Hold on to your seats Dachshund fans, looks like it's going to be a retro weekend here at
The Long and Short of it All! Thanks so much to our good pal 'Trinket' for writing in about the 1962 American comedy
Bachelor Flat. She pens:
Dear Rowdy and Bette,
I recently stumbled on this while looking up some information about the holiday movie "Susan Slept Here" starring Debbie Reynolds. It turns out that the movie’s director remade the film as "Bachelor Flat" a few years later in the early 60s. One of the roles in Bachelor Flat is played by 'Jessica' the Dachshund. The whole movie isn’t on youtube, but this is a great clip of her and a dinosaur bone. What would a small dog do when confronted by a huge bone? Jessica, btw, is billed in the opening credits.
The plot, via
Wikipedia:
A charming British anthropology Professor Bruce Patterson (Terry-Thomas) has to live with Helen Bushmill (Celeste Holm), his fiancée. Helen is away traveling, and has failed to tell him that she has a seventeen-year-old daughter Libby (Tuesday Weld), who shows up at her mother's home unaware that Helen is engaged. Meanwhile he has to resist the advances of the neighbourhood ladies who barge in unexpectedly. At the same time, Patterson must deal with the continual invasions of his cynical neighbor, and law student, Mike (Richard Beymer), who soon develops a crush on Libby. Intertwined in the story is Mike's persistent Dachshund, determined to bury the professor's prize possession of a rare dinosaur bone.
Director Frank Tashlin said he included the Dachshund as a satire on CinemaScope due to the dog's shape.
Better get this film on your must-watch list!
At the time
Variety called it a "frivolous, farcical concoction" and credits much of the great comedy to the supporting cast. They added "The Dachshund, incidentally, is an accomplished low comedienne." Of course she is.
Related:
Dachshund Unearths Dinosaur Bone
