The Doris Day and Rock Hudson Comedy Collection

Hollywood screen couple Doris Day and Rock Hudson light up the screen with laughter in three delightful comedy gems! Join them as they fall in, out, and back in love again in a series of misadventures including Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back and Send Me No Flowers. Co-starring the hilarious Tony Randall, The Doris Day and Rock Hudson Comedy Collection captures one of cinema's most popular and enduring couples at their very best!

Incomparable comedies of their time, now sadly neglected

(Of course, not everyone has neglected these movies. So if you're already familiar with PILLOW TALK and LOVER COME BACK, feel free to skip this paragraph.) In 1959 Ross Hunter's production of PILLOW TALK hit the screens, and in what TIME magazine called "the World Series of sex" paired Doris Day and Rock Hudson in a romantic farce in a sophisticated milieu (NYC interior decorating), based on a confusion-of-identity perpetuated by Rock's character. Miss Day was just entering the period where she was America's top movie actress, and once their respective schedules finally clicked, the duo was re-united for LOVER COME BACK in 1962. It too is set in a sophisticated milieu (NYC advertising) and the plot depends on confusion-of-identity, yada yada. But the fans loved it. I do too, because IMHO it's just as irresistible as PILLOW TALK.

Fewer people are familiar with SEND ME NO FLOWERS (1964), the third and final installment of the Day/Hudson coupling. As in the first two flicks, Tony Randall appears as the best friend, but otherwise this is a very different scenario. Set in sunny Southern California, Hudson's character is cast against type as a neurotic hypochonrdiac who mistakenly believes his death is imminent, whereupon he starts trying to fix up his wife (Day) with a suitably studly companion for after he's gone.

Enter Clint Walker, six foot seven inches of American masculinity, a financial success who drives what's probably the most uncircumsized automobile ever to come out of Great Britain: the original Jaguar XKE. There's a world of comically sexual subtext going during the first time Doris and Rock break bread with Clint: "You mean your company makes those little bitty transistors?" -- nothing to stir the censorship code still in effect but fun to decode nonetheless.

Later in the Sixties, Doris Day's then-husband Marty Melcher put her in a steadily declining series of comedy vehicles, and by the late 1960s Doris Day was no longer at the top of her profession. But SEND ME NO FLOWERS excels, even if it isn't quite in the PILLOW TALK/LOVER COME BACK stratosphere. In my opinion, getting all three movies together is the canny and cheap thing to do!

June 24, 2008

Doris Day collection

I will always love the Doris Day movies and this selection was no exception. I enjoyed the movies and the format and viewing was excellent. June 8, 2008

The Doris Day and Rock Hudson Comedy Collection

Pillow Talk

"You're my inspiration..."

Jan Morrow (Doris Day) is an interior decorator that relies on her telephone for business. Brad Allen (Rock Hudson) is a songwriter who relies on his telephone for monkey business. Turns out that they both share the same party line. Yep you saw it coming. Unknown to either of them, the Broadway producer that Brad is writing for, Jonathan Forbes (Tony Randall), is as close to love with Doris day as he was with his previous wives. Putting two and two together, rock Hudson realizes that his party line antagonist is a blonde cutie.

Knowing that he does not have a chance with her if he reveals his true identity, he takes on Texas persona (Rex Stetson.) Will this work? Will Tony Randall find out? Better still will Doris day find out the truth? Will decorating sense prevail? This could get ugly.
Look for the split screen scenes while they are talking on the phone. And Doris gets a chance to sing.
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Lover Come Back

Just a touch maaam

This is an explosive tale. Rock and Doris are rival advertising execs with different approaches to doing business. Carol Templeton (Doris) thinks Jerry Webster (Rock) is unethical in his business practices and while trying to catch him at it is also trying to steel his next account. Jerry on the other hand is just trying to catch Carol and parries her attack with the VIP girl. While he is occupied with the chase, Peter 'Pete' Ramsey proceeds to sell VIP. Things just heat up from there.

My favorite part is where Tony Randall uses a moose call and gets what he wants.
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Send Me No Flowers

A good Day film

This film can also be found as part of the Doris day collection. Not the best one in the collection but still a great comedy with Doris Day Tony Randall and Rock Hudson. The husband (Rock Hudson) over hears the doctors conversation and knows he is dying. He is a hypochondriac. Little did he know he overheard the wrong conversation. Now he has to find his wife (Doris Day) another husband.
May 26, 2008

Great comic music!

From PILLOW TALK: Brad Allen (Rock Hudson) sings to his clueless and entirely-too-willing date "You are my inspiration...(memory lapse followed by relief as he remembers her name)..., Marie."

The script is brilliant. Great direction. Perfect pacing. Very witty split-screen work. All the acting is inspired, too - lead and supporting both.

But what I really want to say is that the music in that film and the other two in this collection is just fabulous - and I mean beyond the songs. Maybe the best comedy scoring I've ever heard outside of the outrageously exaggerated stuff that Carl Stalling did for the WB cartoons from the 1930s through the late 50s. Frank DeVol does a running musical commentary on the lunatic activity on the screen and, without fail, heightens the comedic effect. I don't know anyone better at this. The legendary film composers are not legendary because of their work in comedies. Jerry Goldsmith did some memorable comedy scores. One of his best was THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS (1966) and I see on IMDB that DeVol assisted with that one. How fitting! John Williams has done a few - I think first of HOME ALONE. Andre Previn (GIGI, IRMA LA DOUCE, MY FAIR LADY) was very good . Mancini was known for comedies but not really for comedic writing. I think Devol might be the best ever and he not only did all three films in this collection, but also THE THRILL OF IT ALL and THE GLASS-BOTTOM BOAT, too. There's a real Doris Day connection here.

All three films are presented widescreen (rather than in that disgraceful pan-and-scan butchering). A real value! May 9, 2008

Day & Hudson Comedy Collection

Very Very Very nice & respectable movies , thanks to every one from all of the stuf makes this dream April 24, 2008

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