The Glass Bottom Boat

"I wasn't exactly fishing."

"Then what were you doing?"

"Maybe I was hunting for mermaids."

Jennifer Nelson (Day) is a widow who occasionally dons a mermaid tail to entertain the customer's on her father, Axel Nordstrom's (Godfrey) glass bottom boat.  One day the tail is hooked by a fisherman, who she yells at then swims away.  The following day she learns that the fisherman is Bruce Templeton (Taylor), a high ranking executive at NASA, where she works.  Templeton and his partner Zack Molloy (Martin) are working on a secret project called GISMO.  It is top security and leaves little time for romance.

Templeton gets Jennifer assigned to be his biographer.  She accompanies him everywhere on the job and the two begin to fall in love.  But security guard Homer Cripps (Lynde) is suspicious of Jennifer.  He has a detailed dossier of her life and notices that she makes the same mysterious call every day.  At the same time, someone is sending coded transmissions to the Soviet Union.  Cripps believes Jennifer is a Soviet spy, sent to steal the plans for GISMO and monitors her actions.  His fears are shared by CIA agent Edgar Hill (Fleming) and their boss General Wallace Bleecker (Andrews).  Can they find the real spy before GISMO is completed?


This was the second (of 2) film collaboration between Rod Taylor and Doris Day.  The previous year they starred in Do Not Disturb as a married couple.  They have good chemistry and you want them to end up together (like you know they will).

This romantic comedy embraces the absurd.  Day gets to wear crazy costumes and embrace some over-the-top accents (as a Russian spy and Mata Hari).  She even gets to do some physical comedy with Dom Deluise (pictured above).  Deluise is always funny and he and Day are surprisingly funny together.  Parts of the plot are ridiculous, but it is a fun ride.

Day performed the title song, "The Glass Bottom Boat," over the opening credits and during the film alongside Axel Nordstrom.  She also performs "Soft as Starlight" and "Que Sera, Sera" in the film.

This was Day's first collaboration with director Frank Tashlin.  She appeared in his next film Caprice in 1967.

The Glass Bottom Boat (1966) 110 minutes
Director: Frank Tashlin
Starring: Doris Day as Jennifer Nelson
Rod Taylor as Bruce Templeton
Arthur Godfrey as Axel Nordstrom
John McGiver as Ralph Goodwin
Paul Lynde as Homer Cripps
Edward Andrews as General Wallace Bleecker
Eric Fleming as Edgar Hill
Dom DeLuise as Julius Pritter
Elisabeth Fraser as Nina Bailey
Dick Martin as Zack Molloy