Pillow Talk

Released in 1959, Pillow Talk was the first of three pairings of Rock Hudson and Doris Day, who practically patented the formula for the era's uniquely American chaste sex comedy. Day plays uptight interior decorator Jan Morrow, who lives in a Manhattan high-rise apartment yet shares a party-line phone with neighbor Brad Allen (Hudson), a songwriter and playboy in a tricked-out bachelor pad right out of Hugh Hefner's wildest dreams. When she reports him to the telephone company for monopolizing the line, he woos her in the guise of a Texas gentleman with a drawling chivalry. To get around the production code, the Oscar-winning script is rife with suggestive dialogue, and split-screen sequences during phone conversations suggest intimacy through clever compositions, placing the couple side-by-side in bed and even sharing a bathtub. Directed by Michael Gordon, the film features a sleek style and colorful fashions (marvelously spoofed in the 2003 satire Down With Love), along with two particularly flamboyant supporting characters—Jonathan (Tony Randall), Jan's hapless suitor; and Alma (Thelma Ritter), a tipsy maid with sassy commentary. The movie's datedness is part of the fun, serving as a time capsule reminder of the days when it was taboo to suggest that premarital sex between consenting adults was OK. Debuting on Blu-ray in a remastered edition from a new restoration—packaged in a 48-page digi-book—extras include audio commentary by cinema historians Jeff Bond, Julie Kirgo, and Nick Redman, a pair of retrospective featurettes, and bonus DVD and digital copies of the film. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)