One of my childhood friends really loved the movie
Pillow Talk, but I’d never actually seen it until I
checked it out from the Library last week. I found it to be a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it. It’s about a young career woman, Jan, (played by Doris Day) who shares a ‘party line’ (basically a phone line) with lothario composer Brad (played by Rock Hudson).
Phone lines are so scarce that Jan can’t get her own, and Brad continues to hog the line, singing “original” tribute songs to different women. Eventually the two meet, and Brad adopts the persona of Texan Rex Stetson in order to woo Jan. The movie seemed to be a little risqué for the 1950s, and I think it’s still a pretty clever romantic comedy.
No matter how many times I run into old Doris Day movies it always takes me by surprise how incredibly sexy Doris Day is. I also love her as a serious actress, like in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much and Love Me or Leave Me with James Cagney. I guess her stills always look so wholesome and artless, it’s always amazing to me how charismatic she is on the silver screen. Is this the movie where Rock Hudson pretends to be gay? That must add an interesting angle to the experience of watching it today.
He does pretend to be gay–or actually as “Brad,” he suggests to Doris Day that “Rex” may be gay, and that is why he is such a gentleman, and “Rex” in their next interaction goes on about his interest in cooking and decorating. Talk about layers of performance!
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