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Pillow Talk (1959)
Reviewed on 2013 February 7
Silly, fizzy bedroom farce about a woman who shares a party line with a playboy, and the aftermath when he sets his sights on her like she’s a quail.
Jan Morrow (Doris Day) is an interior designer with an eye for the good stuff, a client (Tony Randall) who is in love with her, and an annoying problem. She is stuck sharing a party line with Brad Allen (Rock Hudson), a womanizer and song writer who has marathon conversations with women about nothing, while he plinks away at his piano.
Jan couldn’t care less about what Mr. Wonderful does, except her clients can’t get through to her. When she complains via phone to Brad, he decides her lamentations of “I’m losing money here” are really pleas of “I need a life and pay attention to meeee.” When he finally sees her one night, he decides a little Brad will cheer her right up. Figuring she may not agree, he doesn’t tell her who he is.
Randall, Day and Hudson made several romantic comedies in the ’60s. In Cajun food I think they call it “trinity”: many foods starting with the bedrock of onions, bell pepper and celery. You start with the same stuff and make different tasty things with it, and though it’s kind of predictable it’s still good. You pretty much know you’re gonna get some jambalaya, and it’ll work. (I think Jack Lemmon and Judy Holliday making the caustic, funny Phffft! is the version you get when you add a nice wallop of garlic, but that’s another review for another day.) The silly acting fits, and even though it creeps into Sherwood Schwartz territory at times, the plot is fun. Pay attention to the nightclub sequence: the singer’s reaction to Brad and his BS is priceless.
Three slightly old but still tasty chocolate morsels.
— Shukti
