Lover Come Back

Classic Day/Hudson sex comedy, with the two playing battling ad execs. This one is very funny and well paced, with the usual battles and confusion between Day's gullible virgin and Hudson's charming cad.

What struck me most about this movie was exactly what an awful, awful person Hudson plays. An interesting aspect of movies of this time is how many of them feature male characters who have no morals or scruples, but even by the standards of the time Jerry Webster seems particularly odious. And for me this is what makes this movie 7-star instead of 8-star. Because the movie insists that you have some sympathy for his character. If he were not played by a charming handsome guy no one would have sympathy for him. He deserves a horse-whipping. He doesn't get one, alas, but the movie is quite funny.

In New York, Madison Avenue is the center of advertising world and like in a beehive, divided in workers and drones. Carol Templeton (Doris Day) is a professional that has just arrived from Omaha, Nebraska, to work in the Bracket, McGalpin & Gaines Advertising expecting to be a winner through hard work. The unethical Jerry Webster (Rock Hudson) works in the Ramsey & Son and entertains his clients with sexy women, bribe and booze to ensure contracts for his agency.

When the Southern J. Paxton Miller (Jack Oakie) comes to New York to close the contract of the Cera Miller account, Carol prepares a presentation to the old man. However, Jerry wins the account bringing Miller to a nightclub with strippers, booze and a party later in his penthouse with the strippers led by Rebel Davis (Edie Adams).

Carol is upset and goes to the advertising council to throw Jerry out of the advertising business. However, Jerry lures Rebel, who is going to testify against him, offering the position of VIP girl in TV commercials for the new product VIP. Then he asks the team to not broadcast but only file the footages since VIP that does not exist. However, the insecure Peter 'Pete' Ramsey (Tony Randall), who has inherited the Ramsey & Son, orders a massive advertising campaign broadcasting the commercials to show himself off to his employees. In order to save his job and the agency, Jerry hires Doctor Linus Tyler (Jack Kruschen), who is a lonely man, to develop VIP.

Meanwhile, Carol decides to take the VIP account for her agency and she visits Dr. Tyler. However, she meets Jerry instead and believes that he is the famous scientist awarded with the Nobel Prize. Now Carol wants to convince Dr. Tyler to come to her agency and the cynical Jerry uses the situation to seduce Carol.

"Lover Come Back" is really a delightful and witty romantic comedy, with a funny story and a great screenplay that was awarded with the 1962 Oscar. Tony Randall is hilarious and his insecure character is among the funniest I have ever seen. Rock Hudson and Doris Day are excellent, showing magnificent chemistry. The two guys that stumble with Jerry Webster everywhere are also very funny. My only remark is to the disappointing rushed ending that gives the sensation that something is missing and makes Carol Templeton a stereotype of the women in the 50's and 60's. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Volta Meu Amor" ("Come Back My Love")

In New York's Fifth Avenue 'hive' of advertising agencies, the executives are either 'workers' or 'drones'. The former are industrious and diligent (and female), and the latter (the men) get by on wining and dining their clients. Carol Templeton is very much a worker, and she resents losing an account to Jerry Webster, the drone of all drones. One of Jerry's schemes (should that be 'scams'?) is the invention of "Vip", a non-existent commodity. He markets the new product so successfully that Vip becomes an overnight sensation. Throw in a severe case of mistaken identity, a nutty professor and a bungled seduction, and you have all the ingredients for a pleasant and well-constructed romantic comedy.

This was the second of the three Day-Hudson movies, and probably the best. Tony Randall is consistently funny as Peter Ramsey, the ineffectual company boss. Day does the humour very well, even if the main part of her duties is to pull a series of exasperated faces. There's a good split-screen graphic and a funny moose joke. Rock's woollen suit is amusing, and I liked the witty conclusion to the aquarium scene. Just one thought - why is Doris's hair so resiliently bouffant immediately after she steps out of the sea?

Everybody knows now that Rock Hudson was gay, but it goes without saying that this was far from universally acknowledged back in 1961. Is it my imagination, or does the film contain a vein of subtle "Rock-is-one-of-those" drollery? He makes a tongue in cheek speech to Doris, telling her that he can never be a real man to her. When the effeminate co-worker informs Doris that he has a lilac carpet in his apartment, she does a highly significant double-take. Rock keeps saying things like "I am not undersexed!" He tells Doris that he's taking her in - is he doing the same to the movie audience?

Finally, given that no lovers part, and indeed there ARE no lovers in the entire film, one wonders about the choice of title ...

Of the three Rock Hudson-Doris Day films my absolute favorite is Lover Come Back. It's not only a good sex comedy for Doris and Rock, but it's also a very funny satire on the advertising business of Madison Avenue.

In Pillow Talk Doris was an interior decorator and Rock a songwriter. They haven't changed their characters at all, but now are both in the advertising business.

Through an incredible combination of circumstances I couldn't possibly write Rock has created commercials for a product that doesn't exist and the doofus son of the agency he works for, Tony Randall, has ordered them given full blown airing. With Doris nipping at his heels for unethical practices, Rock and Tony hire a nutty scientist played by Jack Kruschen to come up with some kind of product for the commercials.

In the meantime Doris mistakes Rock for the scientist and now we're back to the plot of Pillow Talk as Rock decides to make some time with Doris. It gets pretty wild and wacky, especially after Kruschen invents something that has some very unforeseen consequences.

All the cast members do just fine in this very bright comedy that has me splitting a gut with laughter every time I see it. In addition to the cast members mentioned, I should also single out Edie Adams as the southern model who Hudson makes the commercials with.

Also to be singled out in what turned out to be his farewell screen performance is Jack Oakie who plays the southern client who Rock steals from Doris and gets all the wacky nonsense started.

Even given the changing mores, Lover Come Back holds up quite well and today's audience will love it as I do.

Some may consider the Rock Hudson / Doris Day comedies of the 50's and 60's to be dated, corny, and sexist to boot but I find them still to be clever and sparklingly funny, and, viewed today, wonderfully innocent. The comic chemistry between Doris Day and Rock Hudson was unique and ranks with other classic pairings such as Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. This movie will always have a nostalgic place in my memory, as it was the first 'adult' comedy I saw. I was fifteen and saw it in Radio City Music Hall with my church youth fellowship group on a trip to New York. My, how risque it seemed! Of note is Jack Oakie's delightful bit as the southern colonel in what turned out to be his last feature film ("Just a tay-uch!")