O Túnel do Amor

The Tunnel of Love ran for 417 performances on Broadway for the 1957-1958 season and starred Tom Ewell and Nancy Olson. It was written by Joseph Fields and repeating their roles from the original production are Elizabeth Fraser and Elizabeth Wilson.

The play didn't survive the journey to Hollywood, mainly because of the horrible miscasting of Richard Widmark as the husband. He and wife Doris Day are trying to either have a child or adopt one whichever comes first. After a night's indiscretion with social worker Gia Scala, Widmark thinks he's the father of her kid and when she hits him up for a loan, that seems to clinch the deal.

Widmark was in a role that should either have gone to Dean Martin or Glenn Ford. In their screen roles I've seen aspects of Augie Poole's character that would have fit Dino or Glenn easily. But in Widmark's hands it drops like a lead bassinet.

Best in this film is Gig Young playing one of his male lead best friend types he started perfecting around this time. It seemed for a while like you couldn't make a domestic screen comedy that either he or Tony Randall weren't in playing the same kind of parts. He took over from Darren McGavin who did the part of the wolfish playboy neighbor on Broadway whose growing family doesn't slow him down in the hanky panky department a bit.

My guess is that Widmark was trying to expand his range a bit. The best comedy effort in his career was on the I Love Lucy Show and there he was just a foil for the movie star struck Lucy Ricardo.

Doris was all right in her part, but she certainly did much better work with Rock Hudson who also would have been good casting as the male lead.

Best thing about The Tunnel of Love. Doris sang and recorded the title song that's sung over the opening credits. If the rest of the film had been as good as the song.

In the groundbreaking romantic drama, Doris Day and Richard Widmark can't have children, and not for lack of trying. Gene Kelly directs this drama that touches on some untouched topics in 1958. In the good ol' days, there was a blackout after a wedding scene and the next shot opened on a bassinet. Now, in the last years of the Hays Code, Doris and Dick openly discuss ovulation cycles, how to track them, and what to do when it's the right time. It was very scandalous at the time.

When the gorgeous couple get fed up with waiting for nature to give them a child, they decide to adopt-but how will they cope when the equally gorgeous Gia Scala enters their lives? While the second half of the movie gets a little silly, the first half is very fun to watch. Doris and Dick have great chemistry together, and it's always a treat to watch an old movie in which a married couple has realistic problems. It wasn't very often that classic movies mentioned adoption, surrogacy, and infertility, let alone made an entire movie about them. Plus, through a career playing bad guys and never getting the girl, it's nice that Richard Widmark is the hero of the story, and he starts out already having the girl!

Gene Kelly, who had the reputation of being a butthole, confirmed it by blaming Richard Widmark for the commercial failure of this, Kelly's first non musical as a director, when the culpability should have fallen squarely on the shoulders of the ol song and dance man for helming a movie with all the cinematic quality of a mid level episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Solid C.

PS...I'm noticing that this piece of mediocrity is starting to creep up the TCM Frequent Showing scale. Not quite at "Wait Until Dark" levels but getting there. Let's watch it, all you guys in the programming shop.

Tunnel of Love, The (1958)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

"Comedy" about a happy couple (Richard Widmark, Doris Day) who are struggling to have a kid on their own but their attempts at adoption isn't going any better. Things take a turn for the worse when the husband thinks he might have had an affair and got that woman pregnant. This is a very strange film that never seems to know what it wants to do. I've heard that Day and her husband/manager would often try to force their way on pictures but I have no idea if that's what happened here. She pretty much plays a supporting role here but her character is so strange, as is the story and some of the casting, that you can understand why this thing didn't do too well at the box office. A lot of the reviews I read bash the casting of Widmark in a "comedy" when he's best at playing "dark gangsters" and that sort. I think that is far from the truth and I think it's the offbeat casting that actually keeps the film watchable. Widmark is certainly best known for his tough guy roles but I thought he was rather fun here simply because we don't get the chance to see him as a pushover and someone who actually has a lot of fears. The early scene with him coming home exhausted and fearing his wife and her need for sex (for the baby) was very funny and I thought Widmark played it well. Sure, it was a little forced seeing him playing such a weak person but I found it to be funny and charming. Day, on the other hand, appears to be going through the motions as she never really gets going in the picture. She doesn't come off very funny and her character at times, especially at the end, becomes quite annoying. Gia Scala is very good in her role of woman Widmark fears he has pregnant. Gig Young is also very delightful in the role of Widmark's friend who has all the kids and plenty of girlfriends on the side. The screenplay is all over the place but I found it's look at sexuality and moral issues pretty frank for 1958 and maybe this was another reason it didn't go over too well. The film isn't a classic and it's not even a good one but I think fans of Widmark will at least get some smile out of seeing him playing a character like this.

I hadn't seen this film since it was first released, and had forgotten most of its content. I received a copy of it recently as a belated birthday gift (I'm between 30 and death-closer to death!) and, unlike the writer from Washington, I found this film to be a rather adult and mature approach to a sensitive topic, interspersed with moments of gentle and/or imagined calamity. I feel that there is a touch of the "film noir" here. By the way, what's wrong with a "stagy" effort? It works for this ol' English and Dramatic Arts Teacher! I feel that this was a rather good piece of work for Doris at that time, and stands well after all these years. That was one of the good things about Doris; give her a role and it became uniquely hers. I hope she will delight us all and involve herself in some new film work!