This 1961 film seemed to have everything going for it. Doris Day, Rock Hudson, and Tony Randel. Its gotta be great right?
Wrong.
Its a lesser known film because its just dumb. Please note I will have a spoiler alert, cause I hated the movie, so I don't care if you see it or not, but in case you want to, be warned.
Plot Summary
Carol Templeton (Doris Day) is the worker bee of the advertising world, working with integrity and doing rather well at the same time. Still, she just keeps barely losing accounts to Jerry Webster (Rock Hudson) at the rival agency . After hearing about losing yet another account to the sly Jerry Webster, Carol puts him on trial by Advertising Agency. Mr Webster sends his go to sex kitten with an entire speech rehearsed about the amazing and upstanding Jerry Webster. Rebel (said kitten) also shows the board a was medal Jerry gave her to wear around her neck. After the 'trophies' work, Doris has to think of a new way to win.
She may seem antiquated to a modern woman of 2009, but she is no fool. She is afterall the lead advertiser in her agency. She hears that Jerry has this new account he is working on lining up called Vip. VIP is a sham, but no one knows that except Jerry. Unfortunately Pete Ramset (Tony Randal) sends Jerry on vacation, finds out about the commercial footage and starts the advertising campaign for a product that doesn't exsist. When he gets back Pete and Kerry decide to hire a chemist to make them anything that can be passed as Vip. Vip changed my life. It made my who I am. I owe everything to Vip.
Carol meanwhile hires a private detective and finds out about the chemist, and goes to try and get an advertising contract. Naturally, she had never met Jerry Webster (he didn't show up to the trial) so when she finds a man at the chemist's lab she assumes its Dr. Tyler and not her nemesis.
The courtship of company and product begins. Errr, well its sort of just a series of strange dating things where Jerry gets her to buy him a new wardrobe, teach him gulf and swimming as well as how to kiss. Yeah thats right, this woman suddenly becomes typical and sucked into this infatuation based on LIES.
Eventually she finds out Linus is actually Jerry Webster, and VIP doesn't exsist. Trial #2 with the ad council and some rather odd turn of events. As well as the end(spoiled ending in The Bad)
The Good
Doris Day plays a professional. Not a secretary or a nurse, but an advertising agent.
Rock Hudson is good looking.
Doris' character won't sleep around. (I admit it was strange to see this pride in virginity, its very different than today's movies)
The Bad
Doris Day's character is a total blockhead.
The ending sucks. SPOILER ALERT! Doris and Rock in a case of drunken lust get married. She gets the marriage annulled, but surprise, that one night of drunken passion = honeymoon baby. So Rock finds out and she just married him so the baby has a father? Ummm, ok. Also, she was like totally only 5 months pregnant going into the hospital. So not true to life. END SPOILER
The Random
There are totally some good random quotes from the movie. Also, Doris Day sings the opening song as well as an internal monologue song. Random!
Overall?
It was fine. Definately not exactly a strong sexy woman. In fact Daniel's reaction to Doris Day was that she seemed really old. It was that horrible early 60s hair. Poor gal. She looked like a wrinkless 50 year old.
There are some laughs, but the ending is horrid, makes no sense to me, and enough to make me dislike the film.
Three starsm because the 3 main people are famous. (It was a mediocre film.)
So in our, we have library cards and live close enough to walk, and we need something to do together, we rented library movies. Our library has a HUGE foreign film section (especially compared to some of the other sections) so we ended up with two 1960s Italian foreign films and James Bond Die Another Day. Good mix right? Well after watching the films Daniel said we should consider reviewing these in a blog. So the creation started.
This little gem is about a man that has been married for a dozen or so years, has no kids, is wealthy, and a bit of an incestuous pedophile. Yes thats right, a pervy old man. Well, thats not how he is portrayed, but in America, thats how he would have been.
Ferdinando (played by Marcello Mastroianni) is married to a smothering woman who tends to his every need. Lets just say, this woman needs a kid, a pet, or a hobby to distract her attention, but since they have none of those, she dotes constantly over her husband. Also note that the wife (Daniela Rocca) was actually a beauty queen and her big break was putting on the ugly in this little diddy. Thats right, the woman had a matronly hairstyle, unibrow, and mustasche. Nothing says home like a hairy wife.
Nothing, but a first cousin who lives in the other wing of the mansion. She also sleeps in a -scandalous for its time - negligee with her windows open. That means Ferdinando AND his father can both get their peeping Tom on. Needless to say, Ferdinando is blinded by the childlike beauty of his cousin and wishes he were married to her. Alas, divorce is illegal. What to do?
The newspaper solves that with a story of a woman that killed her husband when she caught him in bed with a lover. The law books say if the courts deem it a "honor" killing, you only get 4-7 years. Lets see 7 years plus 15...eek the cousin would be 23 and far too old to still be desirable, but 4 is doable. And Ferdianand sets out on a mission. A mission to find a man that will attract his wife so she can cheat and he can kill her and get the girl.
This movie is so messed up, and hilarious. You may think foreign comedies aren't all that funny, but this one has some great situational comedy, as well as random absurdity. We recommend it to everyone that doesn't mind subtitles, and wants a look at what a man will do in order to get that hot young 15 year old that lives down the hall. Yeah its like that. We like it so much, we have considered planning a little movie night, just to make others watch it. Good clean Italian fun.