Confidences sur l'oreiller

One of the first (and certainly the most popular) of the early-'60s bedroom comedies--movies about sex that never use the word, relying instead on double entendres, implications and innuendo. A New York City party-line connects a single working girl--a somewhat rigid and humorless interior decorator with a shapely figure--and a bachelor songwriter and ladies' man who has one tune for every new gal. They're enemies on the phone-line only; once he gets a good look at her (or rather, her shimmying behind on the dancefloor of a nightclub), he decides to woo her using the alias of a shy Texas cowboy. In their first of three pictures together, Rock Hudson and Doris Day share fresh, happy chemistry; their love scenes are convincing--Hudson is a great kisser--and soon Day is singing "Possess Me" to herself on the car-ride with Hudson to his pal's country hideaway. Tony Randall (who also appeared with Hudson and Day in both 1961's "Lover Come Back" and 1964's "Send Me No Flowers") and Thelma Ritter are equally terrific, and the picture has a lovely, cocktail lounge-styled plastic-perkiness which is very winning. With the advent of '60s permissiveness on the screen, "Pillow Talk" (with it's winking, nudge-nudge 'naughtiness') soon looked coy and antiquated; however, it holds up nicely today. Five Oscar nominations--including Day as Best Actress (her only such nomination!)--with one win: for Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin's original screenplay from an initial treatment by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene. *** from ****

In New York, the interior decorator Jan Morrow (Doris Day) and the wolf composer Brad Allen (Rock Hudson) share a party line, but Brad keeps it busy most of the time flirting with his girlfriends. They do not know each other but Jan hates Brad since she needs the telephone for her business and can not use it.

Coincidently Jan's wealthy client Jonathan Forbes (Tony Randall) that woos her is the best friend of Brad and he comments with him that he feels an unrequited love for Jan, who is a gorgeous woman. When Brad meets Jan by chance in a restaurant, he poses as a naive tourist from Texas named Rex Stetson and seduces her. But Jonathan hires a private eye to find who Rex Stetson is.

"Pillow Talk" is a delightful romantic comedy that improved my Saturday afternoon. This is the first time that I watch this movie and Doris Day and Rock Hudson show a great chemistry. But Thelma Ritter steals the movie in the role of the alcoholic housemaid Alma. The gags with the nurse and the obstetrician are also hilarious. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Confidências à Meia-Noite" ("Confidences at Midnight")

By 1958, Doris Day's career was on the downslide and something drastic needed to be done to revive her career. 1959'S PILLOW TALK redefined Doris' image and created an entirely new genre of the "will she or won't she" sex comedy as well as introducing one of the greatest romantic screen couplings in history...Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Day plays Jan Morrow, an interior decorator who shares her phone line with Brad Allen (Hudson) a song-writing playboy who ties up Doris' phone by singing love songs (actually the same song) over the phone to the parade of women in his life. Day's attempts to get a private phone line fail and she and Hudson begrudgingly come up with a system to share the phone which Hudson doesn't stick to. Tony Randall plays Jonathan Forbes, a rich playboy who is a client of Doris' and Rock's best friend, who is crazy about Doris but she doesn't feel the same way. One night, Brad discovers Jan at a nightclub and knowing she already hates him, pretends to be a wealthy Texan in order to romance her and this is where the fun begins. Yes, the story is dated because party lines are virtually a thing of the past but it is the linchpin upon which this story delightfully plays out. Director Michael Gordon cleverly uses split-screen images to put Doris and Rock together on screen in seemingly compromising positions, very adult for 1959 and watching Brad pretending to be cowboy Rex Stetson, trying to romance Jan while Brad tries to advise Jan over the phone about what a cad Rex is, is a lot of fun. Day lights up the screen here, in a luminous performance that earned her her first and only Oscar nomination. Hudson, previously only seen in dramatic films up to this point, turns out to be gifted farceur and interviews in his later years, always credited Doris for teaching him how to do comedy. Randall is comic perfection as Jonathan as is Thelma Ritter, who was also nominated for an Oscar for her work as Jan's housekeeper. A delight from start to finish that introduced a new movie couple that would give Fred and Ginger and Spenceer and Kate a run for their money.

This hugely enjoyable romantic comedy from the late 1950s teamed Doris Day with Rock Hudson and struck gold. They'd team for three films in all, but this is the best of them.

Doris Day plays an interior decorator who finds she's sharing a telephone party line with a womanising songwriter (Hudson) - she finds him unbearable at the end of the phone, but there are definite sparks for the better when they meet for real. He goes about romancing her in the guise of a nice Southern boy and almost succeeds ...

In support are the funny Thelma Ritter and Tony Randall, perfect foils for the glamorous leads. The film zips along with a large amount of charm, certainly helped by the colour and the snappy title song. There are numerous classic scenes to add to the fun but I won't spoil yours until you've seen it. If you've never seen this, lucky you, you've got a treat to look forward to.

So there I was, in my sick-bed when this film comes on. I start to watch, having never seen it before, and to my surprise, find myself laughing...out loud.

I have never really been a fan of either Doris Day or Rock Hudson, but I did enjoy this piece of fluff. And in our modern times when comedies currently released in the cinema can hardly raise a smile, let alone a laugh, I found this a pure delight. So the sexual politics maybe a little outdated, but there were some beautifully timed comedy set-pieces: The moment Doris Day discovers the real identity of Hudson's character has one of the best use of music I have seen in a movie since the Warner Bros cartoons!

A film that I didn't think I would enjoy, but was completely bowled over by.