Old Globe resident artistic director Darko Tresnjak has a knack for taking little-produced gems, dusting them off and putting them on stylish display for renewed appreciation. Case in point: last year’s charming retro production of John van Druten’s “Bell, Book and Candle.”

Happily, such is also the case with his latest find, “The Pleasure of His Company,” which sparkles with humor and appeal despite a problematic script.

Tresnjak and a well-cast ensemble mount this long-awaited and worth-the-wait revival at the Globe. The comedy about family and marriage by Samuel Taylor and Cornelia Otis Skinner ran on Broadway in 1958, became a film starring Fred Astaire and Debbie Reynolds three years later, and then seemed to drop off the radar.

Globe artist-in-residence Patrick Page leads the cast as the charming, profligate Biddeford “Pogo” Poole. After 15 years of globetrotting absence, the wealthy playboy returns, ostensibly to give his daughter Jessica away at her impending nuptials. She’s set to wed an earthy and handsome – if dull and uncultured – cattle rancher. But Pogo, as manipulative and selfish as he is charismatic, has other ideas.

Erin Chambers and Patrick Page make a lovable

daughter-father team in “The Pleasure of His Company.”

Photo: Craig Schwartz

Page is just right as a sophisticate, a sybarite and a scamp. With a twinkle of mischief in his eyes and a sardonic smile, his Pogo is the kind of self-absorbed guy you love to indulge anyway – at least for a little while.

Between wooing his ex-wife (now married to a very practical and well-behaved attorney) and enticing his daughter to flee her marriage and travel the world with him, Pogo manages to turn the household upside down.

Ellen Karas plays Jessica’s mother, a bottled-up but still fiery woman who only wants the best for her daughter. Erin Chambers is perky and elegant as Jessica, though she needs to dial up the volume to make sure she’s heard.

Ned Schmidtke gives a fine comic turn as Jessica’s grandfather, a likeable rascal and armchair philosopher playing at Thoreau and Swift. He objects to Jessica’s wedding, on the grounds that she shouldn’t be confined to the “dull comfort of marriage.” He encourages her to see the world with her father, despite the social and emotional fallout. Morality, he reasons, “is merely low blood pressure.”

But it is the lack of emotional fallout that proves one of the play’s flaws. Choices are made – lovers are jilted – with little consequence or care. And a young woman whose father ran out on her during those crucial and combative teen years might not be so eager to take him back as an adult. And the faux-Chinese gibberish spoken by a fawning Chinese servant (Sab Shimono) garners lots of laughs. Still.

These may be flaws of antiquity, but “Pleasure” was probably progressive for its time, with its suggestion that a young, intelligent woman might aspire to a life filled with adventure and experiences, not just babies and homemaking. Or at least, adventure and then babies.

These characters come down on either side of a dichotomy: grounded, practical and lethally humdrum or worldly, cultured, adventurous and charming. It seems living a life of excitement and responsibility are mutually exclusive.

Yet these problematic areas do little to lessen the pleasure of this revival. What the script lacks in depth this production sure makes up in charm and style. Alexander Dodge’s lavishly appointed San Francisco manse draws its own applause, with a wood stairwell and bay window looking out at the city’s most famous icon, the Golden Gate Bridge. Fabio Toblini’s costume design sets the era with muted greys for Jessica’s mother and stepfather, and earth tones for her rancher fiancé, leaving lively bursts of color for Jessica and her profligate father. Jim Abele as stepdad and Matt Biedel as cattle rancher fiancé fill out the excellent cast.