CMBA Guilty Pleasures Movie Blogathon: Lover Come Back (1961)

This was my guilty pleasures choice. This isn't my favourite Doris Day/Rock Hudson film, but the other two, Pillow Talk (1959) and Send Me No Flowers (1964) - in my opinion - are actually really fantastic films. This one... not so fantastic but great fun to watch and I do get that great, guilty, "I shouldn't be laughing at this.. But I am and I will," feeling. Love.

Now, Doris Day and Rock Hudson are two of my very favourites. You probably know, as I'm always protesting that Doris Day is just as good dramatically as she is comically and this film just seemed like a good idea. I came across it in the Doris Day collection that we have and it was the last of the Day/Hudson ones for us to watch. Lover Come Back was directed by Delbert Mann. If you don't know the plot, here is a brief summary.

Madison avenue advertising executives Jerry Webster and Carol Templeton have very different attitudes to their work. At least that's one way to put it. Jerry gains accounts by wining (and other slightly stronger spirits) and dining and partying with his guests so that they love him so much that they sign. Carol, on the other hand, likes to work the morally and intellectually correct way. She gains the clients by working hard.

But when Jerry steals one too many accounts from her firm, she decides to take drastic action. She takes a case accusing him of immoral conduct to the advertising council. Carol sends one of Jerry's "chorus girls" to the council to testify that he is a rat, but at the same time, he has just bribed her to tell them he is amazing by putting her in a commercial advertising 'VIP', a product that doesn't exist.

Everything seems to be going fine when suddenly - while on holiday in the mountains with his neurotic boss, Peter Ramsay - he finds out that Ramsay gave leave for the company to start showing the commercials. And suddenly everyone wants VIP! And of course it doesn't exist. So pooling their brian power (and funds...) they hire a genius chemist to create a miracle product to be VIP. But in the meantime, Carol Templeton has heard about the fact that they have the account of a product everyone wants, so she hires a private detective to find out what is afoot. She goes to the chemist's house/laboratory to find out what's going on. And having never seen Jerry Webster before, she mistakes him for the chemist, who happens to be out looking for something! She ends up taking the "innocent genius" under her wing and falling in love with him... What will happen when she finds out that he is Jerry Webster? And what will happen when they find out - after consuming many - that VIP is actually a sweet that turns into pure alcohol when it hits the bloodstream?

This is actually a crazy film. There aren't many other ways to describe it. It couldn't be called emotionally deep, or culturally significant or anything. And I love it. I think that the film is fantastic in its own little funky ways now and again. My personal favourite scene is the oner where Jerry and Pete go up to the mountains to stay in Pete's lodge and they go canoeing on a lake and Pete keeps blowing a horn which he says is, "the mating call of the moose!". He intends to attract the moose and then take its picture, but the plan goes a little awry when the moose starts stalking them across the lake...

Now my spin (hopefully the general spin taken...) to this blogathon was that we should blog not only about why the film is good or bad, but about why we in particular love the film ourselves.

I love this film for several reasons. One of them being its sheer velocity. It just keeps going at a fast pace that keeps the slightly strange plot seeming reasonable. This mainly being because you don't have time to question anything or go, "Wait... A moose just chased them through a lake... Why are they suddenly back on Madison Avenue with beards..."

It's pretty risque for the early sixties. I thought this insane kind of film only started being made during the mid-late sixties. The main scenes like this are one scene where Doris Day and Rock Hudson go to a strip club and another where Rock Hudson is trying to make her follow him into his room by stating his insecurities and making her comfort him. At one point during this scene he exclaims, "A kiss? What does that prove? It's like finding out you can light a stove. It doesn't make you a cook!" But throughout the film there are little remarks and comments which do make you think a little. The ending is also quite out there. After waking up in a motel room married, Rock Hudson and Doris Day have a big fight and she states that she is going to get an annulment. But 9 months later her secretary calls him to a hospital to re-marry her because she is about to give birth. As they and the vicar enter the maternity ward, a passing doctor says, "Now that's what I call close!"

Now, I will just have to dedicate a little section here to Tony Randall.

I don't think I've ever expressed it before on my blog, but I adore Tony Randall. I will watch anything with him in. And every time I watch Send Me No flowers a little piece of me dies inside because he is Rock Hudson's next door neighbour. Not mine. Life has never been so unfair. He is just spot on all the time. His timing is spot on. His facial expressions are also spot on (in this, his face actually becomes purple and blue). There is this bit where they are in the canoe rowing back to shore and Jerry tells him that there is no VIP and he just goes, "HNGAHH!" And it sounds like a moose call! LOL! Super amazing. I also love where he comes down atop the elevator after becoming highly intoxicated by mint candies and yells "I'M KING OF THE ELEVATOR!" A phrase that my sister and I seem to have strangely coined as a joint catchphrase... Don't ask. I don't know.

{Sorry for the bad GIF quality!}

And the chemistry between Rock Hudson and Doris Day is great as always. Plus, this time Rock Hudson has a beard and is generally pretty cool, until you realize his character is an idiot. But you know, it's Rock Hudson, so it's all good.

Just as a last note, Doris Day's outfits and entire wardrobe in Lover Come Back are pretty beautiful (and if you have seen this film. Yes. We are ignoring the tasseled cone beach hat).

There are some great 60s dresses and coats and things for her. This and Bewitched (obviously along with other films) are the main basis for the Mad Men costume designers, I swear. I actually haven't seen the series, but even if they weren't very good, at least they brought 50s styles back into fashion!  They were designed by "Irene". One of those costume design companies which has only a first name... No second... Like "Adrian". Who are these people?

Overall it is a very silly film. If you have a low nonsense tolerance don't put yourself through it. But if you love Doris Day and Rock Hudson and Tony Randall and will watch almost anything for these three actors (*Cough* My family *cough*. Who said that?) then definitely give it a try. It's a total laugh a minute flick!

This is my contribution to the Classic Movie Blog Association Guilty Pleasures Movie Blogathon. Head over to their site to read some of the other great reviews!

~Bette

Teacher's Pet (1958)

{All Teacher's Pet graphics in this post were made by me. Not photos, only graphics. Feel free to use them, but I'd be grateful for a credit!}

I have recently been having a ball making GIFs on a this graphic maker site, and when I watched Teacher's Pet I had a complete field day making GIFs from it. As you can see, Clark Gable's double takes just had to be immortalized in GIF form. Forever. Full stop. {Ignore the man walking past who looks like he has been abducted by aliens, I am not an experience graphics maker.}

So, yes - I just love this film! My goodness, everything about it is just beyond amazing. And I just watched It Happened One Night so I am still in a "Dear Mr. Gable" phase. But then I looked on wikipedia and found out he was 57 when he made this movie and Doris Day was in her thirties... But who cares. HE IS CLARK GABLE!!!

The film is about this tough, wisecracking newspaper editor, James Ganon (sound familiar? :-D) who hates education. He never even got to high school, but he takes it in his stride and promotes experience against education. One day, a journalism teacher writes him a letter requesting him to talk to her class. Needless to say he is furious and writes her a letter that includes phrases like, "When you are the editor of a major New York paper the job leaves you little time for such pleasantries as the canning of crab-apples, tours around Rockerfeller Centre and visits to journalism classes." But when he visits the class to apologise under the order of his superiors he sees the teacher, Erica Stone (or in other words, Doris Day).

He pretends to be a wallpaper salesman and after submitting one great story in class (he should be writing them, he is a professional journalist!) he gets other bright sparks at his paper to write assignments for him.

"He's a phsycologist!"

He realizes that the affections of Erica Stone are being taken by psychologist, Hugo Pine (Gig Young) so he tries to make her jealous by knowing more than him. They meet at a nightclub where Ganon's girlfriend is singing. Ganon and Hugo Pine end up spiking each other's drinks until finally Hugo collapses. I won't tell you any more for fear of ruining the end.

I can't believe this is such a little known film! It is so hilarious and clever. The script was written by director, Garson Kanin's brother and his wife, Micheal and Kay Kanin. It won the Academy Award it so rightfully deserved. You all know how I feel about Clark Gable and Doris Day, but the performance that always really stands out for me is Gig Young's performance as Hugo Pine.

Not many people know all that much about Gig Young, and I've only seen him in this and Young At Heart. I know he was married to Bewitched (which is the best TV show ever, do not try and deny it) star Elizabeth Montgomery. His comic timing is sheer genius. The scene in the club where he starts playing the bongo is one of the funniest things I've seen in my life.

The other star performance is from Mamie Van Doren, the Marilyn Monroe wannabe. She turns a relatively small role as Clark Gable's girlfriend into one of the key parts of the scene.

I have practically grown up with this film, as it's a favourite of my parents.

Recently in my English class we have been doing gothic novels and watching lots of movies. The last one we watched was Kenneth Braghnah's Frankenstein *shudder*. What happened to real gothic films! Wuthering Heights (1939), Rebecca (1940), Jane Eyre (1944) and Great Expectations (1946)? Or just plain reading a book! The best ones we've seen so far though, have been an animation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart" narrated by the spectacular James Mason:

And today we saw the beginning of The House On Haunted Hill (1959). Vincent Price officially freaks me out. It really depressed me that when the teacher put on the 1931, Boris Karloff + Basil Rathbone version of Frankenstein children in my class moaned and cried "But it's in black and white!" :-( One girl even hid under the table and I asked her what she was doing and she said "It's in black and white. I won't watch it." The teacher also thought it was made in the 50s... A little weird as they are all decked out in thirties outfits and the film quality really looks old... Rant over. Go watch this film now!

~Bette
P.S. I'm so grateful to all the bloggers who are tagging me from their Stylish Blog Award posts! At the moment I have counted three tags, and the last one I read was from Meredith at Forever Classics, so there is your link, Meredith! You have a great blog :-)

Happy Birthday: Rod Taylor!

Rod Taylor (11 January 1930), first American appearance bit role was in, The Catered Affair. His continued high profile support roles in major pictures such as, Giant(1956), Raintree County(1957) and Separate Tables (1958).

Some of my favorite films are also some of Taylor's best-known films: The Time Machine (1960). A British science fiction film based on the novel of the same name written by H. G. Wells. The story is about a man living in 1895 in England who builds a time-travelling machine which he uses to travel to the future. The film starred Rod Taylor, Alan Young and Yvette Mimieux.

As George, Rod Taylor's performance makes George believable as a explorer/adventurer which takes the viewer along with him for the ride into the future. Taylor, is a wonderful actor and this maybe the role he will be best remembered.

Fun Facts:

Director George Pal, was a friend of animator Walter Lantz. As tribute, Pal wanted to include Woody Woodpecker references in all his films. In the scenes where the Eloi are having a good time, every now and then you can distinctly hear the "Woody Woodpecker" laugh.

During the air raid scene, as everyone is rushing into the shelter a little girl crossing the street stops to pick something up that she dropped. When she does, you can see she picks up a small Woody Woodpecker doll.

The plaque on the control panel of time machine reads "Manufactured by H George Wells."




Alfred Hitchcock's, The Birds (1963). Where, Taylor starred as Mitch Brenner, a man whose hometown of Bodega Bay and family home in the Northern California town come under attack from flocks of birds for no reason. Hitchcock has made many great films, and this certainly is one of my favorites.

I was amazed of how carefully Hitchcock builds the suspense in this movie. You watch the birds perching and not moving, as they are waiting and preparing for their next attack....



Another favorite Rod Taylor film of mine is: The Glass Bottom Boat,(1966) romantic/comedy. Directed by Frank Tashlin. Cast: Doris Day and Rod Taylor.

Jennifer Nelson, a widow working in the public relations office for a space laboratory, meets her boss Bruce Templeton when he accidentally catches his fishing line on her mermaid outfit, leaving her bottomless.. While she is working part time as a mermaid for her father who owns a glass bottom boat. Templeton, soon learns that she is working at his plant, hires her to write a biography about him while he is test-piloting a new rocket. Jenny's habit of calling her dog Vladimir at home, catches the suspicions of CIA.



When she overhears Templeton discussing that he believes that she is a foreign spy. She makes a game of it by making a phony phone call at a party at Templeton's home. Unknown to her, a secret formula has been hidden in her purse, and the real espionage agent follows her home. Jenny jumps out of a window and a hilarious chase begins.

Will the real foreign spy be caught?

One of my favorite scenes is when Doris Day is dressed up as Mata-Hari . Another favorite scene is when Robert "Napoleon Solo" Vaughn shows up in a cameo at the party. You can hear a clip of the "Man from U.N.C.L.E." theme playing in the background.

The rest of the supporting cast is fun. Dick Martin is wonderful as Taylor's partner, and Arthur Godfrey is great as her Dad. Paul Lynde is hilarious as a paranoid security guard, who goes under cover in drag. Dom DeLuise plays a cute part as an inept spy.

Taylor began to change his image to tough guy roles starting with his co-producing Chuka' that led to Dark of the Sun, Nobody Runs Forever and Darker than Amber.

Love Me Or Leave Me

This is title of one of my favourite gangster-showbiz movies, and I suppose the same could be said of it's two main stars. You either love em'... or leave em'. Said stars are Doris Day and Jimmy Cagney. I guess this could be said more of Doris than Jimmy and... Oh my goodness, I have to interupt the post just to tell y'all that... IT'S SNOWING!!! That's big in England, and it's not just little flakes, IT'S BIG ONES!!! Yay!!!

Taken in my kitchen (with the french window open, much to my family's dismay ;D)

A-N-Y-W-A-Y... There are Doris Day obsessives, and Doris Day hate groups. I love her. She is so moving in this, and The Man Who Knew Too Much - so funny in things like Send Me No Flowers and Pillow Talk - and has one of my favourite singing voices. Here is the review. But first, R.I.P to Blake Edwards: director of the stupendous Pink Panther movies, and Husband to my beloved Julie Andrews.

Love Me Or Leave Me
Cast:

• James Cagney  as gangster Martin Snyder
•  Doris Day as Ruth Etting (whose life the bio-pic is based upon)
• Cameron Mitchell as Ruth's pianist, Myrl Alderman

Plot:
(This film is in colour, but all the pics I liked from it are in black and white. No change there!)
Ruth Etting is a dancer in a "rent a dancer" club (not unlike in Sweet Charity), but yearns for a career in singing. One night after she kicks a man in the leg for dancing "innapropriately" with her, she is fired. She then meets Martin Snyder, owner of a laundrey service, who offers to get her a job at a club he's "involved" with. She jumps at the oppertunity. As she had told him of her singing aspirations, she had assumed it would be a singing job. It was as a backup dancer. Quite angry, she tells Martin that she wanted a job as a singer he replies with "Ya said j'a wanned ta be awn stage, didn't cha?!".

He agrees to let her rehearse with the pianist, Myrl Alderman, to train. One day he arranges for her to be the announcer-singer for the main artist, but she is still not satisfied. She gets the chance to sing as the main act. From then on it's up, up, up for Ruth's career. One day she is offered a job in The Zigfield Follies to sing "Shakin' The Blues Away" amoung other classics.

This goes well, until Martin has a fight with a stage-hand and takes her out of the show. She manages to get her way to Hollywood through her own radio show. Now married to Snyder, Ruth grows more and more unhappy. Martin really loves her, despite his attitude, but she is too ambitous. And in love with her piano player...

The Review:
This film is really great. Great songs and great performances. The only thing I have to say against it, is that they don't show how much Martin loves her enough. The movie could have done with that. I know it's just a fictionalized bio-pic, but I still wanted Cagney to have more tender scenes than he did. I really find Jimmy Cagney amazing in this film. I seem to be forever excusing someone of their accused one-dimensional-ness, but Jimmy Cagney is an amazing singer and dancer! In Yankee Doodle Dandy (one of my favourite musicals) he does both amazingly. Just thought I'd tell ya that. Also, whenever I see clips of Bette Davis and him in movies together, it astounds me how similar their speech pattern and habits are. I found this Bette Davis blooper video (sorry, no embeding code! I think I've posted this before, but it's really cool.) a while ago. It's so funny. There are some bits with her and Jimmy Cagney in them, but beware, there is quite a bit of strong language from Miss Davis!

Can't wait for Christmas. I can't remember if I've told you all this, but we are getting a film projector for Christmas, and we are having a double bill of Christmas movie showings on Christmas Eve on it (if we didn't open it on Christmas Eve we wouldn't be able to watch Christmas Movies!), Meet Me In St. Louis at 4:30ish, and It's A Wonderful Life at 7:30ish. Can't wait!

~Bette

Pawsome Pet Pictures: Doris Day and her poodle

Schoolbags And Notebooks And Maths, OH MY!!!!

Well, I can't believe it, but my six week holiday is finally coming to a close. I hope all of you readers have enjoyed all of the reviews and stuff that I have been posting over the summer, but as I start school on thursday, things are going to be quite different. for a start I won't be able to:

1. Lounge around on my bed until 11am reading Bette Davis: A Biography In Pictures, or All About "All About Eve", or even My Judy Garland Life by Susie Boyt.
2. Watch 3 hour epics whenever I please, or suddenly decide that I want to run an Alfred Hitchcock marathon starting at 3 and ending at 11:30 (not that I have done that...).
3. Blog every day to you wonderful people. But don't worry, I still have ummmm... one day to go!

But on the upside I will be increasing my knowledge, and when I do watch a classic movie, I will appreciate it more. Lets just hope I don't end up looking like him though.

You never know what stress can do to a guy. I hope I'll look like this.

Doris Day in Teacher's Pet

But the chances of that are less than a lorry (for all you Americans, that is a truck in england) landing on my head.

~Bette

P.S.
Only for people who have seen Funny Girl.

You Know when Nick Arnstien leaves Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, I thought it was because he felt he brought shame to her name with all the criminal stuff he got mixed up with, but I watched with my mum yesterday, and she said it was because he felt she was bad luck to him! She really has put a negative shroud over my optimism.

Doris Kenyon

In 1915 Doris Kenyon, she made her first film, The Rack. One of her most remembered films is Monsieur Beaucaire (1924). Where she starred opposite Rudolph Valentino. She was with Paramount Pictures for the studio's first dramatic, all-talking movie, Intereference, in 1928. Kenyon was cast opposite actor George Arliss in two films: Alexander Hamilton (1931) and Voltaire (1933). She performed in Counsellor at Law (1933) with John Barrymore. In 1935 Doris performed with Ramon Navarro in the play, A Royal Miscarriage, in London, England. After sixty movies, Kenyon's movie career ended in a cameo, The Man in the Iron Mask (1939).

Kenyon began acting in television in the 1950s. She was cast in episodes of The Secret Storm (1954), Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, All Our Yesterdays (1958), and 77 Sunset Strip.

GRASS ROOTS performance in WITH SIX YOU GET EGG ROLL (1968).

Grass Roots performance in With Six You Get Egg Roll.
WITH SIX YOU GET EGG ROLL. This was Doris Days final acting appearance in a feature film, since her TV show The Doris Day Show premiered one month later in September 1968.  It is the acting debut of comedian George Carlin.  Also a fun movie clip of the GRASS ROOTS performing. Please check Noir and Chick Flicks Doris Day page for movie review.