Yep, I’m a feminist, y’all. I’m not ashamed to admit that I favor parity between men and women in the workplace and that I believe women should have autonomy over their reproductive health. Women’s choices must be respected. That noted, I also understand that feminism and many feminists have not always walked the walk, so to speak. Specifically, the feminist movement has not always served women of color, nor has it embraced transwomen, or even queer women in general. I get that, too, believe me.
Again, the choices women make must be respected in order for us to see and to experience true progress and to break the stronghold of patriarchal values. Oh, and, yes, I firmly believe, just to be clear, that internalized misogyny is a thing.
Wait a second. Is this a movie blog or a political platform? It can be both…because movies can be, and often are, political even if not outwardly so.
This brings us to Doris Day. The generously gifted star of music, movies, and TV passed away on May 13, at the age of 97. May she rest in peace.
I grew up loving Doris Day, specifically her movies, but I didn’t understand, at first, how politicized they were.
First, please allow me to rhapsodize for just a moment about how much I’m enthralled by Day’s singing. As a commentator on a DVD documentary featurette exclaims, she has a way of becoming quite intimate with a song and that coupled with perfect pitch make for easy listening, in the best possible way, indeed. Listening to Day sing such classics as “Sentimental Journey” “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” or “Move Over, Darling” is the aural equivalent of sipping a perfectly chilled cocktail overlooking a beach at sunset. A heavenly, heady, mix.
Day had already established herself as a big band singer–and recording artist–when she was recruited to appear in movies, beginning with 1948’s Romance on the High Seas, a Warner Bros release starring Jack Carson and Janis Paige. Day was fourth-billed but on her way to the top. Throughout the 1950s, she starred in all kinds of pictures in a variety of genres. For example, she and Gordon MacRae headlined a quartet of musical confections, beginning with Tea for Two, a reworking of vintage stage musical No, No, Nanette (per one of its best known tunes, “Tea for Two”), as well as exercises in quaint Americana with the likes of Moonlight Bay and its instant sequel By the Light of the Silvery Moon, both Warners and largely aimed at capturing the same audience that flocked to see MGM’s Meet Me in St. Louis a few years earlier (Kaufman 119). Calamity Jane found Day treading the same territory as Betty Hutton in MGM’s rousing Annie Get Your Gun (from Irving Berlin’s massively successful Broadway triumph), a comparison that could hardly be ignored, given that Howard Keel, who had co-starred in Annie, was on board as Day’s presumed love interest. Day seized the opportunity and belted original number “Secret Love” for all its worth, the result being a great big hit movie and that year’s Oscar winner for Best Song, per Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster.
Contractual demands by Day’s manager-husband Martin Melcher kept Day from starring as “Nellie Forbush” in the big screen version of Rogers and Hammerstein’s Pulitzer and Tony winning tuner South Pacific with its first rate score (Kaufman 220-221). The role went to Mitzi Gaynor instead (no hate), but Day snagged the female lead in another biggie, Pajama Game–again, for Warner Bros; however, musicals weren’t the entirety of Day’s output. She co-starred as the mother of a kidnapping victim in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (opposite James Stewart), debuting her signature tune, “Que Será, Será (Whatever Will Be, Will Be),” another Oscar winner–this one by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. Day’s palpable hysteria at her plight reaches its zenith in a keenly suspenseful sequence set in London’s famed Albert Hall. Storm Warning and Julie offered exercises in noir-ish thrills, the former for Warners; the latter for MGM.
Day played against her wholesome image most spectacularly in 1955’s Love Me or Leave Me, a musical drama detailing the career of real-life 1920s era singer Ruth Etting and her involvement with mobster Martin “Moe” Snyder, portrayed by Warners legend James Cagney in an Oscar nominated turn. Despite heaps of praise, Day was not as fortunate as Cagney regarding Academy response. A much anticipated Best Actress nomination was not forthcoming (Kaufman 191). Anna Magnani, a staple of Italy’s neorealism movement triumphed in the big screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo, a role–long story short–he’d written with Magnani in mind.
Back to Doris. By the late 1950s, yes, Day was well established as a movie star with a sizable following, but she also suffered a slump on the heels of a couple of nowheresville offerings (Day and Hotchner 225). Plus, while she was a star, she wasn’t sexy, not in the same way that, say, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, and even Kim Novak were perceived as sexy. In her own words, the bulk of her output tended toward “films of nostalgia,” mostly “depicting wholesome families” while adding that along with that characteristic sunniness came a noticeable sexlessness as well (225). Few roles had truly capitalized on the adult sultriness that was inescapable in many of her recordings; likewise, she had rarely been costumed in a chic fashionable wardrobe that accentuated her knockout figure.
In between her two smash romantic comedies opposite Rock Hudson, Day furthered her box office prowess by starring in highly charged, change of pace suspense flick Midnight Lace (1960). As with Pillow Talk, producer Ross Hunter customized the picture to showcase Day’s particular allure, including an Oscar nominated wardrobe designed by singularly named legend Irene (not to be confused with that other costuming legend Irene Sharaff). Indeed, Day even wore one of Irene’s gowns to the 1959/60 Oscars (for which she was a Best Actress nominee, per Pillow Talk), held that year while Midnight Lace was still in production. By all accounts, including her own, Day was pushed to the point of nervous exhaustion by playing an American heiress, tormented by an increasingly emboldened stalker (Day and Hotchner 236; Kaufman 272-274). Could the culprit be her British business magnate husband (Rex Harrison), her housekeeper’s fidgety, money-grubbing son (Roddy McDowall), the handsome Rock Hudsonesque contractor who appears to have symptoms of PTSD stemming from service during WWII (dreamy-eyed hunk John Gavin), her husband’s high-stakes business associate (Herbert Marshall), often seen with a pained expression, or someone less familiar such as the shadowy figure lurking in the…well, you know…the shadows; that would be Anthony Dawson, familiar from Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, among others. Midnight Lace might seem too familiar to fans of, say, Gaslight or even Sorry…Wrong Number, but Hunter’s deluxe trappings, the assured direction of David Miller (already known for, among others, Joan Crawford’s Oscar nominated Sudden Fear), the strong supporting cast, including Myrna Loy, Hemione Baddeley, and ever-reliable John Williams along Day’s anguished performance (plus, of course, Irene’s chic costumes), make Midnight Lace a visually stunning thrill-ride. A strong push by Universal Pictures wasn’t enough to secure Day a second Oscar nomination (Kaufman 285-286; Wiley and Bona 322) though she garnered a Globe nod. An Oscar nomination for Day would have been an interesting touch in a Best Actress race rocked by sensational Liz Taylor (BUtterfield 8) and Shirley MacLaine (Best Picture winner, The Apartment). Taylor won, but that’s a saga for another day. (IMAGE: https://www.booktopia.com.au/dvd-movies/midnight-lace/prod9314748907912.html)
Enter Ross Hunter. It was Hunter, the fabulously successful producer of the era’s glossiest entertainments, always with an eye on creating films for and about women, who sent Day the script for the saucy comedy Pillow Talk–and wielded his considerable powers of persuasion to convince her to do it. Besides the allure of playing an interior decorator, living in a high rise apartment in bustling modern day Manhattan, Hunter promised Day a “sensational wardrobe” by no less than Oscar winner Jean Louis (famous for, besides his Academy pick The Solid Gold Cadillac, designing that hotcha black strapless number Rita Hayworth wore in Gilda, and making Kim Novak look positively bewitching in Bell, Book, and Candle; Day and Hotchner 233). Hunter also promised Day makeup and hairstyling that would provide some “lift,” and he kept his promise (233). Again, in Day’s own words (as told to A.E. Hotchner), her hair and makeup in Pillow Talk were done “as I had always hoped” in contrast to the “Warner Brothers embalmers who posed as makeup men” (226-227). Furthermore, “For the first time I was wearing clothes in a picture that I felt accentuated my body and enhanced the character I was playing” (227). In her book, Day confessed that she’d long believed she was “too contemporary” for many of the period films she’d made with all their fussy “flounces and frills” (227, 361). The reinvention of Doris Day was almost complete.
Hunter’s grandest inducement was 6′ 5″ Rock Hudson, one of the hunkiest and most imitated leading men of the 1950s, along with the top box office draw of the moment (per Quigley Publications qtd. in Steinberg 406). Day and Hudson created screen magic in Pillow Talk. The set-up is thus: Day plays Jan Morrow, a most in-demand interior decorator–her apartment rates a great big Mid-Century “Wow.” Her hours are irregular. As such, she sometimes works from home. To that end, she needs access to a working phone line–this, way, WAY, before cell phones. Morrow’s dilemma is that, due to ongoing construction in Manhattan and a backlog of requests to accommodate increased phone usage, she is saddled temporarily with what was once known as a party-line, meaning two households, each with its own phone number, essentially share the same frequency, such that while they can dial out and receive their own calls, they can only do so one at a time. For example, Day’s Morrow cannot make a call if Hudson’s Brad Allen is on the line; moreover, each is capable of eavesdropping on the other–seemingly without being detected. Invariably, every time Morrow tries to make a call, she’s not only thwarted due to Allen, a Broadway composer, but she clearly hears him putting the same smooth moves on one lovesick woman after the next, often serenading them with variations of the same icky sickly-sweet tune. He’s a womanizer. A wolf. (To clarify, neither will hear a ring for the other one’s number, and they can call each other via a special code. Btw, I grew up with friends who had party lines, so I know the gig. )
Morrow’s complaint is not so much what Allen does on the phone but the fact that he monopolizes the line at all hours of the day and night. That noted, sure, Morrow believes her need to use the phone for business certainly outweighs Allen’s lusty cravings. Her complaint is compounded by the fact that Allen violates their uneasy agreement to rotate half-hours in order to accommodate one another’s particular interests…or needs. To Hudson’s Allen, Day’s Morrow is a frosty, uptight prude in need of a good…thaw. That is, until he gets a good look at her, per a series of not so remarkable coincidences. At that point, he decides to have a little fun at her expense by pretending to be a Texas rancher whose “old-fashioned” demeanor hints at a lack of interest in sex–at least with her. His goal is to simply string her along until she practically begs to be nailed in the sack. The trouble is that Brad actually enjoys spending time with Jan, something he hadn’t anticipated, and she enjoys his company as well until she realizes she’s been played, setting up a third act battle of the sexes with a dollop of happily ever after.
Pillow Talk scored big with both critics and audiences, spending at least six weeks as the nation’s box office champion (Kaufman 267) and earning Day her sole Oscar nomination for Best Actress–along with four additional nods for the film overall, including yet another Best Supporting Actress bid for ever-reliable Thelma Ritter as Morrow’s unfortunate housekeeper–a sad sack that Ritter makes funnier than she has any right to be [1]. The writing team of Russell Rouse, Clarence Greene, Stanley Shapiro, and Maurice Richlin garnered the film’s sole Academy award.
More important than the single success of Pillow Talk, between that film and Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (opposite David Niven), a more traditional family comedy filmed before Pillow Talk but released afterward, along with her next outing, the suspense filled Midnight Lace, two more offerings with Hudson, a fizzy romantic comedy co-starring Cary Grant (That Touch of Mink), and a pair of slick offerings with James Garner, one more family-friendly than the other, Day reigned for 4 of the next 5 years as the USA’s biggest box office draw (per Quigley Publications qtd. in Steinberg 406-407). She even maintained top 10 status through a couple of subsequent flicks with Rod Taylor (407). Good for her.
The flipside is that Day’s success worked against her in many ways. To begin, the critics grew increasingly skeptical of a perceived formula that seemingly locked Day into playing roles that might have been better suited for actresses who were, well, younger; after all, Day was already in her late 30s when she appeared in Pillow Talk. (Not a problem for me, btw. I’m just the messenger.) How long, critics carped, could she continue to play variations of, say, Sex and the Single Girl, per Helen Gurley Brown? (Natalie Wood, btw, was 26 when she starred in the film inspired by Brown’s non-fiction tome.) For that matter, by the time she was in her early 40s was Day even convincing as the mother of young–pre-teen—children (per the case in both films with James Garner)? Of course, we know that women are not ready to be put out to maternal pasture just because they hit 30, 35, 40, or more. Now, we know that. In the 1960s, when the bulk of critics were still male, not so much. Hollywood film executives, also predominantly male during the same period (less so, now, but maybe not by much), have seemingly always had little or no use for actresses over 40–other than playing gray-haired grannies and spinster aunts. Or spinster teachers. Not too much of a generalization, but Day kind of beat that rap because, again, her movies made money, money, money, and Hollywood understands just about anything as long as it turns a profit. Day might have extended her viability by who knows how long if she had not been so beholden to husband Melcher and his brand of success. For example, she famously rejected an offer to play middle-aged seductress Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate. Too racy (Day 232-233). That’s the short-version of why Day’s fortunes changed, and she became better suited to the safety of a mildly successful TV sitcom.
Backing up, another concern is that the twin forces of the sexual revolution and the emergence of the Women’s Lib movement in the late 60s and up through the 70s rendered Day’s films quaint when viewed through the lens of relaxed mores. Suddenly, there was lots of harrumphing that Day’s movies were all about her trying to protect her virginity from Rock Hudson, a vast over-simplification, but there it is–and that perception kind of overwhelmed Day’s legacy. In 1964, Oscar Levant, composer-entertainer, famously quipped that he knew Doris Day before she was a virgin (qtd. in Kaufman 401). Then, in the rollicking 1972 Broadway musical Grease, a lampoon of Eisenhower Americana that became a 1978 blockbuster film, Day’s image becomes the butt of a joke in a song that also trashes wholesome teen star Sandra Dee, the gist being that Day was raised a good girl who certainly didn’t put out, not even for throbbing hunk Rock Hudson–not, that is, without the benefit of matrimony.
With that, the die was effectively cast. Day, or at least her movies, seemed square, obsolete, the object of mockery, out of step with a generation of young women looking for professional, and, yes, sexual fulfilment that did not necessarily have anything to do with getting married. The pronouncements were so loud and oft repeated that they took on a life of their own that had almost nothing to do with the movies themselves–especially by, say, younger viewers whose earliest reference might have come not from the actual films but from Grease.
I always saw Day’s movies much, much differently than the cynics. Look at her in Pillow Talk, right? She has a successful career. Indeed, she must do very well, judging by her snazzy apartment. Oh sure, it’s easy to dismiss her career choice as a decorator. Yep, I get it. I feel pangs of frustration when I see movies in which successful women are depicted as either decorators (Sorry, Designing Women) or caterers, the reason being is that it’s lazy choice to somehow make a successful business woman less threatening, more palatable, if what she’s doing isn’t a real business but merely an extension of routine housework. Snore. Nonetheless, I can roll with it in Pillow Talk. (And Designing Women, for that matter.)
Also, is Day’s Jan Morrow really a frigid prude trying to hang on to her virginity? Maybe not. After all, as she explains to a phone company agent (Hayden Roarke), she really doesn’t care what Hudson does or with whom. Her main complaint is that his womanizing ways hinder her when she needs to make important calls from home. That’s all. Does she really appreciate hearing as much as she does when she picks up the receiver, hoping the line is free? Probably not. After all, we live in an era, now, in which people drop the acronym TMI (too much information) regularly in response to an overload of graphic or intimate details. Isn’t that Morrow’s point? TMI? Plus, in Day’s defense, she’s surrounded by men on the prowl in the form of a rich, lovesick, businessman, a client (Tony Randall) who thinks he can buy Morrow’s affection, and the frisky, hotshot son of another client. Simply, the lad is way out of his league and doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. None of this is a sign that Day is sexually repressed. Does she seem a bit ruffled when the phone agent asks if she has children? Yeah, I guess, but so what? She simply explains that as she is not married, children aren’t a priority. She doesn’t say she’s never had sex, or that people should wait until after marriage to sleep together. She doesn’t even judge people, women, who choose to be single parents. Her character, like so many others then as now (men and women), would rather wait to be in a stable, committed long-term relationship before raising a family. That’s all, and it hardly makes her a prude.
Elsewhere, while she’s clearly apprehensive about jumping into bed straightway with Hudson’s pretend Texan, at first, she certainly entertains the idea as they spend more time together. Of course, that’s part of his plan…to lure her into making the first move, and that’s basically what happens when she practically throws herself at him and invites herself to go along with him on a retreat to a cabin in the country. She coolly reminds him that they’re both over 21, capable of making adult decisions and no need to pretend otherwise. Does that sound like a woman who’s fighting to hold on to her virginity until after marriage? I think not.
Once she finds that she’s been played by a double-dealing phony, she fumes and plots her revenge. Who can blame her? No one wants to be played.
Day and Hudson’s second film Lover Come Back ups the ante in that they are now professional rivals, on Madison Avenue, no less. In many ways, Lover Come Back is just a retread of Pillow Talk in that Hudson’s character once again attempts to undermine Day, professionally as well as personally, by pretending to be someone else–in this case, a scientist. Casting Day as an advertising executive is not necessarily a bold move in itself since, say, both Gene Tierney (Laura) and Hedy Lamarr (H.M. Pulham, Esquire) tackled similar roles way back in the 1940s, but Lover Come Back affords Day the opportunity to play a real dynamo with a spacious office and an equally industrious personal assistant (the great Ann B. Davis) as well as command of a full-staff of copywriters, illustrators, photographers, and researchers (male and female). Oh, and she sports a super-deluxe, super flattering wardrobe–credited to singular Irene–that any working woman would envy. So far, so good. Of course, the whole point is that Day’s Carol Templeton has to push both herself and her team to produce results comparable to that of diligent worker bees (per a voiceover as the film opens) while just across the avenue, Hudson’s Jerry Webster prefers to wine and dine clients, which includes carousing with young women–exploiting said women, if you will–as a means to an end. Naturally, Templeton is outraged. She can work all hours of the day and night on a presentation and not earn the same recognition, not to mention respect, of the guys in the boys club. This is the same double standard that women have faced both in corporate and political arenas for decades, and, heck, didn’t we see pretty much the same thing from the TV show Mad Men just a few years ago? Of course, she’s uptight, but about the situation, not her sexuality which is none of anybody’s business.
The ending is both a tease and a bit of a muddle that grapples with the idea of one-night stands and the prospect of single parenthood, albeit in a most circuitous way. Screenwriters Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning (also the creator of TV’s Petticoat Junction) had their work cut out for themselves, trying to up the spice quotient while also pleasing Day, ever conscious about her image, and by association the watchful eye of Marty Melcher. It’s hard to blame Day, btw, for not wanting to come across as a sexual pushover as she approached the ripe age of 40, right? For their efforts, Shapiro and Henning earned the film’s sole Oscar nomination.
The third Day-Hudson pairing, Send Me No Flowers, is funny in a different way as the stars play a married couple, so the dynamic is not the same as the earlier offerings and, therefore, not worth considering as part of this piece, except to add, as well, the biggest laughs seem to occur whenever Hudson and constant pal Tony Randall are onscreen together.
Glass Bottom Boat, Day’s second outing with Rod Taylor, wasn’t necessarily a spy comedy though Day was mistaken for a spy in it. Of course, in the early-to-mid-1960s, amid the long shadow of the Cold War, audiences were enthralled by the espionage and intrigue of spy-thrillers, a trail blazed by Ian Fleming’s James Bond series and the resulting smash movies in which Sean Connery etched a powerfully charismatic Agent 007. Bond inspired the likes of Matt Helm (starring Dean Martin, loosely based on a character created by Donald Hamilton), Our Man Flint, and its sequel (starring James Coburn), Stanley Donen’s Arabesque, and a host of TV shows, including The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Mission Impossible, The Avengers, Secret Agent Man, and even Get Smart. Silva Thins cigarettes cleverly aped the spy genre in a series of commercials. Enter Doris Day–as contractually obligated by Martin Melcher, yet again to Day’s chagrin. The reasoning goes something like this: no, she doesn’t play a spy in The Glass Bottom Boat, but the movie made money and was critic-proof as well, so why not feature her in a tailor-made spy caper? The result was Caprice, a “swingin’ ” adventure romp set amid the world of corporate espionage, specifically the cosmetics industry. Sound far-fetched? Oh, it definitely is that, but not as much as one might think considering that as the 1950s gave way to the 1960s, the so-called Lipstick Wars were in full-swing with such top tier companies as Revlon, Hazel Bishop, Helena Rubenstein, Toni, and Coty potential targets of commercial skullduggery–or rumored to be among perpetrators of such acts–with revelations of moles, bugs, and even eavesdropping of phone conversations within a single company as “distrust” was the color of the day (Woodhead 375-377). As he did in The Glass Bottom Boat, director Frank Tashlin (with a background in animated shorts and such big screen comedies as The Girl Can’t Help It, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and Geisha Boy) brings lots o’visual panache–and inside jokes–to the proceedings with just enough camera wizardry and lighting effects to keep the action–mostly shot on soundstages and back lots with select second-unit location footage–interesting and moving. An opening ski chase sequence–one of two such set pieces–rivals anything in Bond films of the same era, and Day, playing opposite a much younger Richard Harris, destroys her virginal image right upfront when she asks her male dining companion to, well, no spoilers. In her mid 40s at the time, Day nevertheless impresses in the ultra mod outfits designed bv Ray Aghayan, with whom she worked closely during pre-production. Caprice is too uneven to be considered a seamless classic, but it’s entertaining and better than its much-maligned reputation would suggest. It certainly didn’t help Day’s career, even with extensive rewrites, but it wasn’t her final rodeo, either.
More than her films with Hudson, Day’s pairing with urbane Cary Grant in That Touch of Mink plays more like a woman who isn’t fully comfortable with her sexuality. The story, even with its Oscar nominated screenplay by Stanley Shapiro (again) and Nate Monaster, is flimsy with Day portraying Cathy Timberlake, an unemployed computer operator (interesting career choice for 1962). She copes as best she can, dutifully reporting to the unemployment office–and holding her own against the none too subtle advances of a lecherous clerk played by John Astin, clearly using his position of authority as a means of intimidating Timberlake into accepting his proposition or risk jeopardizing her unemployment check. Ick! The onus of that is on him. Furthermore, one raining morning, on the day of a big job interview, she’s splashed by a chauffer-driven limousine while exiting a subway station. Grant isn’t the driver, but he’s the passenger, and he regrets the accident and tries to make amends. Kind of. Anyway, not too much makes a whole lot of sense after that. Day seems to forget that she has an interview and allows herself to be tempted into an all-day whirlwind excursion that ends with Grant’s Philip Shayne offering to be, well, Timberlake’s sugar daddy, or rather, inviting her to be a kept woman, his mistress. For reasons that have everything to do with advancing the plot and almost nothing to do with character development, Timberlake momentarily believes Grant has just proposed marriage. Really, Miss Computer Operator? After just one date? Even a long one? Oh, Grant sends her back to reality cleanly and quickly, but still. After all, it’s been less than 24 hours (and less than that for audiences) since she scored a direct hit–a palpable hit–against lascivious Astin, remember? She certainly knew that he wasn’t proposing marriage, and she rebuffed him in no uncertain terms. Oh, I get it, debonair Cary Grant and all his money, but still.
Cary and Doris clear up their misunderstanding after she explains full-well that even though she’s from staid Ohio, Upper Sandusky itself sees a lot of action, and she (Cathy Timberlake) knows the score. (FYI: Day originally hailed from Ohio.) Soon, she has a new wardrobe (hence the title) and is whisked away on a chartered flight to rendezvous with Grant’s Shayne in Bermuda. She’s clearly ready to accept the role of Grant’s mistress, or is she? Even so, no matter where she goes, she wonders if everyone she meets envisions her and Grant in the sack, which is a great sight gag and pretty racy for 1962, all things considered. When the time comes, Timberlake’s nerves get the best of her, and the lovemaking is delayed. Yes, this is a bit of a tease, but many of us have suffered bouts of so-called stage fright in similar situations at one time or another. It doesn’t necessarily mean that Timberlake has never been intimate with a man. Does it? After all, Grant’s character later experiences a similar setback, so it’s not ONLY on Day’s character. Who knows? Maybe she was just apprehensive about seeing 60ish Gary Grant naked.
That Touch of Mink is sheer silliness, no doubt, and Day doesn’t have the same crackling good chemistry with Grant that she has with Hudson–or, okay, James Garner–but it’s still a treat to see two giant stars in one film, and the supporting cast includes such greats as Audrey Meadows (as Day’s wisecracking yet overly fretful roommate), Gig Young (clearly inheriting what would otherwise be Tony Randall’s role as Grant’s chief advisor–and subordinate), Richard Deacon (in all his deadpan glory as Meadow’s toady supervisor), and aforementioned Astin among other bit players (not the least of which is a young Dick Sergeant as a nervous honeymooner), and cameos by the likes of baseball all-stars, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, and Roger Maris. Plus, Day looks great: flattering hairdos along with beautiful clothes, many of them bought off-the rack but with contributions by both Rosemary Odell and the great Norman Norrell as noted in the closing–rather than opening–credits. The sparkly score–missing a signature Day title track–is by George Dunning, and the Oscar nominated sets are credited to Alexander Golitzen, Robert Clatworthy, and George Milo. Oh, and it was a HUGE hit, once again securing Day’s status as filmdom’s top domestic box office draw (Kaufman, 304, 306). Its Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Comedy along with Grant’s nomination for Best Actor in Comedy offer further evidence of its appeal. [Day was Globe nominated that year for her big budget MGM musical Billy Rose’s Jumbo.] Even so, once opposite Day was enough for Grant though, to clarify, they are hardly mismatched, just not ideally matched.
Of the two films Day made with James Garner, The Thrill of It All–with Ross Hunter back on board one more time–is good for a few big laughs, big sight gags, but aims for an entirely different effect than the likes of Pillow Talk and That Touch of Mink, with Day as a housewife–and mother of two small children–who hits it big as a TV spokesperson while hubby Garner, an ob-gyn, sulks, feels neglected, and plots his revenge. Funny, but not that funny. Not anymore. On the other hand, success breeds even more success, and the Day-Garner follow-up, Move Over Darling scintillates with its outrageous premise.
A lively update on My Favorite Wife, starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant (itself inspired by Tennyson’s “Enoch Arden” [2]), Move Over Darling positions Day as wife and mother, presumed dead after disappearing at sea five years previously, who returns to her family at just about the same time as her lawyer-husband (Garner) moves to have her legally declared dead (per the exasperated judge played–as only he could–by Edgar Buchanan) in order to marry his new love (Polly Bergen). As he prepares to consummate his new marriage, Garner catches a fleeting glimpse of Day, and, oh boy, carnal complications ensue. Day is clearly no longer playing a virgin, and she’s eager to resume life as a married woman–with needs–but she’s not about to assume the role of “other woman” under any circumstances as long as Garner is a newly married man. Oh, she flirts with Don Knotts, but that seems innocent enough though a tease comes in the hunky form of Chuck Connors, playing Day’s companion, lo those five lonely years on an otherwise deserted Pacific Island. Did they really call each other Adam and Eve? Day has some fine goofy moments in this one, such as when she pretends to be a Swedish masseuse and, later, when she drives through a soapy carwash, but this is as much Garner’s pic as it is Day’s. Garner, all strapping masculinity, confident virility, and aw-shucks affability, is simply ripe to bursting with passion, all wound-up and nowhere to go, as he attempts to placate each of his two wives–especially incredibly confused Bergen–without much relief for himself in sight. Pretty strong stuff for 1963. Still, ’twas Day, and not Garner, who scored yet another Globe nomination. Again, the December ’63 release was another HUGE hit, earning most of its dough in ’64 (Kaufman 358), and Day’s recording of title track credited to Day’s son Terry Melcher, and others–with its lusty vibe–was a UK smash that never got significant airplay in the U.S. (Backing up just a bit, think about the, what, disconnect, between Day–in her early 40s by the time she paired with Garner–playing the mother of small children onscreen in The Thrill of It All and Move Over, Darling and being the real-life mother of a twentysomething son making a name for himself in the music biz. That is all.)
With Garner’s star on the rise, the actor enjoyed an ever-increasing bounty of tempting offers, and Day regrouped with Hudson for the domestic–if dark–comedy Send Me No Flowers. Then, she (or Melcher) “found” a new onscreen romantic partner in the form of Australian born Rod Taylor, all over the place at the time in such biggies as The Birds and The VIPs. Day freely admitted to disliking the script of Do not Disturb, but hubby Melcher had already inked the deal with Fox, effectively her new home base, so that was that (Day and Hotchner 258). Luckily, Day and Taylor managed to strike up a convivial relationship, so they survived. Do not Disturb–unconvincingly set in London, the English countryside, and Paris (but obviously backlot stuff, with at least one interior set reportedly repurposed from The Sound of Music, per the IMDb)–was successful enough with audiences even if critics were ever increasingly bored. Plus, Day looked smashing with a smart new hairdo and makeup. It helped, of course, that Taylor’s hubby character worked on the periphery of the garment industry, assuring that Day would at least sport an attractive wardrobe, including a coral-colored sequined gown that works like a charm (per celebrated Ray Aghayan). Oh, the stars play a married couple, each trying to outsmart the other with pretend affairs or something like that. The upshot of such hijinks more or less justified reteaming in The Glass Bottom Boat, a slapsticky comedy about the Cold War and mistaken identity, that tallied lots of ticket sales (Kaufman 381) in spite of mixed reviews. The movie also provided a huge break for then barely known comic actor Dom DeLuise who would later find even greater success on TV and in the films of Mel Brooks and Burt Reynolds.
Interestingly, Day, in spite of that “touch me not” image, deserves recognition for, well, being a “Cougar” ahead of her time in that during her peak earning years, she was older than many of her male co-stars, the reverse of which is more often the case in romantic onscreen pairings. For example, according to the IMDb, Day was born in 1922 while Rock Hudson was born in 1925, giving Day a jump of three years. Elsewhere, James Garner, born in 1928, was 5 years younger than Day while both Rod Taylor and Richard Harris (born in 1930) were younger than Day by 8 years. Furthermore, dreamy-eyed hunk John Gavin (of Midnight Lace) and Stephen Boyd (Billy Rose’s Jumbo [3]) were both born in 1931, a difference of 9 years. Yes, Day famously turned down the role of classic cougar Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, bedding the would-be squire of her college-age daughter, and her reputation suffered a knock or two because of it, but she was no stranger to the rush–the gold rush–of the older woman-younger man dynamic, keeping in mind, as well, that, unlike the case of Mrs. Robinson and Benjamin Braddock, those age differences were not necessarily integral to specific plots. Even better. Especially for feminists who’d rather love and let love, bed or not bed, and not be defined by age.
Thanks, Doris Day.
[1] – Day lost in her category to sultry French dynamo Simone Signoret in the English language Room at the Top while Ritter watched from the sidelines as Shelley Winters claimed her first Supporting Actress Academy prize for The Diary of Anne Frank.
[2] – Famously–and quite sadly–an earlier attempt to update My Favorite Wife as a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe–opposite Dean Martin the Garner role and Cyd Charisse as the Bergen equivalent–stumbled along, bogged down by production delays due to the star’s shaky health and cost overruns as a result. At the time, execs at the Fox studio followed daily reports of wildly spiraling costs from the Rome set of Cleopatra where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s newly blossoming affair–and a host of related escapades–generated international headlines about an already expensive production careening evermore out of control. While lavish period spectacles can be written off as acceptable risks, romantic comedies filmed on studio lots, and designed for quick turnaround, are supposed to be easily controlled. Faced with looming disasters on two-fronts, Fox execs decided to cut their losses by shutting down MM’s Something’s Got to Give–and crossing their fingers regarding Cleopatra. Alas, Monroe would never complete another picture, dying shortly after her exit from Fox. Cleopatra proved to be an expensive folly, but Day and Garner’s retooled Move Over, Darling–spearheaded by mogul Melcher and Pillow Talk director Michael Gordon–arrived just in time to assuage the flow of red ink.
[3] – With his well-chiseled matinee idol good looks, Irish born Stephen Boyd rose to Hollywood prominence in the late 50s in a host of high-profile films, none more spectacular than his key role in 1959’s grand slam Oscar champ, Ben-Hur; among his other notable credits are 1966’s landmark sci-fi headtrip Fantastic Voyage with its Oscar winning visual effects. Billy Rose’s Jumbo–yes, that’s the actual contractually obligated title–was MGM’s 1962 big-budget adaptation of the impresario’s vintage stage hit about a seen-better-days travelling circus and its elephantine star attraction. Though Day was in the midst of a string of hits for Universal, making a one-off for MGM seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, she was hot, hot, hot: the biggest star in Hollywood. Plus, MGM’s reputation for deluxe musicals was long established–unsurpassed, even. In her book, Day cites Billy Rose’s Jumbo as one of the films that helped her maintain her number one ranking in the early to mid 1960s (258); however, biographer David Kaufman claims that despite enthusiastic early reviews and reports of “sockeroo” numbers from its run at Radio City Music Hall, the film wound up more fizzle than sizzle with critics and public alike (320-322). Whatever. All I know is I used to watch Jumbo, as we called it in our household, as often as possible whether on the late show or the afternoon movie. I’ve even watched it at least once in the past 15 years or so. A little creaky by now, perhaps, but it still packs a lot of pizzazz. Furthermore, whatever its overall reception at the time of its release, the film still garnered an Oscar nod for George Stoll’s score (adaptation) and a whopping 5 Golden Globe nominations, including Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy along with nods for both Day and Boyd (who may or may not be dubbed) and, even better, a pair of nominations for troupers Jimmy Durante and Martha Raye in the supporting performance categories.
Works Cited
Day, Doris and A.E. Hotchner. Doris Day: Her Own Story. Bantam Books, 1975. 1976.
Kaufman, David. Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door. Virgin Books, 2008. 2009.
Steinberg, Corbett. Reel Facts: The Movie Book of Records. Vintage Books. 1978.
Wiley, Mason and Damien Bona. Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards, 10th Anniversary Edition. Edited by Gail MacColl. Ballatnine Books, 1996.
Woodhead, Lindy. War Paint: Miss Elizabeth Arden and Madame Helena Rubinstein. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2003. 2017.
Confessions of a Movie Queen 