Send Me No Flowers (1964)
I know a lot of us have affection for Doris Day and her regular woman spunky Mom next door approach. And Rock Hudson and his sidekick Tony Randall are first rate comic actors. Even director Norman Jewison is a solid force in 1960s and 70s Hollywood, if not one of their inventive geniuses (think "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Moonstruck"). So I understand that a lot of people have liked this movie for its lighthearted charm and the bright 1964 colors and sets.
But at its it's a rotten movie. The script is one of the worst you can imagine--simplistic in its main idea, with clumsy or even mindless dialog, and a kind of television-at-its-worst tone. This is especially distressing because Julius Epstein wrote it--he's one of the Epstein twins who did the "Casablanca" screenplay. It might be actually a simple fact that Epstein was from a different generation than the movie's characters and he didn't have a feel for the Cold War let alone this flip side to the Cold War.
Put all this another way? This ain't no "Pillow Talk."
That 1959 movie, most of you know, is the classic Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedy, and it plays well into both of their personas (and includes Randall, too). It has some really funny writing, a clever idea that lets Hudson work his acting chops a bit, and a more neurotic and annoying/lovable Day. Here you have to get into a kind of loping cornball, a series of interludes of comic anger and one-liner comebacks. It does have a fascinating aspect in the second half where Randall moves in with Hudson and there is a pre-saging (pre-staging?) of "The Odd Couple" (which Randall would later perform on television. They even are in bad together (unhappily), which you couldn't yet do in Hollywood due to the last vestiges of the Hays Code. (Hudson was gay, Randall was not, if this matters much.)
Hudson rushes into the bright, sunny kitchen and says, "When a man's wife thinks he's having an affair, how can he convince her he's not?"
Randall titters, "He can't." (This is right where there is an interesting early product placement: Rice Krispies and Maxwell House.) Randall (a lawyer) then suggests he confess he's having an affair as a way to break through the problem. Comic potential--and it gets a bit more silly than funny, but it does lead to the most interesting parts of the movie. Stick it out that far if you can.
Maybe it's wrong to expect too much from any Doris Day movie (full disclosure: I find her more annoying than lovable). It's a time in both America and in the movies where part of society wore its glibness as a kind of badge. I mean, if you see "Glass Bottomed Boat" you'll see this maybe at it's clearest. Or here, where there is so little to really think or care about, except maybe enjoying the company of the three main characters, as far as that can go. It is kind of gussied up sit-com television half hour stretched into a full 100 minutes.
I know a lot of us have affection for Doris Day and her regular woman spunky Mom next door approach. And Rock Hudson and his sidekick Tony Randall are first rate comic actors. Even director Norman Jewison is a solid force in 1960s and 70s Hollywood, if not one of their inventive geniuses (think "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Moonstruck"). So I understand that a lot of people have liked this movie for its lighthearted charm and the bright 1964 colors and sets.
But at its it's a rotten movie. The script is one of the worst you can imagine--simplistic in its main idea, with clumsy or even mindless dialog, and a kind of television-at-its-worst tone. This is especially distressing because Julius Epstein wrote it--he's one of the Epstein twins who did the "Casablanca" screenplay. It might be actually a simple fact that Epstein was from a different generation than the movie's characters and he didn't have a feel for the Cold War let alone this flip side to the Cold War.
Put all this another way? This ain't no "Pillow Talk."
That 1959 movie, most of you know, is the classic Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedy, and it plays well into both of their personas (and includes Randall, too). It has some really funny writing, a clever idea that lets Hudson work his acting chops a bit, and a more neurotic and annoying/lovable Day. Here you have to get into a kind of loping cornball, a series of interludes of comic anger and one-liner comebacks. It does have a fascinating aspect in the second half where Randall moves in with Hudson and there is a pre-saging (pre-staging?) of "The Odd Couple" (which Randall would later perform on television. They even are in bad together (unhappily), which you couldn't yet do in Hollywood due to the last vestiges of the Hays Code. (Hudson was gay, Randall was not, if this matters much.)
Hudson rushes into the bright, sunny kitchen and says, "When a man's wife thinks he's having an affair, how can he convince her he's not?"
Randall titters, "He can't." (This is right where there is an interesting early product placement: Rice Krispies and Maxwell House.) Randall (a lawyer) then suggests he confess he's having an affair as a way to break through the problem. Comic potential--and it gets a bit more silly than funny, but it does lead to the most interesting parts of the movie. Stick it out that far if you can.
Maybe it's wrong to expect too much from any Doris Day movie (full disclosure: I find her more annoying than lovable). It's a time in both America and in the movies where part of society wore its glibness as a kind of badge. I mean, if you see "Glass Bottomed Boat" you'll see this maybe at it's clearest. Or here, where there is so little to really think or care about, except maybe enjoying the company of the three main characters, as far as that can go. It is kind of gussied up sit-com television half hour stretched into a full 100 minutes.