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.

Directed by George Marshall, based on a story by Alec Coppel with a screenplay by George Wells, this slightly above average black comedy crime story is intricately written to cleverly tie everything together before its end, making for a satisfying entertaining film.Leads Glenn Ford and Debbie Reynolds are supported by Carl Reiner and John McGiver, as well as Bert Freed and Martin Landau (among others) in minor roles. Two time Academy Award winner Helen Rose received her second to last Oscar nomination for her (B&W) Costume Design.Ford plays TV writer-director Elliot Nash; Reynolds plays his actress-singer wife Nell, who's just gotten her first big show on Broadway. Elliot is an extremely nervous individual because, unbeknownst to Nell, he's being blackmailed by Dan Shelby (Stanley Adams uncredited voice), who has a compromising (if innocent) photograph of her husband in his hotel room with a secretary that was taking dictation for him. Reiner plays Harlow Edison, a New York district attorney that's a neighbor and longtime friend of the Nashs since before they were married; he'd always wanted Nell for himself. One evening, Harlow wheedles his way home with the Nashs, whereupon Elliot tries to get rid of him so that he and his wife can have carnal relations. Elliot decides to ask Harlow about a hypothetical situation involving blackmail ostensibly for a script he's writing. One of Harlow's ideas involves bumping off the criminal, which Elliot takes to heart even though he's such a gentle man that he'd saved, and adopted, a pigeon earlier. Elliot also learns a couple of other pointers about the mythical perfect murder from Harlow.Even though the Nashs had recently bought a home in the (country?) suburbs as a quiet place for his writing, Elliot tries to convince Nell that they must sell it (in order for him to pay the blackmailer). But Nell is nesting, she's just purchased the titled gazebo at an estate sale and is having a country contractor named Sam Thorpe (McGiver) install it, complete with a concrete base. Elliot sees the gazebo's base as the best way to dispose of the blackmailer's body. Mabel Albertson plays the real estate agent Elliot hired to sell their house, which he'd begun booby-trapping to 'force' Nell to consider selling it. Doro Merande plays the Nash's loud talking housekeeper (a trait which is utilized later, for practical if not comical purposes). Armed with Harlow's information, Elliot arranges a final meeting and payment with Shelby at the Nash home; he even types out instructions for himself so that he won't forget anything.Of course, all won't go according to plan. Comedic (slapstick) sequences follow which include Elliot negotiating with his dying victim to land on the tarp he'd put down to prevent carpet stains, Thorpe showing up to fill in the whole and take the shovel, Alfred Hitchcock calling to suggest how Elliot should solve this new problem, Elliot learning that Shelby was NOT the man he'd killed & buried and trying to find out if he'd accidentally killed a friend or relative, rain which compromises the integrity of the cement used to make the gazebo's base, two hoods (Landau and Dick Wessel) that kidnap Nell to find out what her husband did with the body of the dead man and his briefcase filled with money, the booby-trapped house making things difficult throughout, Elliot confessing his crime to Nell and both having to deal with the body, Harlow and police Lieutenant Jenkins (Bert Freed) arriving just in time to catch and accuse the murderer, but Elliot then figuring out that he didn't actually shoot Shelby's assistant (the dead man) and his pigeon absconding with the bullet evidence so that all ends well for the couple.

I dislike comedies in which the actors' performances fairly scream at you: "Hey, this is a *comedy*, you know? We're supposed to be *funny* here! So, go ahead and *laugh*, will you?" Unfortunately, _The Gazebo_ falls into this category. I for one don't think human life as such needs embellishments in order to create a comical impression on its contemplators; if you just faithfully show life for what it is, it will, by necessity, be *funny* to look at -- besides also being *tragic*, along with a host of other attributes. An artist may wish to focus on this or that side of life, preferring one or the other point of view; while highly accomplished artists may even wish to portray two seemingly *incompatible* aspects of human life at the same time, so that a work of art is then *funny* and *tragic* at the same time, just like human life often is. *That* is supreme art. In any case, there is no need to *embellish* anything, to step away from *realism* the way the actors do it in _The Gazebo_ from the opening minute to the last.Whenever this happens on a consistent basis in a movie -- this intentional withdrawal from reality -- it is the director who bears responsibility. And so, I disagree with George Marshall's take on _The Gazebo_. Yes, all the actors here, most noticeably the two leads, Glenn Ford and Debbie Reynolds, are supremely accomplished actors, professionals of the highest merit, and they definitely are "cute" to watch. But the result is not a good, fully enjoyable comedy. In fact, I mostly find fault with the performance of the two leads: because neither Ford, nor Reynolds lend credibility to their 2 characters, as they are simply and obviously *actors playing parts*, trying to elicit laughs from the audience. Yes, they manage to do so quite frequently even for me (such as Ford viewing the havoc in his living room "upside down" from between his own legs, pushing his hanging tie aside for a better view; Ford drawing a flashlight circle on his living-room wall around another flashlight reflection dancing there). But an amassment, or sum total, of such funny moments isn't enough for a truly satisfactory comedy for me. If you feel a disconnect from the main characters -- and I do, from the very beginning, because they are so artificial -- well, all the shenanigans won't save the movie.I'm afraid _The Gazebo_ got off on the wrong foot from the very start: Glenn Ford, and George Marshall as the director, set the wrong tone for everything in that in the opening scenes, Ford as a supposedly stressed and neurotic TV director, is *not* credible; his neuroticism does not ring true; you're painfully aware you're observing an *actor playing his part*, one that is supposed to be "funny", because this is a "comedy". Is there a greater omission for an actor, than to fail to be *convincing* in the portrayal of the person he or she is supposed to portray? If you're not *convincing*, it doesn't matter how cute or funny or beautiful you may be otherwise -- you didn't get the actor's *main* job done.There is an even more awful character than the two lead ones: I mean the housekeeper played by Doro Merande, who keeps hollering at everyone. On the first one or two occasions we meet her, the resulting "joke" is so-so; afterwards, each of her appearances (including the one by proxy, on the phone) only gets more awkward. Can you say "far-fetched", and "milking the same old joke"? The movie's brightest side? Why, of course it's John McGiver in the role of a contractor putting the gazebo in its place; if anyone can be fully believed in _The Gazebo_ and portrays a genuine human being here, it's McGiver. A terrific, nuanced performance; McGiver does not need to do anything "extra" to be funny; he is who he is -- the character he plays in the movie; and that by itself is funny enough; I wish *everyone* in _The Gazebo_ was like that. I also enjoyed Carl Reiner's smart, and pretty understated, performance as the D. A. Understatedness is what Debbie Reynolds, but particularly Glenn Ford and George Marshall were missing in _The Gazebo_. Perhaps they were afraid that in being understated, they would not be "funny enough"; as it is, however, they just *try too hard* to be funny, which is at least as bad as not being "funny enough".For another plus, the movie is visually impressive. Made in exquisite Cinemascope black & white at a time (late 1950s) when movies of this sort were expected to be produced in full colour, it was an excellent choice that suits the action of a "black comedy" perfectly. The Oscar-nominated costume design by Helen Rose deserves every praise.

As of this writing, Glenn Ford is still with us, living in retirement. He has never, except from his fans and fellow actors, received the recognition his honest acting abilities in drama or comedy have fully deserved. His performances in "Experiment In Terror" and "The Blackboard Jungle" and "3:10 To Yuma" fully show his firm handling of dramatic material. He was a superb psychotic villain in "The Man From Colorado". He held his own with Rita Hayworth and George Macready in "Gilda". And for comic gems let me suggest "The Rounders" (holding his own with Henry 0Fonda, Chill Wills, and his old film friend Edgar Buchanan), "Teahouse Of The August Moon", and this film. For some reason the New York Times film critics always slam "The Gazebo". I can't tell why. It may be because those comedies traipsing on dark matters like murder seem to need an element of elegance (in some quarters) to be rated highly. But how many "Kind Hearts And Coronets" or "Monsieur Verdoux" films can there be? THE GAZEBO is certainly bereft of elegant villains like Dennis Price and Charlie Chaplin, but it does draw us into the hero's real problems.Elliot Nash (Ford) is a hard-working producer, whose wife Nell (Debbie Reynolds) is an equally hard worker performer. Nash has been receiving blackmail threats from a man he has never met. The man is demanding an impossibly large sum of money for pictures he has of Nell that might hurt her career. Nash is forced, in his bumbling way, to consider the only alternative (short of a miracle) to take care of the blackmailer: he must kill him. So on a night that Nell is away from their suburban home, Nash (following a step-by-step plan he even wrote down and put into his desk's top draw) arranges to shoot and kill the blackmailer and to bury the body. He had originally intended to simply bury it in the back yard, but Nell has accidentally helped him here - it seems (for his birthday gift) she is installing an antique gazebo in the backyard, under the watchful workmanship of John McGiver. Ford drags the dead body (in an old bath curtain) into the backyard, and puts it into the foundation of the gazebo.The problems arise afterward. First, it turns out the police want to question him anyway regarding the blackmailer - it seems they found his body in his office, shot to death. They don't suspect Nash for this, but they are curious about why the blackmailer called him. Of course this leads to the issue - who is in the gazebo. Ford goes nuts trying to figure out who among his family and friends is missing. Secondly, it also brings up another matter. Elliot and Nell have a close friend, Harlowe (Carl Reiner), whom Elliot has always found a little annoying as Harlowe once was dating Nell. Now he's around prying into the relationship of Elliot and the dead blackmailer.Soon some others pop up, two goons (the leader is Martin Landau) wondering what happened to Dan - whom they knew was supposed to be visiting Elliot. Can he be the man in the gazebo? Is he the key to all this? The action of the jittery Ford is priceless, particularly in the scene where he shoots the visitor. An example: Nash has been thinking of doing some work with Alfred Hitchcock. Hitch calls (we never see or hear him) while Nash is wondering how to bury the dead man. Ford asks Hitch advise "for a plot he's working on" and Hitch helps out.The final ten minutes, when Ford is almost ready to throw himself on the mercy of the detectives (Reiner and Bert Freed, as a Lieutenant who literally louses up his own case), only to change strategies in a moment of clarity, are hysterical. I particularly hope you fully appreciate Freed's tag-line at the conclusion of the film.