From 1959, today's movie is Pillow Talk, a romantic comedy starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson with Tony Randall.
Jan Morrow (Day) is a successful, self-reliant interior decorator in New York City. She's professes to be happy with her life save for one significant irritant, the party line that she shares with Brad Allen (Hudson), Broadway composer who lives in a nearby apartment building. Brad is also a playboy, seducing a nearly endless series of women and keeping the party line busy as he woos each woman with a song he wrote just for her. (Yeah, it's the same song.)
So Jan is pissed at Brad for hogging the party line all damn day to seduce women.
Brad is pissed at Jan for not shutting up about the damn party line. Doesn't she have anything better to do?
So how is this movie gonna get these two crazy kids to fall in love?
Well, that's where Jonathan Forbes (Randall) comes in. Jonathan is a millionaire who frequently employs Jan for various interior decorating jobs because he's crazy mad in love with her but he's not her type. He even buys her a new car but NOPE! Yep, he's a millionaire who can buy a girl a car like it's nothing and he still can't get laid?
Meanwhile in a very useful contrivance of the plot, Jonathan is also Brad's friend and Broadway benefactor, laying out dough for Brad's next show.
So it comes to pass that Brad sees Jan at a night club. He hears her voice and knows it's that crazy woman on the phone. So Brad approaches Jan with a Texas accent and introduces himself as "Rex Stetson", wealthy Texas rancher in town for a little while on business.
Believe it or not...
This works.
Jan is just totally smitten with sweet dear "Rex" as they go on several dates where "Rex" is the perfect gentleman.
Maybe too perfect a gentleman? Jan wonders why "Rex" hasn't made a pass at her. During one of their party line chats, Brad suggests to Jan that "Rex" might be gay.
Jonathan discovers about Brad's masquerade as "Rex" gives Brad an ultimatum: "Rex" needs to go back to Texas and Brad needs to finish writing the damn musical Jonathan is paying for. Jonathan has a cabin in Connecticut and orders Brad to go there and finish his songs.
But "Rex" tells Jan he has a friend who has a cabin in Connecticut and invites Jan to spend the weekend with him.
Jan's happy! She's surely gonna get laid now!
Brad is happy! "Rex" is gonna get laid!
Except....
Once at the cabin, Jan discovers a sheet of paper in "Rex's" coat pocket. It's sheet music and when she plunks out the chords on a piano, she's horrified to realize...
It's that damn song that jerk Brad Allen seduces all those women with and...
"Rex Stetson" is Brad Allen?!?!
Son of a bitch!!!
Jonathan comes to Jan's rescue from the cabin to drive her back to New York City!
Jan is super pissed off at Brad! Damned straight she is and she has every right to be!
Meanwhile, Brad is a depressed sad sack. Whatever game he was playing at as "Rex" backfired.
Brad loves Jan. Awww!
Long story made short, Jan gets back at Brad, then falls for the big lug anyway and a time jump at the end of movie has Brad excited that he's going to be a father!
Ka-Ching! Legally sanctioned hetero-normative missionary intercourse has been achieved!
By the mid to late 1950's, American cinephiles had discovered a new kind of movie experience with European films where attitudes towards sex were a lot more relaxed. Human sensuality was something to be admired, enjoyed, freely expressed.
Gee, wondered American movie fans wondered, why can't we have more of that?
Well, the Motion Picture Production Code (AKA the Hays Code) was still the moral arbiter of what was and was not allowed in American films. But American studios, desperate to lure people away from the nascent medium of television, understood that sex sells. The quandry was how to have a movie about sex without any actual sex?
The answer is Pillow Talk.
Pillow Talk is one of a series of movies that followed a certain template as the 1950's gave way to the 1960's. You start with a young woman, beautiful (of course) and self supporting in some kind of high end profession who is perfectly happy without a man. Introduce her to a smooth talking guy who has had a lot of success with women... except this one! She loathes him! He's gotta have her!! Let the game of secrets, deception and seduction begin which leads to love! Awww!
It's a movie about sex without sex.
Well, that is that for this weekend.
The weekend comes around again with twin movie posts for Cinema Saturday and Cinema Sunday.
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