Pillow Talk (DVD)

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Pillow Talk is, without a doubt, one of my favorite films of all time. How good is it? Let me put it to you this way: if it ever came to pass that I had to be stuck on a desert island, with only one film to keep me company, this would be the one. Sure, there are better-made films, perhaps films that are more poignant, philosophical, or enlightening. But there are few that are as comfortable, warm, and inviting as Pillow Talk. This is a natural repeat-viewer, and is coy, intelligently written, excellently-acted, and loads of fun. The most amazing thing is that it is able to be so thoroughly entertaining while still maintaining a level of decorum which makes it suitable for all ages to view. Comedies simply do not get any better than this.

The plot of Pillow Talk revolves around Jan Morrow (Doris Day), an interior decorator with no real time for love in her life. She grudgingly shares a party line with a Mr. Brad Allen (Rock Hudson), a part-time composer and full-time playboy. Jan can never take care of her important business calls, because Brad is always busy wooing women over the telephone. Though they have never actually met face-to-face, she hates him for his inconsiderate phone habits and loose morals, and he dislikes her prudish attitude and impatient and demanding demeanor.

As fate would have it, they each have a common friend in the person of Jonathan Forbes (Tony Randall, in one of his most annoyingly-lovable roles), Jan´s client and would-be boyfriend, and Brad´s old buddy and current employer. Through a series of events, Brad is able to get a look at Jan without her knowledge, and is in love. Well, at least in lust, anyway. Aware of the incredible odds he´s up against in trying to ingratiate himself to Miss Morrow, he instead adopts an alter-ego, Rex Stetson, an oil man from Texas. Using this persona, he is able to meet her, dine her, wine her, and woo her. But, as is the case in most of the best-laid plans, it is only a matter of time before Brad´s house of cards comes tumbling down around him, and he is unmasked.

Pillow Talk was just one of the many films that Doris Day made where mistaken identity was the major theme. In Teacher´s Pet, Clark Gable pulled the wool over her eyes. In Billy Rose´s Jumbo, it was Stephen Boyd that fooled her. Robert Cummings borrowed a false persona in Lucky Me to get to know Doris better. Even Day´s Pillow Talk foil, Rock Hudson, would return again in Lover Come Back to pull a fast one on her. Doris had a lot of practice playing the innocent, put-upon victim, cruelly tricked by dishonest men. Pillow Talk, though, is where she does it best.

It might sound, from the preceding paragraph, that this film would have a certain "been-there-done-that" quality. Though the theme of hidden identities is recurring, Pillow Talk was a landmark film for Day, a turning point in her career. Up until 1959, with rare exception, her roles all seemed to fall into the sweet, loveable, innocent category, and, more likely than not, they would be musical roles of some sort. She was the girl-next-door, the American "every-woman." By 1959, though, her popularity was beginning to wane, and she was not quite bringing in the same box-office bucks that the studios had expected. If Day were to survive into the Sixties as a marketable commodity, she would need to reinvent herself.

Enter Pillow Talk. Doris took on the role of Jan Morrow and surprised the public and the critics alike, resulting in a nomination for Best Actress. (On a related note, the screenplay for Pillow Talk was nominated also, and it won its OscarÔ.) Unlike many of the more passive, innocent roles earlier in her career, her character in Pillow Talk was successful, single, independent, decisive, and in control, while still managing to keep her feminine and chaste side intact. In retrospect, Day´s Jan Morrow almost seems like the template for Mary Tyler Moore´s character of Mary Richards, which would hit television more than a decade later, featuring many of the same traits which made Day stand out so wonderfully in Pillow Talk.