"Four Star Playhouse" The Rites of Spring (TV Episode 1956) Poster

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5/10
The Rites of Spring
Prismark1030 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
David Niven plays suave well to do Jim Kenyon.

He thinks his much younger wife Eva might be carrying on with a gigolo from south of the border.

Jim arranges that flowers and cards are sent by the gigolo. Trying to test his wife's fidelity by making out she has a secret admirer.

A breezy, humorous 30 minutes drama. It is effortless for Niven to play Jim. I did not think that Eva looked far too young.

Of course Eva guesses that her husband is behind it all.
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A piffle
lor_10 December 2023
David Niven stars in this trifle for Four Star Playhouse, playing a rather repellent jealous husband, who we in the audience are supposed to like merely because he's David Niven. I found the entire concoction a waste of time.

Nominal story concerns how his wife of six years, elegantly personified by Barbara Lawrence, makes him jealous merely by enjoying life, even if that means a bit of flirting here or there. Niven's hubby is such a stuffy, sarcastic type as to alienate one immediately, yet he persists in deciding to bait a trap to catch his wife romancing a lothario type, a Spanish hotel owner who she deigns to dance with at a party. The guy looks like George Sanders, that's enough to spark Niven's dark imagination.

His wife ends up outsmarting David, and the happy ending is as meaningless as all the nonsense that precedes it. Pardon me while I yawn.
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