"I took Doris Day out of the kitchen and into the bedroom."

- Ross Hunter, Producer, Pillow Talk

 

Pillow Talk (50th Anniversary Edition) DVD

 

Pillow Talk premier mayhem as women fight to get a closer look at Rock Hudson.

 

7 October 1959

 

"PILLOW TALK"

 

A NICE, OLD-FASHIONED DEVICE OF THE THEATRE, THE TELEPHONE PARTY LINE, SERVES AS A QUAINT CONVENIENCE to bring together Rock Hudson and Doris Day in in what must be cheerfully acknowledged one of the most lively and up-to-date comedy-romances of the year. "Pillow Talk" is the item, and it was dually presented last night at the Palace and the new Murray Hill Theatre, 160 East Thirty-fourth Street.

"Bring together" may be slightly ambiguous and misleading to describe the precise liaison that the telephone accomplishes here, for the first result of the two principals' sharing the same line is a cool and remote antipathy. Miss Day as a fashionable interior decorator and Mr. Hudson as a successful song writer in New York initially insult each other as unidentified voices at either end of their party line.

Particularly, Miss Day hates Mr. Hudson because every time she picks up her phone she hears him burbling the same corny love song to an amazing variety of cooing girls. And he hates her because her angry interruptions convey an image of an envious old maid.

But once the romantic song writer gets a secret peek at Miss Day and realizes how wrong is his impression, the "bringing together" begins, and the telephone and Mr. Hudson's impersonation of an ardent Texan are combined to "push the romance from there.

It is really the clever, witty screen play that Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin have prepared from a story by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene that accounts for much of the sparkle in this film. Their devices are crisp, their dialogue funny and their cinema mechanics are neat. Frequent clever use of a split screen make for fresh and appropriate drolleries. With a CinemaScope screen to play on, they and director Michael Gordon have much fun.

And this fun is transmitted to the audience in an easy and generous flow of ingeniously graphic situations and nimble repartee. The opportunity for the tricky song writer to court the lady through a wicked pretence of being a high-minded Texan is in Mr. Hudson's groove, and he carries off the delicate deception with surprising dexterity.

"You give me a real warm feeling," he softly drawls to Miss Day. "like a potbellied stove on a frosty morning."

What girl could resist that line?

Well, certainly not the young lady played fiercely and smartly by Miss Day, who has a delightful way of taking the romantic offensive against a man. Her dudgeons are as chic and spectacular as her nifty Jean Louis clothes, and her fall for Mr. Hudson's deceptions is as graceful as a ski-run down a hill. Singing is kept to a minimum, but Miss Day does cut loose a couple of times, very pleasantly, as usual. Perry Blackwell also sings two bistro songs.

In support of Miss Day and Mr. Hudson are Thelma Ritter as an alcoholic maid and Tony Randall as a disappointed suitor, than whom no others could be more droll. Nick Adams as a wolfish Harvard senior almost steals one sequence from Miss Day, and Marcel Dallio, Allen Jenkins and Lee Patrick are fun in a couple of scenes.

Color and some likeable music brighten this pretty film, which has a splendid montage of New York in it. Thank Universal for the boon.

 

Bosley Crother - New York Times

 

Rock Hudson, Doris Day and Tony Randall.

 

"Director Michael Gordon - working from Maurice Richlin and Stanley Shapiro's lighthearted screenplay - has infused Pillow Talk with an irresistibly breezy sensibility that's certainly reflected in the charismatic performances, with Hudson and Day's palpable chemistry together evident almost immediately (it's consequently not difficult to see why they remain one of the most enduring on screen couples in cinematic history).

The presence of Tony Randall within the supporting cast only cements the film's exceedingly agreeable nature, as the actor delivers as entertaining a performance as one might have expected (Thelma Ritter does an equally effective job as Day's sassy confidant). The only overt deficiency within Pillow Talk comes in its final 20 minutes, with the expected fake break-up lasting much longer than one might have liked - though that's a fairly minor complaint for a romcom that still holds up surprisingly well all these years later." - ReelFilm.com

 

 

"It's a film that seems loaded with in-jokes. Some play with the actors' roles — Rock Hudson played a Texan much more seriously in the dramatic Academy Award-winning epic Giant, and of course Doris Day can't get through the film without getting a chance to sing some fabulous songs even though he's the songwriter! Others play on the cosmopolitan nature of the City and the suburban-housewife role that 1950s America shoehorned on women. From the stereotypically grand music as the camera tilts up a skyscraper, to characters getting romantic help from their psychiatrists, to the overeager Harvard man who "dig[s] older women," Pillow Talk takes jabs at the things that were unspoken of of polite society, even though everyone knows all about them. There also seems to be some buried social commentary, as all the nightclubs feature lily-white sharply-dressed customers and black or Caribbean musicians. It does bring to mind Holden Caulfield's comments about white vs. black singers in The Catcher in the Rye.

Still other in-jokes must've been either unintentional or truly limited in their inner circle, as is the case when Allen toys with Jan by suggesting that Stetson is gay, and Rock Hudson dangles his pinky and discusses recipes until Jan practically begs him to kiss her to prove it isn't true. Come to think of it, the mere suggestion of homosexuality is audacious, as the next year's Kubrick epic Spartacus had to excise all hints that Laurence Olivier's commanding Roman Senator was bisexual. Maybe the Code Office let it go because Rock Hudson's character did not turn out to be gay." - Taoyue.com

 

Doris Day and Thelma Ritter.

 

"Doris Day is bubbly-as-chewing-gum, Rock Hudson is stoically naughty in a chauvinistic way, Tony Randall is believably insecure as the client and college buddy Jonathan Forbes, and Jan's alcoholic maid is played by Thelma Ritter in much the same role that she played in Hitchcock's Rear Window — the dour, slightly coarse working-class woman who thinks all this intellectual activity between the two leads is silly and they should just jump into bed. And it's rather fun to listen to the music score which punctuates every on screen action in that style that works well for comedies like this one." - Taoyue.com