Growing up, I had always known comedies to be in black and white. The films of silent comedians Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. Black and white. The Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and Abbott and Costello. Black and white. Screwball comedies like Howard Hawks BRINGING UP BABY (1933), Ernst Lubitsch's NINOTCHKA (1939), and George Cukor's THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940). Black and white. After the darkness of World War II, film comedies needed a face lift. With television emerging as the new visual medium in the 1950s, motion pictures including comedies needed to distinguish themselves from the small black and white screens in people's living rooms. Wide screen CinemaScope was one answer. The other was making films in bright, vivid color. PILLOW TALK chose both.
PILLOW TALK is the first of three films Hudson and Day made together. The other two are Delbert Mann's LOVER COME BACK (1961) and Norman Jewison's SEND ME NO FLOWERS (1964) both with PILLOW TALK co-star and good luck charm Tony Randall along for those two as well. My pre-conceived bias with PILLOW TALK was two movie stars who didn't dazzle me and it's television like interiors of bedrooms, offices, and clubs. Having now watched PILLOW TALK, director Gordon manages to make Doris Day sexy, he makes Rock Hudson funny, and he uses split screens and even three screens to liven up the visuals and spice up the sex appeal of this supposed sex comedy.
With a screenplay by Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin based on a story by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene and directed by Michael Gordon (CYRANO DE BERGERAC), PILLOW TALK introduces us to our two protagonists right away: Brad Allen (Rock Hudson), a playboy songwriter and Jan Morrow (Doris Day), a successful interior decorator, both living in New York City and both sharing a telephone party line. Brad monopolizes the party line, chatting with various girlfriends, singing songs to them he's writing, inserting the girlfriend's name in the song, frustrating Jan who needs her phone for business. Jan complains to Mr. Conrad (Hayden Rorke) with the phone company about Brad and tries to get a private phone line with little success. As she leaves the phone company building, Jan runs into her wealthy client Jonathan Forbes (Tony Randall) out on the street who's smitten with Jan and wants to marry her. Jan's currently decorating Jonathan's office. Jan delicately brushes Jonathan's advances away and the new sports car he tries to give her.
It turns out Jonathan is financing a Broadway musical and his college buddy is Brad who's providing the songs for the show. Jonathan stops by Brad's apartment to check on Brad's progress. Jonathan laments about his unrequited love with Jan who Brad realizes is his party line adversary. Brad's curious what Jan looks like and calls her with an offer to meet for coffee. Jan declines as she's attending an open house for another client of hers Mrs. Walters (Lee Patrick). As Jan prepares to leave the open house, Mrs. Walters son Tony Walters (Nick Adams), home from college at Harvard, offers to drive Jan home. The young Nick tries to make out with Jan who rejects his advances. Jan agrees to go to the Copa del Rio nightclub for one drink with Tony. Tony gets drunk. Sitting behind Jan and Tony is Brad with his date Marie (Julie Meade). Brad overhears Jan and realizes it's his party line neighbor. Brad comes to her rescue, pretending to be a Texas rancher named Rex Stetson. He sends Tony home in a taxi and squeezes into Tony's small sports car to take Jan home.
Jan is charmed with Rex (really Brad) and invites him in for coffee which Brad/Rex politely refuses. Jan gives him her phone number before he leaves. Rex calls later to make a date with Jan then switches to Brad pretending to cut in who tries to get Jan to break the date with no success. Brad/Rex takes Jan out on the town that includes a carriage ride thru Central Park. At dinner, Brad sees Jonathan arrive at the coat check in. Afraid Jonathan will give away his identity, Brad scares Jonathan away before he sees Jan. The next day at Jonathan's office, Jan breaks a date with Jonathan so she can see Rex/Brad which makes Jonathan angry. Brad comes to Jonathan's office to deliver his songs, almost running into Jan as she leaves, hiding in an OB/GYN office until she's gone. Jonathan hires a private detective to watch Jan's front door to find out who she's seeing. The detective returns to Jonathan with a photo of Brad leaving her apartment.
At their next date, Brad/Rex and Jan have their first kiss. When Jan goes to the powder room, Jonathan shows up and tells Brad to either break up with Jan or Jonathan will reveal to Jan who Rex really is. Jonathan orders Brad to his Connecticut summer home to finish writing the songs for their musical. Jonathan departs. Jan returns and Brad/Rex tells Jan to go home and pack. He's going to take her away for the weekend. Jonathan watches Brad drive off alone, convinced he's ended the Rex/Jan relationship. Brad picks up Jan and they drive off. Jonathan goes to check on Jan and discovers she's left for Connecticut. Brad has double crossed him. At the summer house, Jan finds Brad's music and realizes Rex is Brad. Jonathan shows up and brings a crying Jan back to New York. Brad returns to New York and realizes he's in love with Jan. Brad tries to contact Jan thru her feisty, hard drinking cleaning lady Alma (Thelma Ritter). Alma suggests Brad hire Jan to decorate his apartment. Jan takes the job so she can get back at Brad, turning his place into a garish bachelor pad. When Brad sees what she's done, he storms over to her apartment and brings her back to his place where the two of them make up.
As television became the dominant medium in the 1950s, TV shows hid sex behind the bedroom doors. Married couples slept in separate beds. Storks brought a new baby to a family not the mother. Movies and cinema were supposed to be able to address sex more explicitly than television. It took Marilyn Monroe in Billy Wilder's comedy THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH (1955) to throw down the gauntlet to be sexy out in the open (remember the wind from the subway blowing Monroe's dress up in the air). My initial reservations with PILLOW TALK was it was a big budget, glossy version of a 1950s television sitcom with a WASPish leading man and woman. PILLOW TALK proclaims itself to be a sex comedy. Surprisingly, PILLOW TALK does address sex, both in the dialogue and visually albeit in fairly chaste terms. It was considered daring in 1959.
Early in PILLOW TALK, Brad and Jan argue with each other on their shared party telephone line. Brad tells Jan she's having "bedroom problems", implying she's single, has no boyfriend, and she not having any sex. Jan explodes over Brad's insinuation...but it's true. PILLOW TALK uses split screens for foreplay as our lovers flirt without ever having to be in the bedroom or nightclub together. PILLOW TALK'S most famous and risque scene (not really) is a split screen sequence with Brad as Rex and Jan chatting with each other while naked in separate bathtubs. Unknowingly, Brad and Jan play footsies, putting their soapy feet up to the upper edge of their frame as if they're touching one another. It's a visually funny moment and the closest we'll get to Brad and Jan making love on screen. In PILLOW TALK'S finale, Brad goes to Jan's apartment and literally carries Jan back to his apartment where they make up (and off screen, make love). Nine months later, Brad and Jan are married and she's expecting a baby.
I push aside PILLOW TALK as not a very important film in my pantheon of films. For Rock Hudson and Doris Day, PILLOW TALK was a turning point in their careers thanks to the efforts of director Gordon and producer Ross Hunter. Hudson was coming off a big budget failure in Charles Vidor's A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1957) with Jennifer Jones based on the Ernest Hemingway novel and produced by David O. Selznick. Hudson had never done a comedy. PILLOW TALK proved that leading man Hudson was pretty good at it. Hudson's Brad Allen starts out in the film as conceited and shallow, a songwriting womanizer playing the field with various foreign socialites and actresses. When Brad lays eyes on Jan Morrow, the woman he's been fighting with on their shared party telephone line, he finds a new challenge that leads to him falling in love with her but having to pretend not to be her sworn enemy Brad Allen.
Instead, Hudson has the opportunity to play not one but two characters in PILLOW TALK which he does adroitly. He's Brad the songwriter who Jan despises (but has only talked to and never seen) and he's alter ego, the fictional fish out of water Texas rancher in New York Rex Stetson who Jan adores and falls in love with. Switching between characters gives Hudson some fine comic moments which he excels at. The split screens and party line allow Brad to hold off revealing his true identity to Jan until the third act. Hudson's star appeal climbed from small supporting parts in the early 1950s to leading roles in Douglas Sirk's WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956) with Lauren Bacall and George Stevens epic western GIANT (also 1956) with Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. My personal favorite Rock Hudson performances are in Anthony Mann's western BEND IN THE RIVER (1952) with James Stewart and John Frankenheimer's creepy sci-fi thriller SECONDS (1966).
As much as Doris Day was a talented singer/actress and I'm sure a very nice person, I just found her too sweet and plain. Apparently producer Ross Hunter felt so too and was determined to change Day's image for PILLOW TALK, bringing out the sexier side of Day with multiple sexy dresses and a few titillating scenes like college boy Tony Walters trying to make out with her in his sport car. Like Hudson, Day seems a natural with comedy and the verbal foreplay, tame as it may be, between Brad and Jan raises PILLOW TALK to the level of a genuine sex comedy. For a romantic comedy to work, chemistry between the two leads is essential and Hudson and Day pull it off (they were very good friends off-screen as well). In Alfred Hitchcock's THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956), Day came off as a frustrated, boring wife. In PILLOW TALK, Day gets to cut loose and show her wilder side even if it takes a little while for her to get there.
The success of PILLOW TALK would lead to Hudson and Day making two more films together. I may not be Doris Day's biggest fan but a glance at her filmography (and a short piece she narrated about herself on Turner Classic Movies that I recently saw) highlights that Doris Day worked with many of the best leading men in Hollywood in the 1950s including Ronald Reagan, Gordon McRae, Frank Sinatra, James Cagney, James Stewart, Clark Gable, Richard Widmark, Jack Lemmon, and David Niven. CRAZYFILMGUY may need to give actress Doris Day and some of her films another look.
One can't discuss the Rock Hudson/Doris Day films like PILLOW TALK without the third piece to their success: Tony Randall. I grew up watching Tony Randall as the fastidious Felix Unger on the television version of THE ODD COUPLE (1970-1975) opposite Jack Klugman's slovenly Oscar Madison (Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau appeared in the film version) based on the Neil Simon play. Little did I know a decade earlier, Randall was playing the comedic third wheel for Hudson/Day films. In PILLOW TALK, Randall's affluent Jonathan Forbes is the perfect foil. He's in love with Jan, courting her as she remodels his office. Jan only wants a platonic relationship. Jonathan also happens to be an old college buddy and current best friend to Brad who's writing Broadway songs for a musical Jonathan is producing. Brad also is secretly trying to steal Jonathan's object of desire. Randall makes Jonathan a bit of a cad yet enjoyable enough that we still like him even when we celebrate Brad getting Jan instead of him. One of Randall's best loved films is George Pal's fantasy 7 FACES OF DR. LAO (1964) in which Randall plays seven different characters ala Peter Sellers.
A good comedy needs memorable supporting characters and PILLOW TALK provides that. There may not be a better actress to play housekeepers than Thelma Ritter (who definitely could play other roles). Ritter was memorable as James Stewart's housekeeper Stella in Alfred Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW (1954). In PILLOW TALK, Ritter is Day's booze drinking maid Alma and has a running gag with the elevator in Day's apartment building. Ritter would be nominated for six Best Supporting Actress Academy Awards and never won once (Deborah Kerr shares that honor for Best Actress nominations). Nick Adams (MISTER ROBERTS) who plays Tony Walters, the young Lothario who takes Jan home from a client's open house and tries to seduce her in PILLOW TALK was cut in the James Dean looks vein (and even friends with Dean) but not quite Dean's caliber of fame. Still, Adams has some funny, awkward moments as his seduction with Day fails. Tragically, Adams died of an accidental overdose in 1968. Two of my favorite television actors have small parts in PILLOW TALK. Hayden Rorke who plays telephone company manager Mr. Conrad was a regular on TVs I DREAM OF JEANIE from 1965-1970) as the suspicious Dr. Bellows. And the recognizable William Schallert (THE PATTY DUKE SHOW) has a small role as a hotel clerk.
Director Michael Gordon makes some nice creative choices with PILLOW TALK. The use of split screens fits in well with the plot device that our romantic leads share a party line. Gordon can have Brad and Jan bicker with each other on the phone and we see both of them at the same time. When Brad pretends to be Rex Stetson when he meets Jan in person, she has no idea Rex is Brad thanks to the party line. Another nice touch is both characters having inner monologues, a device for romantic comedies where we hear their thoughts. Gordon switches to inner monologues when both characters are together like in a car, trying to figure out their next move in their relationship. Gordon is a director that you (and I) may not have heard of before. Gordon's most famous film before PILLOW TALK was CYRANO DE BERGERAC (1950) with Jose Ferrer in his Academy Award winning performance as the long nosed poet/swordsman. Gordon got caught up in the McCarthy anti-Communist hysteria where he was blacklisted and moved to Australia. After making one film Down Under, Gordon returned to the U.S. as McCarthyism faded. PILLOW TALK would be his first and best post blacklist film.
Some final PILLOW TALK trivia tidbits. Doris Day and Thelma Ritter were both nominated for Academy Awards for PILLOW TALK. Neither won. The film would win one Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay by Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin based on a story by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene. Many movie fans (myself included when I was in high school) thought that Rock Hudson was straight and Tony Randall was gay. In reality, Hudson was a closet gay man and Randall was straight. Director Michael Gordon's grandchild is actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt (INCEPTION, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES). To help with Doris Day's transformation into a sex symbol for PILLOW TALK, the filmmakers hired famed costume designer Jean Louis (GILDA) who designed 24 costumes for Day for the film.
PILLOW TALK still will not make my Top Ten favorite films of all kind. But the comedy was better than I expected, eliciting more belly laughs from me than I expected. It draws from Shakespeare plots with one of its lead characters Brad Allen pretending to be someone else to win the affection of the woman he loves who hates his original self. What I didn't realize was that PILLOW TALK helped to change both Rock Hudson and Doris Day's career paths, showing a new side of them that audiences liked. Beloved by millions, PILLOW TALK can add CRAZYFILMGUY as a begrudging fan of this so-called sex comedy from the late 1950s.
