Pillow Talk (1959) - film review

The only thing that Jan Morrow and Brad Allen have in common is that they share a telephone line.  This is a constant source of annoyance to Jan who, trying to make a living as an interior designer, is tired of overhearing Brad’s attempts to seduce every eligible young woman in New York over the phone.  As well as being an inveterate Don Juan, Brad is a successful songwriter, whose patron, Jonathan Forbes, just happens to be one of Jan’s clients.  Jonathan is madly in love with Jan, but she has no interest in him.  She is saving herself for the right man.  As luck would have it, the right man could well be Brad.  As soon as Jan sets eyes on the womanising songwriter, she knows that she is in love.  Brad decides to have some fun and, by adopting a Texan accent so that Jan will not recognise his voice, he sets about making his next conquest.  Just how will Jan react when she discovers that her beau idéal is in fact the loathsome worm who has been monopolising her phone line?

This intelligently scripted yet deliriously funny romantic comedy marked the first screen pairing of Doris Day and Rock Hudson, a winning combination that enhanced the standing of both performers and allowed them to command some of the highest salaries in Hollywood.  Even if you didn’t know that Hudson was a closet homosexual, his scenes with Day look highly suspect, yet the chemistry between the two actors is just right, witty and tender, with just a subtle undercurrent of sadomasochism.  The film is to be noted for its imaginative use of split-screen, which allowed the two principals to appear together on screen in some highly suggestive scenes that might otherwise have been excised by the censor.   

Day and Hudson may have been given top-billing for this film but the star is undoubtedly Thelma Ritter, who steals just about every scene she appears in.  The sequence in which she drinks Rock Hudson under the table whilst giving him dubiously helpful advice on his love life is the funniest the film has to offer.  Did the screenwriters know that their lead male actor was gay, or is it just pure coincidence that Hudson’s rival, Tony Randall, should try to convince Doris Day that lover boy is not the marrying kind?  Whatever, this charming trio would be back for more romantic hi-jinks, dolling out the laughs and the tears in the equally watchable Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964).

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