Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1961

The Contenders:

Ballad of a Soldier
La Dolce Vita
General della Rovere
Lover Come Back
Splendor in the Grass (winner)

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.