barely three and a half year after just scrap out a month run ( 7 31 oct. 1953 ) at broadway coronet theatre ( on west 49th street while since rename the oneill ) and mgm rely on the early solid london success of the play to lavish a wonderful cast and for the most part carefully open up production on a sadly trim down screenplay of this slyly subversive boulevard comedy and be reward with a modest hit . ava gardner be the increasingly frustrated wife of stewart granger and an internationally successful and entirely complacent workaholic ( before the term have be coin ) use the perpetually frustrate david niven to attempt to rekindle passion in her spouse . when the second honeymoon cruise gardner inveigles granger into leave the trio ( and granger dog ) maroon on a south sea island ( be there other survivor . that for late plot development ) and granger continue right on manage the world around him build a big hut for himself and his wife and a little one of the title for niven or the unattached male . the core of the actual plot of the play only get go about half way through the film when niven propose that granger and he alternate a tenant of the little hut share the only female on the island a granger have be willing to share the only pair of shoe ( his ) . reason ( which granger consider his strong point ) reign and frustration reign supreme for a while . david niven and ava gardner be superb in their appointed role of suave would be seducer and seductress and and stuart granger usually call upon merely to be handsome and virile in action role and the odd miscast specialty ( a crowing pretty boy a apollodorus in shaw caesar and cleopatra in 1945 ) give one of the good acting performance of his film career a the husband who may actually be as smart a he think he be . 33 year later he would again show this suave urbanity opposite rex harrison in granger first ( and both their last ) broadway engagement in a hit revival of somerset maugham the circle which only end with harrison death . we would be far rich if granger have use these skill more often . as promising a the menage be and this be and after all and a very british boulevard comedy and hollywood in the 1950 which be to say that ( unlike the source play ) very little sex actually go on . to be frank and if you do not give yourself over to the idea drive the contrivance it do get a bit silly ( the same basic plot be far more satisfyingly develop three year later in the cary grant or deborah kerr or robert mitchum or jean simmons ( stewart granger actual wife ) the grass be green and base on an even less successful play and but for some reason that superior trifle fail at the box office ) . as lavishly a mgm set the piece and there be unfortunate lapse the silliness which end the stay on the island be cartoonishly presage in what should have be a moment of genuine excitement the sinking of the yacht that put them on the island . ultimately we only get about three quarter of an hour of the real little hut and but ninety good minute of david niven and ava gardner and stewart granger that make the film a fun diversion . not high culture and but a worthy guilty pleasure . we even get some very nice garnish in walter chiari ( repute to be ava actual lover at the time ) . a one of his better speech go represent boola and boola .