Pillow Talk (Doris Day, Rock Hudson)

(Amazon UK link)

A few months ago we were offered first refusal on a large number of DVDs belonging to an elderly friend, who was downsizing. Most of them were classics. We accepted about twenty, thinking they would be interested to watch even though we had never heard of most of them. The one we decided to watch last night was ‘Pillow Talk’, a film from 1959 although it was in colour. 

Doris Day stars as Jan, an independent young woman who works as an interior designer in New York. She lives in an apartment where she’s quite comfortable, with just one problem. Her telephone is on a ‘party line’ with a man called Brad Allen, who is a serial womaniser. A tad ironic, perhaps, that Brad is played by Rock Hudson, whom I had not heard of until the 1980s when he died.

Jan needs her phone for business calls, but every time she picks it up, she hears Brad flirting with another woman. He works as a songwriter, and tells each woman that she is his inspiration. Jan becomes more and more annoyed, even going to the phone company to see if they can do something about it.

What she doesn’t know is that Brad is close friends with Jonathan (Tony Randall), one of her clients. Jonathan is very keen on Jan, and keeps trying to persuade her that she should marry him. He really doesn’t want Brad to meet Jan due to his reputation for attracting every personable woman around…

When Brad spots Jan with Jonathan, he is very drawn to her. So when he meets her again he adopts a completely different persona, that of a country hick from Texas who always behaves like a gentleman. Rock Hudson does this switch extremely well, and there’s plenty of humour in the way he gently woos Jan…

Of course there’s the inevitable discovery of his treachery, and an eventual happy (if rather rapid) conclusion after she has taken unusual revenge. But it’s a good story, light-hearted and somewhat ridiculous but the ‘comedy of errors’ situation is well done. There are even extra amusing scenes when Brad takes refuge in places where he shouldn’t have been. And there are also humorous incidents involving Jan’s maid Alma (Thelma Ritter) who is outspoken, and has a drinking problem. We didn’t laugh aloud, but we both smiled several times. 

As a light-hearted evening’s viewing, it worked well. The acting is, of course, American 1950s style, rather caricatured and unrealistic. But that didn’t matter. We didn’t have any trouble with the accents, as I sometimes do with American films, but then the New York accent is quite mild. 

There are several songs in the film, but it’s not a musical. Nobody stops the action to break out into singing and dancing. Instead some of the songs are those written by Brad, and some are sung in a bar or elsewhere. They add to the film in a positive way, I thought. 

I was a little surprised that the rating for this film is PG. Although there’s no nudity or anything overt, there are a lot of innuendoes and implications. The main story, after all, involves Brad attempting to get Jan into bed without her knowing who he is. There’s also an unpleasant scene where a young man tries repeatedly to assault her in a car, and another where, due to a misunderstanding, another character is punched in the face. 

It’s not something I would want to show to children or teens, but then I can’t imagine that this would be of the slightest interest to anyone under the age of at least fifteen or sixteen. 

Recommended if you like rather risqué lightweight1950s American comedies.

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews