Pillow Talk (1959)

Directed by

Michael Gordon

Genre

romantic comedy

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 42m

Rated

NR

Rating

7.1 of 10 from 325 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

An interior decorator and a womanizing composer share a phone line. He pretends to be a Texas rancher to trick her into a date.

playfullight-heartedromanticwittycheerfulflirtymischievousnostalgic

What happens

Pillow Talk is a 1959 American romantic comedy film in CinemaScope directed by Michael Gordon and starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. The supporting cast features Tony Randall, Thelma Ritter, Nick Adams, Allen Jenkins, Marcel Dalio and Lee Patrick. The film was written by Russell Rouse, Maurice Richlin, Stanley Shapiro, and Clarence Greene. It tells the story of Jan Morrow (Day), an interior decorator, and Brad Allen (Hudson), a womanizing composer and bachelor, who share a telephone party line. When she unsuccessfully files a complaint against him for constantly using the line to woo his conquests, Brad finds out she is pretty and decides to trick her by masquerading as a Texas rancher. The scheme seems to work until their mutual friend Jonathan Forbes (Randall) finds out about it and exposes Brad. According to a "Rambling Reporter" (August 28, 1959) item in The Hollywood Reporter, RKO originally bought the script, by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene, in 1942 but, because it was not produced, the writers bought it back in 1945. In 1947, they sold it as a play, but bought it back once again four years later, finally selling it in 1958 to Arwin Productions, the company owned by Doris Day's husband, Martin Melcher. Although the film was originally titled Pillow Talk, according to a February 2, 1959 "Rambling Reporter" item in The Hollywood Reporter, the title "displeased" the PCA, and was changed to Any Way the Wind Blows. In August 1959, however, the original title was reinstated. The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Doris Day), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Thelma Ritter), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color (Richard H. Riedel, Russell A. Gausman, Ruby R. Levitt) and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. It the first of three romantic comedies in which Day, Hudson and Randall starred together, the other two being Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964). Upon its release, Pillow Talk brought in a then staggering domestic box-office gross of $18,750,000 and marked a comeback in Rock Hudson's career, after the failure of A Farewell to Arms two years earlier. On July 14, 1980, Jack Martin reported that Pillow Talk was the "biggest hit of 1959". In 2009, it was entered into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant and preserved. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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