Pillow Talk 2

Film: Lover Come Back
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

Doris Day and Rock Hudson are remembered as a classic on-screen couple even though they only made three movies together, and since Tony Randall was in all three, one wonders why he tends to be forgotten in this arithmetic. Anyway, of those three movies, two were nominated for Best Original Screenplay. The first collaboration, Pillow Talk, won. The second, Lover Come Back, was nominated, but didn’t win. But a nomination is good enough for inclusion on this blog, and it’s what showed up from NetFlix. In truth, Lover Come Back probably didn’t win because it’s more or less the exact same movie.

No, really. In Pillow Talk, Doris Day plays an interior decorator who shares a party line phone with songwriting playboy Rock Hudson. Eventually, the two meet and Hudson fakes a persona, woos her under false pretenses, and the two end up together despite his deception. In Lover Come Back we get the same plot except that in this case, the two are direct business rivals. In Pillow Talk, Tony Randall plays Hudson’s rich friend and Broadway benefactor. In Lover Come Back, he plays Hudson’s wealthy and socially meek boss. These are, more or less, the same movie.

Wealth Porn

Film: That Touch of Mink
Format: Retroplex on rockin’ flatscreen.

Yogi Berra passed away yesterday. By chance, I happened to have DVRed a movie in which he makes a cameo appearance, so it seemed like a natural choice for today. That it also happens to feature Doris Day, Cary Grant, Gig Young, Audrey Meadows, Dick Sargent, and John Astin is just a bonus. It was Yogi’s world and all of us just lived in it. So That Touch of Mink was on the docket for tonight, even though Yogi only has a single line.

Staggeringly wealthy Philip Shayne (Cary Grant) is on his way to work in his Rolls limo when his car splashes Cathy Timberlake (Doris Day) with a puddle. The car drives on and Philip goes to work, but is bothered by what happens. Meanwhile, Cathy has a depressing day at the unemployment office, particularly because she is the object of desire for Beasley (John Astin), who works behind the counter. Philip tells his assistant Roger (Gig Young) about what happened, and when he spots Cathy walking into an automat, he sends Roger to apologize for him.

Meals for One

Film: Separate Tables
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

I said recently that I’ve been getting a lot of films that are converted from stage dramas lately, and yesterday I got a film written by a stage author that could have easily been a stage play. That trend is continuing tonight with Separate Tables, a film nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, a play of the same name by Terrence Rattigan. This is an interesting film if only for its content; it’s surprisingly sexually charged for 1958, and most of this sexual charge is not of a positive nature.

The story is more or less a story of relationships and how those relationships interconnect at a hotel in Bournemouth. One of the features of this hotel is dining at separate tables, meaning that each of the guests dines alone or with a companion with whom he or she shares a room. At meal time at least, everyone is in his or her own little world. The entire story takes place in the hotel, which is really the main evidence that this comes from a stage play. The most we ever change scenes is room to room, or now and then to an outside porch.

Dogs Like Us

Film: Marty
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

Times have changed. There was a time in the world when the stated, or at least understood goal of every young man and young woman was marriage. “Do you know a nice girl he can marry” was every mother’s constant refrain for her bachelor sons. For Marty Piletti (Ernest Borgnine), he hears it every day. Every customer he gets in his butcher shop tells him he should be ashamed of himself, what with all of his younger siblings married off and him still living at home with his mother at the too-old-to-be-a-bachelor age of 34.


Marty is a sweet guy, perhaps a bit homely (he’s Ernest Borgnine, after all), but a sweet guy. He wants to buy the butcher shop he works at, and he’d like to get married, but he’s decided that whatever women want in a man, it’s something that he doesn’t have. His mother (Esther Minciotti) convinces him to go out to a dance hall despite his reservations, and he goes with his best friend, Angie (Joe Mantell). He’s rejected right away, but this changes when Clara (Betsy Blair) enters with a date who doesn’t much like her, and proves this by ditching her almost immediately. In fact, he offers Marty $5 to take Clara home.

As it turns out, Marty and Clara hit it off. He’s perhaps homelier than most guys, and Clara is plainer than most. But, in true Hollywood style, they’re made for each other. They’re both genuinely nice people. Marty perhaps asks Clara to dance because he feels sorry for her. He’s a sweet guy, and Clara deserves better than her jerk of a date. She deserves Marty.

If that were the whole movie, though, we’d be done after 30 minutes, and there’d never be a reason to watch it. Life for Marty gets complicated immediately after he meets Clara, because it appears that no one else in his life thinks that she’s good enough for him. She’s too plain; she’s not good enough for him. All they see are her faults, which is pretty much what her whole life has been, and what his life has been, too. It’s obvious right away that the two of them are absolutely smitten with each other.

The brilliance of the story is that it’s that old, old story that we all know: “She’s not good enough for my son.” Sure, everyone wants Marty to get married, but nobody really wants him to. His mother doesn’t want to end up on her own like her sister is. Angie doesn’t want to lose his best friend to marriage when he’s still without a girl. It’s very much a case that misery loves company, and Marty is such good company that everyone wants him to stay.

And so, the last third of the movie is Marty trying to justify the fact that he really likes this girl and that she isn’t, as he tells her, so much of a dog as she thinks she is. It’s almost as if the two of them are scared of their own potential happiness, and while the disappointment of being alone is that disappointment, at least it’s something entirely familiar, a known quantity.

I don’t do heartwarming. It’s not really my style of film, or my type of story, but this film is irresistible. I love the fact that the dance hall looks like a junior high dance. The men stand on one side. I love the fact that Marty can’t shut himself up when he talks to Clara, or that Clara can’t help smiling when he does. I love how important it is to both of them that each of them is Catholic.

What can I tell you? This movie is endearing. I can’t help but smile while watching. I like these people and I want them to be happy. Chances are, unless you’re heartless, you will, too.

As an added bonus, this is the only film to every win the Oscar for Best Picture and also win the Palm d’or at Cannes.

Why to watch Marty: Because everyone needs love.
Why not to watch: You’re jaded.