Pillow Talk, A Movie That Deserves A Modern Reboot

Pillow Talk, is a classic. It is a perfect rom-com, with subtle sexual innuendo, wrapped in the blanket of the late 1950’s.

Jan Morrow (Doris Day) and Brad Allen (Rock Hudson) share a telephone line.  She is a single interior designer, he is playboy Broadway composer. Over the phone they don’t get along. Brad sees Jan at a club and attempts to romance her by pretending to be a shy country boy who in the big city for the first time.

This movie is perfect and funny and despite the era it was made in, it is full of sexual innuendo. Doris Day and Rock Hudson have a natural on screen chemistry. Pillow Talk is the first of three films they made together, they were the real life Will and Grace until Hudson passed away from AIDS in the early 1980’s.

I highly recommend this movie, both as a viewer and as a challenge to a screenwriter to remake it for today’s audiences.

 

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Movies Every Movie Lover Should See

Some movies were meant to be forgettable and are a waste of the movie-goers time.  But there are some that are classic movies and should be viewed over and over again.

I would like to share three of my favorite classic Hollywood movies and explain why these are worth watching time and again.

To Have and Have Not

This is one of my favorite movies from the 1940’s. It’s pretty typical World War II movie, where the Allies are the heroes and the Nazis are the villains.  The two leads, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall have this magnetic, sexual chemistry. It’s no wonder they were married for twelve years. This movie is a perfect example of creating sexual chemistry between characters without resorting to removing of clothes.

His Girl Friday

Now this is how a rom-com and a office comedy should be. Cary Grant is the editor of a newspaper. Rosalind Russell is his ex wife and ex-employee. She is getting married again and Cary Grant’s character is looking to find a way to keep her on the paper and in his life. If nothing else, just watch the opening scene.  An interesting aspect of this movie is that it was based upon a play, in which Rosalind Russell’s character was originally a man and changed to a female, which poses an interesting feminist twist, twenty years before the second wave of the feminist movement.

To Be or Not To Be

This movie is perfection. This movie should be required viewing for every filmmaker. Carole Lombard and Jack Benny are the lead performers in Polish theatrical troupe during World War II. They indirectly join the war when  they work with a soldier to track down a German spy. Like His Girl Friday, I highly recommend to watch the opening scene if you don’t see the entire movie. The comedy timing is perfect, Lombard is one of the greatest actresses and comedienne’s of her era. The irony of this movie is that Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky) was Jewish.  It takes balls to make a movie of this type  during this period with a Jewish leading man.  There is also a re-boot, made in the early 1980’s by Mel Brooks. As much as I love the re-boot, which is most certainly a Mel Brooks movie, the original just stands the test of time.