The Pajama Game, 1957

THE PAJAMA GAME from 1957 is worth another look too, and great to see it in a good print at last, as there have been some ropey public domain copies around. This is another Broadway musical transferred to the screen and it looks wonderful with all those splashy colours and great staging of those classic numbers. Doris Day replaces Janis Paige from the stage show but most of the other cast including John Raitt (father of singer Bonnie Raitt) are intact from the stage show. Bob Fosse's staging of "Steam Heat" with the great Carol Haney is just perfectly Fosse. Doris (before her PILLOW TALK makeover) has probably her best 1950s moments here. Its another Stanley Donen classic then, as we head off to "Hernando's Hideaway" or that "Once A Year Day" .... 

Employees of the Sleeptite Pajama Factory in Iowa are looking for a whopping seven-and-a-half cent an hour increase and they won't take no for an answer. Babe Williams is their feisty employee representative but she may have found her match in shop superintendent Sid Sorokin. When the two get together they wind up discussing a whole lot more than job actions! 

1957 was certainly a classic year for musicals and I was 11 and enjoying them all on the big screen: also Donen's FUNNY FACE, plus Cukor's LES GIRLS, Mamoulian's SILK STOCKINGS and Sidney's not quite so great PAL JOEY, but it has its moments ...  I need to see 1955's MY SISTER EILEEN now again too, with more Fosse and Tommy Rall as well as Janet Leigh, Betty Garrett and Jack Lemmon. 

Fun with Doris & Irene + Rock, Cary, Randolph, Clint

I had not seen SEND ME NO FLOWERS since its release in 1964 when I was a teenager, but it remained a pleasant memory, particularly of daffy Doris accidentally locked out of her house in her nightie and fluffy slippers, as oblivious husband Rock Hudson showers with earplugs in .... I thought LOVER COME BACK in 1961 was the best of their comedies, particularly when Edie Adams was around (more on her soon, in LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER), but SEND ME NO FLOWERS, Rock and Doris's third and final comedy, is blissfully funny, well scripted by Julius Epstein (from a play) and directed by Doris regular Norman Jewison. Its conjures up a perfect suburban world of lawns and country clubs, sexy paper boys and gossiping milkmen, as our married couple (no kids to spoil the scenario...) have misunderstandings and fall out with all the cliches perfectly in place.

Rock is a hypochondriac forever taking pills and potions, he overhears his doctor (splendid Edward Andrews) talking about another patient who has not long to live and Rock thinks doc is talking about him .... amusement follows as he and neighbour Tony Randall (whose family are conveniently away) plan his funeral and good old Rock wants to find another suitable husband for Doris, so we get amusing scenes of the 2 men eyeing up other suitable men, and sleeping in the same bed - and then they discover Clint Walker, even more perfect than Rock. Clint has some fun here away from his usual western surroundings. Doris meanwhile thinks Rock is having an affair ...

Paul Lynde is bliss as usual as the unctious undertaker where Rock wants to buy 3 plots, for himself, Doris and her new husband ... Doris of course misunderstands and all the usual complications follow until the blissful ending. Poignant moments too as Rock has lines like she will be sorry when he is in his bed of pain at some future date ....

 I did a piece on Doris last December (Day label) as the London BFI was doing a tribute to her, but only 12 of her films (back in 1980 they showed 30 of hers!) - they only showed PILLOW TALK of her later comedies. The early to mid 60s was Doris's great period and she was a top box office attraction, with these with Hudson, the 2 with James Garner, Cary Grant etc.
(I love THE THRILL OF IT ALL but never want to see MOVE OVER DARLING, that re-heated remake of Marilyn's aborted SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE from 1962 which itself was a reheated version of Irene Dunne's 1940 MY FAVOURITE WIFE ..... with Cary and Randolph Scott. (Doris's 2 with Rod Taylor were not quite in the same league, and I shall be seeing CAPRICE with, er, Richard Harris in 1966 before too long - it is though a Frank Tashlin comedy). 

As fate would have it MY FAVOURITE WIFE is being screened again tomorrow morning, so I can catch it again then, and needn't dig out the dvd. I simply adored Dunne when I discovered her a few years ago, THE AWFUL TRUTH remains sublime, up there with the best of the 30s Screwballs, and MY FAVOURITE WIFE is more of the same. (Above, how do those swim trunks conceal any sign of male bulge?)

Irene is blissfully funny and glamorous here, its the one where the wife comes back after years missing and pronouced dead only to find her husband has just re-married. 
Garson Kanin handles the material perfectly and Cary Grant and Randolph are ideal as the husband and the man Irene was shipwrecked with for all those years .... Cary and Randy were of course still buddies, if not housemates, in 1940 and they all play perfectly together. Gail Patrick has a few moments as the latest wife... An ideal double bill then - it would have been interesting to have seen what Marilyn and Cukor would have made of it (fantasy poster, right) but the the 1962 fragments that remain are spell-binding.  Instead, Michael Gordon helmed MOVE OVER DARLING! 

Doris in December

From Delphine (below) to Doris: The British Film Institute gets around to Doris Day in December, with a mini-retrospective on her - just a dozen titles ... ITS MAGIC, TEA FOR TWO, YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, ON MOONLIGHT BAY, CALAMITY JANE, YOUNG AT HEART, LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, THE PAJAMA GAME, PILLOW TALK, MIDNIGHT LACE and MOVE OVER DARLING. 

Doris's greatest hits then, with a focus on her earlier successes .... she may have been one of the biggest box-office attractions from 1959 to 1966, but its that later early '60s Doris that I like when she was the brightest, shiniest star around, until the arrival of Julie Andrews ... by the mid-'60s Doris though was starting to look old fashioned as she wisely went into television... (even Julie's star did not shine too long with her late '60s films like STAR! (review at Musicals label)  failing to set the box office alight. By then new girls like Faye (she is coming up next ...) and Julie (the other one: Christie) were all the rage.

As with the BFI's previous seasons on Deborah Kerr, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman etc I feel it should be the rarities they should be focusing on. A lot of people are not going to give up an evening to see a popular movie they already have on dvd .... here we have MIDNIGHT LACE but not JULIE (where air stewardess Doris lands the plane...); MOVE OVER DARLING (which I somehow never wanted to see - it being the 3rd re-heated version of Cary and Irene's MY FAVOURITE WIFE after Fox abandoning it as Marilyn's SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE in 1962) but not that terrific satire on advertising THE THRILL OF IT ALL, if only for the scene where James Garner blithely drives his car into the swimming pool that was not there when he left in the morning .... and of course PILLOW TALK but not the other two with Rock (I may just have to buy SEND ME NO FLOWERS, as not seen that since its release and I thought LOVER COME BACK even funnier than PILLOW TALK (from that odd time when people had to share telephone lines) at the time ... nor her valiant effort at keeping 1962's JUMBO afloat. 
Doris is a great dramatic actress too, but MIDNIGHT LACE with its back-lot London is as screamingly funny and unreal as Ross Hunter's other one that year, Lana's PORTRAIT IN BLACK (Trash label).

If I am going to see any of these on the big screen it will be THE PAJAMA GAME, which is sheer bliss now, so perfectly '50s with Fosse's "Steam Heat" and those other terrific numbers.
But no screenings of her starring roles opposite Gable, Niven, Widmark, Grant, Lemmon or even Rod Taylor or Richard Harris - CAPRICE is a Tashlin it would be nice to see again if only for that mad mid-'60s style, Doris and Harris seem just as incongrous a team as Harris with Monica Vitti!

Update: I have just ordered 5 Doris's not being shown by the BFI, so will be having my own Doris festival for christmas: a pack comprising THE THRILL OF IT ALL, LOVER COME BACK, IT HAPPENED TO JANE, plus SEND ME NO FLOWERS and CAPRICE.  I shall add in my disks of PILLOW TALK and JUMBO as well - I shall be Day-ed out !