The Gazebo

The Gazebo is a 1959 black comedy CinemaScope film about a married couple who are being blackmailed. It was based on the play of the same name by Alec Coppel and directed by George Marshall. Helen Rose was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White. According to MGM records, the film earned $1,860,000 in North America and $1,450,000 elsewhere, making a profit of $628,000.

Plot

Television writer and director Elliott Nash (Glenn Ford) is being blackmailed by Dan Shelby (Stanley Adams) over nude photographs of his wife Nell (Debbie Reynolds), taken when she was 18 years old. Elliott does not inform Nell, the star of a Broadway musical, what is going on, but works feverishly to make enough money to pay off the ever-increasing demands.

Finally, Elliott decides that murder is the only way out. He makes preparations, incorporating some advice from a friend, District Attorney Harlow Edison (Carl Reiner). When the blackmailer shows up at the Nashes' suburban home as arranged to collect his latest payment, Elliott shoots him, then hides the body in the concrete foundation being poured for the antique gazebo his wife has bought. He has to keep Sam Thorpe (John McGiver), the contractor hired to install the structure, and Miss Chandler (Mabel Albertson), the real estate agent trying to sell the Nashes' house, from stumbling across his scheme.

The Gazebo (play)

The Gazebo is a play by Alec Coppel based on a story by Coppel and his wife Myra.

It opened at Broadway's Lyceum Theatre on 12 December 1958 and ran for 266 performances, closing on 27 June 1959. Walter Slezak and Jayne Meadows played Elliott and Nell, and the director was Jerome Chodorov. Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times claimed it was "as real as a TV crime play and a thousand times more diverting," though fellow critic Robert Coleman maintained that "There were times when a good gust of wind might have blown The Gazebo right off the Lyceum's stage." The subsequent US tour starred Tom Ewell and Jan Sterling.

In London, Ian Carmichael and Moira Lister were the stars of the West End production, directed by Anthony Sharp. This opened at the Savoy Theatre on 29 March 1960 and ran for 479 performances. "The Gazebo is one of those modern murder plays which depend on comedy rather than mystery," noted Theatre World editor Frances Stephens, "and no actor is better equipped than Ian Carmichael, with his wholesome fooling and overall 'niceness', to take any embarrassment out of a laughter-making murder theme, even with the corpse in full view."