songs are "To Sir, with Love" and "I'm a Believer"). Writers Burrows and Diamond wittily capture the swinging sixties' sexy sophistication, and Mr. Saks takes it off the stage.********* Cactus Flower (12/16/69) Gene Saks ~ Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman, Goldie Hawn, Rick Lenz