The Mating Game (film) The Mating Game (film) The Mating Game (1959) is an MGM Metrocolor film in CinemaScope directed by George Marshall, and starring Debbie Reynolds, Tony Randall and Paul Douglas in his final film role. Reynolds sings the title song during the opening credits. The film was written by William Roberts very loosely based on a British novel, "The Darling Buds of May" by H. E. Bates, which was later adapted into a more faithful 1991–93 British miniseries, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones in the role that Debbie Reynolds plays in the film. The film has been featured on Turner Classic Movies, and was
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids the villagers, with the exception of the narrator. At the close of the novel, he is chased into the forest by the villagers to an unknown fate. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids ( ; also known as "Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring") is a 1958 novel by Japanese author Kenzaburō Ōe. It is Ōe's first novel, written when he was 23 years old. It was originally published in 1958. The English version was translated in 1995. The novel deals with fifteen adolescent boys from a reformatory in World War II Japan.