CACTUS FLOWER, in plant-talk, can symbolize lust and sexual attraction, or love that’s unconditional. It, they, also obviously show beauty, arriving essentially in surprise, out of a prickly situation. These interpretations all fit regarding the 1969 film. Gene Saks directed, with a screenplay I.A.L. Diamond adapted from a hit play. Laughs in 1969’s cinemas could be had from Paint Your Wagon, The Reivers, Support Your Local Sheriff, Viva Max and Take The Money And Run. Each delivered, but we’ll call this the best comedy of the year. *

Starting a bright rom-com with a suicide attempt skirts risky, but injecting the non-reel-life undercurrent of love-gone-lost brings the poignancy necessary to sell the eventual conclusion to the satisfaction of the story’s situational contrivance and the complimentary conceit of audience expectation. Misbehavior is chastened, honesty rewarded, balance returns. With chuckles on the way and smiles in the bargain. Wrap up the present with a bow.

Twenty-one year old record store clerk ‘Toni Simmons’ (Goldie Hawn, 23) is saved from a gas-lit exit by neighboring apartment dweller ‘Igor Sullivan’ (Rick Lenz, 29), budding playwright and basic nice fella. Toni nearly bought the farm over hurt from her older lover, philandering dentist ‘Julian Winston (Walter Matthau, 48) who uses the ruse of marriage and kids (he has neither) to put off settling down with Toni. Julian’s longtime and long-suffering office nurse ‘Stephanie Dickinson’ (Ingrid Bergman, 53) is shanghaied into Julian’s track-covering by posing as his wife. Now, she cares for him, but he’s too blind to see what the audience expects/demands is eventually coming. Good dialogue and flawless timing delivering it makes this ring-rosy a treat. Matthau, having graduated into offbeat leading man status with A Guide For The Married Man and The Odd Couple, has few peers at making entrapped duplicity come off delightful rather than deplorable. Much-missed Bergman’s a smart foil, both with him and in fending off lecher hounds ‘Harvey Greenfield’ (Jack Weston) and ‘Latin lover’ diplomat ‘Señor Arturo Sánchez’ (Vito Scotti), two of Julian’s patients. Her get-with-it disco dancing is a highlight.

Good as the older pros are, the piece as written and the movie as presented belongs to Hawn, a true standout in her breakout. ‘Cute’ to the walking talking definition of same, she had built-in audience identification/sympathy from a year on TVs smash sketch fest Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In but she banished that small-screen goofing by slamming this role—not just out of the park but clear out of Manhattan—with an dizzying yet unforced repertoire of expressions, facial and vocal, second to none. Star burst time. She walked away with an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She had fierce competition from newcomer Catherine Burns in Last Summer and deglamorized Susannah York in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? but while they were excellent, their showcases were depressing, and Hawn’s heartfelt glow won out over gloom. Speaking of charm—seeing the record store in this movie is alone enough to make you pine for a time machine. **

Trimly made for $3,000,000, which was then returned ten times over with $33,900,000, the year’s 9th most attended picture. With tidy bits from Eve Bruce (“Rotten! Rotten!”) and Tani Guthrie. 103 minutes.

* Originally the piece was “Fleur de cactus”, a French musical play from Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy. Abe Burrows borrowed it for Broadway where it ran for 33 months and 1,234 performances, Lauren Bacall, Barry Nelson and Brenda Vaccaro starring.

** Though billed as ‘introduced’, she actually had a bit part the previous year in a Disney comedy, The One And Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, billed as Goldie Jeanne Hawn. Future mate Kurt Russell, 17, was one of its supporting players.

Since humor is a funny thing, what amuses us is up to the individual. To those comedies mentioned above, your own grins and guffaws might be tickled from The Love Bug, Hello Dolly!, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, If It’s Tuesday This Must Be Belgium, Goodbye Columbus, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Alice’s Restaurant, The April Fools, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, The Great Bank Robbery or Those Daring Young Men In Their Jaunty Jalopies.