Cactus Flower (1969)

(On Cable TV, June 2020) The one thing that holds together the somewhat bland romantic comedy Cactus Flower is a fascinating trio of actors from very different eras of cinema—Ingrid Bergman, Walter Matthau, and Goldie Hawn in her first big-screen lead role. It’s quite a cast, and the film around them never quite reaches the potential of that trio. The story is a bit of a jumble, but largely about a dentist (Matthau) who keeps pretending he has a wife to avoid commitment in his affairs, except when he falls for a record-store clerk (Hawn) and has to find a pretend wife (Bergman) in a hurry to keep control over the affair. While the cast is amazing, the casting is more disputable—Matthau as a playboy is something I’ll shrug over, while Bergman may not be the most obvious pick as a screwball lead. Hawn does very well, though (she won an Oscar for it), fully capturing the hip 1969 Manhattan vibe that the film is aiming for—the extended sequence in a music store will delight who considers movies to be a fanciful time-travelling device. While often blander than expected, Cactus Flower does get a few smiles along the way, plus a jazzy take on the song “I’m a Believer.” It ends exactly how we expect it to, but the fun is in getting there. Plus, if you’re looking for a linchpin in your “Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game, it’s a film that effortlessly takes you from the 1990s to the 1940s thanks to Hawn and Bergman.