Okay, this TV adaptation was produced a long time ago when television was still young and clumsy. It was pretty much like watching a live stage production while somebody chased the actors around with a camera. However, the actors were all top notch. Basil Rathbone was perfection as the cold duke. Roberta Peters, a major opera star, is the enchanted Princess Saralinda who pretty much has only one line that she repeats over and over, but since the line is sung, it's a joy to hear every time she does it. As I said, everybody is a top notch pro. So as far as talent is concerned, they start off with a short novel written by James Thurber, one of the funniest men in American literature. They then assemble a cast of actors who, today, probably could not be afforded for a small production like this. By comprehension, I mean they actually understood the spirit of Thurber's work. While Thurber's writing is often thought of as "light," it was highly intelligent and required intelligence to get it. That leads to sincerity. They didn't play down. They had fun with the action, but they didn't clown it up to appeal to the morons. I don't know what Thurber thought of it, but I believe that if he saw it, he enjoyed it, and like many humorists, he had a hard time enjoying himself.
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