I have loved this movie ever since I saw it as a young otter, with my dad, one of the approximately 10 movies I actually saw in a theatre before I turned 16 and got my driver's license...we both loved musicals, and he took me to see this, The Sound of Music, and My Fair Lady when each of them came to the next town (the town I grew up in didn't have a movie theatre). So I must have been 11 or 12 when we saw this one.

I have to say, the titles alone, on the big screen, are easily the equivalent of the light show in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And seeing the flowers grow, one of my first experiences with time-lapse photography! wow!

Okay, Barbra Streisand is in it. But you know, she doesn't annoy me so much in this and Hello, Dolly!...maybe because they were her first movies and divadom had not yet been thrust upon her...but she's kind of funny and earnest and charming.

That said, this is a much weaker movie than Hello, Dolly!...Mr. Otter says at least part of this was due to Streisand demanding more screen time than Yves Montand (and even at 12 years old I knew sexy when I saw it, oh yes indeed, and he was definitely it...) and thus eviscerating the plot...and I have to admit, it does have the slightly putrid scent of too many hands stirring the screenplay.

Reality police: the young Jack Nicholson (in the same year as Five Easy Pieces, no less) is so incredibly charming that one cannot see why she is going to such great lengths to keep her corporate flunky boy...but it was the late 60s, and I guess this made more sense back then...

Anyway. A couple of the songs (the title song especially) are really good...others are eminently forgettable. Some parts are very funny, others will make you scratch your head and go, "huh?". But overall, worth watching more than once. Trust the otter, you'll like it.