Two New Yorkers (Rock Hudson, Doris Day) sharing a party line find themselves annoyed with one another. He's a womanizer who monopolizes the phone to talk with his many girlfriends. She's a fuddy duddy who doesn't think much of his lifestyle. Eventually he sees her and realizes what a looker she is, so he pretends to be someone else to date her.I'm a big classic movie fan but there's something about this period (late '50s through the early '60s) that just leaves me cold. I can count on one hand the number of films from this period that I genuinely love. This is not one of them. I did enjoy this and I think it's good and daring for its time, but it just didn't connect with me like it obviously has so many others over the years. For one thing, I have never really cared much for Doris Day. Nice singing voice, pretty enough, but there's something so staid and sober about her that I find it hard to become invested in her characters in these types of movies. I recognize mine is a minority opinion among classic film fans. I know others like her but she just doesn't do it for me and I find her much-touted chemistry with Rock Hudson to be overstated.Anyway, this is considered by many to be their best movie and I can see why. It moves along at a nice pace and the comedy is somewhat risqué for the time. The fashions and sets will appeal to those who are fans of the period. Hudson is having a blast and it shows. I already gave my opinion on Day but, if you're a fan, you'll undoubtedly enjoy her here. Tony Randall and Thelma Ritter steal the show in supporting roles. The recurring bit with the obstetrician who thinks Rock is pregnant is probably the funniest part of the movie. The screenplay won an Oscar (!) and Doris Day was nominated for one (!!). How either of those things came about from this I will never know. Must have been a slow year.

The settings are cute, the wardrobe lovely, the actors talented, and the script snappy, but I really could not get into this film.This is one of the many movies I have seen with the formula of manipulative louse finds upstanding citizen with something they want (ex. power, wealth, that body), cons them, louse ends up not following through with it because true love, upstanding citizen finds out truth and freaks, but no worries, they get back together in under twenty minutes.I disliked it in Guys and Dolls, but here there are no side plots or fantastic music numbers to distract me.So the story is that a man with fantastic charisma which he uses to pick up women is hogging the party line of the female lead. She is rightfully annoyed about this but he is dismissive and says she is just jealous he isn't one of the women he chats up.She complains to multiple people, but everyone without a crush on her hints that she is not really mad about not being able to call people from her home (what?) but what she is really upset over is not getting the D.Manipulative louse gets away with it because he put all his character points on charisma. (I did some home installations a few years ago and I would have been really uncomfortable with someone crowding me like that, no matter how pretty they are.) Then they meet outside of the apartment, face to face, for the first time. Louse goes,'Wait, the woman who has been yelling at me is hot. I want a piece of that.' He proceeds to use a fake accent to chat her up. Cue shenanigans of him trying to keep her from finding out the truth. Insert rest of formula.Movies like this make me want to take the upstanding citizen aside and go, "Honey, I know you are lonely and really attracted to this person, but I want you think about something for a moment. The person you are attracted to has spent years of their life manipulating people to get what they want. Behavior like that does not clear up overnight. Just because they love you doesn't mean those bad habits won't reemerge. So I want you to think about this for a while away from them before you find yourself swept along in something that could be really damaging down the line. I know I'm over-thinking this, it's a comedy. On the other hand, there are much worse movies out there who don't deserve such a loop hole. I'll stick to my 6/10, only because many people won't be bothered by the same things as I.

This is a very successful romantic comedy. It's often maligned because Doris Day doesn't hop into bed with the robust Rock Hudson, but, after all, this is the 1950s and, also after all, she's willing enough to spend the weekend in Connecticut with Hudson's alter ego. What do you think they're going to do in that woodland cottage for two days -- make fudge? Doris and Rock have never met but share a party line and argue constantly on the phone about the problems it's causing. Hudson accidentally bumps into Day at a night club. He recognizes her, and immediately forms one of his usual rakish plots. She's attracted too but doesn't know who he really is because he assumes the identity of an honest, naive and filthy rich visitor from Texas. Tony Randall plays a splendidly comic third banana, trying to talk Day into marrying him and becoming his fourth wife.But -- true enough -- you have to alter your mind set to fully appreciate the comic touches. It's like watching an exceptionally well-done example of a TV situation comedy, more risqué than others, and certainly more expensively mounted. The set dressers did such a good job that a couple of imitations that followed turned tastefully appointed apartments into vulgar displays. (I'll mention "One Thousand Bedrooms" as an example.) A lot of the humor depends on homosexuality, a subject still amusing at the time, especially when applied to the ironically masculine Rock Hudson. And the story is studded with sex jokes and double entendres. Randall advises Hudson: "A mature man looks forward to being married and having his branches cut off." Actually Randall is flawless. And even Doris Day gives a professional performance. Her double takes are sometimes exquisite. Hudson isn't asked to do more than smile and be charming in a phony way and he does it well.Sometimes I wonder if I'm not more impressed with Doris Day than I ought to be, or, on the other hand, if others appreciate her talent. A German girl from Cincinnati (where else?) she was cute as hell, first of all, and had a sassy figure. Second, an appealing soprano. She could act, too, and not only in roles like this one. She was better than could be expected in early dramatic parts in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and "Storm Warning," but her career never really took off. "Pillow Talk" and its sequelae established her, at least in a certain generic context, but she was already approaching forty. It was just the right age for the kinds of characters she played but I suppose her directors wanted teen agers with gigantic bosoms because within a few years, her close ups were filmed through lenses smeared with Vaseline or KY Jelly or something. Bog in Heaven, how Hollywood fears age. Even performers who have become magnificent wrecks are spurned. Fortunately, age has not withered MY infinite variety, though I can't say the same for my three ex wives. Okay, that was a nasty crack. To quote my drill instructor in boot camp, what's the sense of getting out of bed in the morning if you can't give somebody the shaft during the day? That man was a saint, although although he was sick and perverted. Actually the comment was meant as a compliment to Doris Day. But alright, alright. It's still an unnecessary vile remark. Can I take it back? See this movie -- or give me twenty.

Pillow Talk (1959)A silly comedy, not quite screwball, but clever as can be, and filled with things you sort of half expected but when they happen they are even funnier because you knew it was coming.Rock Hudson is super charming as the heterosexual stud he wasn't, in real life (his character makes a hilarious comment about gay men, the ones who like recipes etc.). Doris Day is, well, Doris Day, and if you like her phony style of acting, and being, hurrah. She only goes so far for me.The writing is smart and economical, and the writers have given the plot and terrific number of small twists, one after another, that fit together like fingers of two gloves by the end. Nicely constructed! The sets are gorgeous of course (it's 1959, widescreen, bright color), and Day's character is an interior decorator, which comes into play. New York is always a fun town on some level, and it really is charming and pretty here, as much as we see of it, reminding us why "Mad Men" works in the first place. The formal tricks of this movie are interesting (and historic) for their pushing the censorship people to the wall, even though everyone is squeaky clean in it. The split screens allow our two heroes to be in bed together, to take a bath together, and even, in their apparent nakedness, press their feet together. Totally fun.And funny. It's a joyous movie, in some unexpected way. It's lightweight--by design.