Doris Day Icon

Doris Day is a cultural icon and as such is a relevant and influential figure of the 20th and beginning of 21st centuries.

December 31, 2006

Filed under: Doris Day General — webmaster @ 6:58 pm

 As promised, here are some more highlights from the “Rough Guide to Chick Flicks” by Samantha Cook :  

THE ICONS: CHICK FLICK LEGENDS

“Too often undervalued, dismissed as “the perpetual virgin”, the effervescent Doris Day - virtuoso comedienne, brilliant dancer and one of the world’s great singers - was also, at the height of her fame in the early 1960s, the most popular movie actress in the world.”

“A strong, hard-working and upbeat woman, whose vexed private life never defeated her, Doris is one of Hollywood’s great talents and great survivors.”

“Returning to the big band circuit, Doris snagged a smash hit in 1944 with the seductive “Sentimental Journey”, …..

“A vivacious performer with superb comic timing, Day was perfectly cast in lavish, happy-ever-after musicals like By The Light Of The Silvery Moon (1953), in which she played plucky girls-next-door. In other, lesser-known films, including Storm Warning  (1951), an indictment of the Ku Klux Klan, she proved herself equally able to handle serious drama.

“Perhaps her finest and best-known role, however, was as the hilarious, buckskin-wearing Calamity Jane (1953), whose plaintive “Secret Love” won her a Best Song Oscar — and a keen gay following.”
“Upon completing her contract with Warner Bros, Day -  was able to spread her wings, putting in a career-best performance as the tough torch singer Ruth Etting in biopic Love Me Or Leave Me (1955), and shining in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1955).”

“In the musical comedy The Pajama Game (1957), taken from the wildly popular Broadway show, she was at the top of her game as a union leader in love with her boss.”

“ A triumphant, Oscar-nominated return came with the battle-of-the-sexes comedy Pillow Talk (1959), in which she plays a career girl with fabulous outfits and a chic bachelor-girl pad. Sophisticated and clever, the film paired Doris with the handsome Rock Hudson; their chemistry was palpable, and they became firm friends.This winning “sex comedy” formula was repeated twice with Hudson, and later with Cary Grant, Rod Taylor and James Garner.”

“Often described as conservative, these slick movies are anything but: sizzling with tongue-in-cheek innuendo, playing on the plight of the modern single girl, they still feel sprightly, and Day’s performances are just superb”.
 

“Today, while it may take some time before Doris Day is publicly afforded the accolades she deserves, her wonderful body of work stands as testament to this supremely talented woman.”

Calamity Jane
Doris plays the cussing, brawling, thigh-slapping cowgirl who has to be taught, somewhat unwillingly, to be a lady in this rumbustious classic. Funny and feisty, Day is firing on all cylinders - it was her own personal favourite - and the great Sammy Fain songs make wonderful use of that heart-melting voice.
 

Love Me Or Leave Me
This searing biopic of band singer Ruth Etting and her thuggish manager, “Moe the Gimp” (James Cagney), may have been closer to life than audiences knew. Day shines as the tough, sexy singer, and audiences loved her.

The Man Who Knew Too Much
Hitchcock, long keen to work with Day, cast her in this tense thriller as an ex-singer, stifled in her marriage to a doctor (James Stewart), whose child is kidnapped. The actress puts in a nuanced performance, and twice sings “Que Sera, Sera”, which won her her second Best Song Oscar and became her biggest hit.

Move Over, Darling
A typically smart and frothy sex comedy - a remake of 1940’s My Favorite Wife - which has Day playing the long-lost (believed to be dead) wife attempting to stop James
Garner’s brand-new marriage from developing any further. The movie was a phenomenal success, as was its risque title song, written by Doris’s 21 -year-old son, Terry.

I think that the author’s take of the above movies is spot on.

As the year closes off I’ll vent with some pet peeves, pet pleasures and things I’m looking forward to in 2007.

Pet peeves:

1.You Tube or whoever removed the videos of Doris. They are very short-sighted and lack vision since these videos are free advertisement that will entice people to buy those movies.

2. Cahiers du Cinema who went out of their way not to even mention Doris Day( not even when they were talking about “The Man Who Knew Too Much”) in their big book on cinema, which is sort of an encyclopedia of film.

3. Writers, film critics, bloggers or posters who still use the insulting “eternal virgin” label when they refer to Doris Day. This label is untrue, disrespectful and offensive to the Doris Day persona and to the fans that love Doris Day.

Pet pleasures:

1. My dog Murphy and the rest of my family and friends, too

2. The LA booksigning where I met a lot of great Doris Day fans, Pierre Patrick, the author, Jackie Joseph, Rose Marie, Jim Pierse, etc.

3. All the talented people I interviewed for this Blog/website

4. All the great people from the Doris Day Forums and those I e-mail : Ant, Lauren, Roberta, Howard, Yoli, etc.

5. FODD and Sue

5. The fact that Doris is still with us and may she continue being Happy and Healthy.  

 

Things to look forward to:

1. “Considering Doris Day”

2. 3 new movies on DVD

3. interviewing more interesting people

4. A great bash in April and Carmel for Doris’ Birthday

 

Happy New Year 2007 Everybody! Don’t be shy to make a comment or two in 2007. 

Good Night and Good Luck. Party on!

Velda

 

 


December 30, 2006

Doris Day and Holiday Cheer

Filed under: Doris Day General — webmaster @ 9:41 pm

I have a lot to cheer about in the Doris Day department.  I had some old gift certificates from years past from a record store and a bookstore and decided to play Santa Claus to myself. Of course by the time I finished shopping I spent way over the amount of the certificates.

I bought the Love Album ,which I thoroughly enjoyed, at HMV  and an album called “Cool Guys and Great Gals”  which I actually bought at the Indigo bookstore. Doris Day is pictured on the front cover surrounded by Nat King Cole, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. I haven’t listened to the album yet, but everybody who is anybody in the classic pop, big band and jazz is in there.

I also bought a book called The Rough Guide to Chick Flicks by Samantha Cook,  Sept. 2006, Rough Guides( www.roughguides.com ) .

I’ll print an excerpt about Doris, Rock and Pillow Talk and tomorrow another chapter on The Icons: Chick Flick Legends, which features Doris Day, aswell.

This is a great book for everybody, male or female. There are a lot of surprising movies that Ms. Cook deems to be chick flicks. And her icons and legends are moviestars of both sexes aswell as fashion designers writers, etc.

Before I print out excerpts I would like to tell you of a wonderful surprise I had today. My friend Karen called me to tell me that the radio station will be doing a tribute to Doris Day. So I listened to it and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a love letter to Doris Day and her wonderful music. As soon as I get the transcript, I’ll post it. The host had the most wonderful things to say about Doris. I don’t think I ever heard a more beautiful tribute to anybody.  

The Rough Guide to Chick Flicks by Samantha Cook

“The sparkling Pillow Talk- the first and finest of Doris Day’s bedroom comedies- marked a sea change for both its stars. Day , whom audiences were most used to seeing in high collars, dirndl skirts (or in the case of Calamity Jane, in mud-splattered buckskins), emerged here as sexy and sophisticated, her curvaceous frame swathed in stunning gowns designed by top movie couturier Jean Louis (the designer responsible for creating Rita Hayworth’s iconic satin Gilda dress).”

“ While Day was revealing a new, more overt sexuality, she had nothing to prove as a comedienne. Her dashing co-star Rock Hudson (see Icons), however, shows himself for the first time to be a brilliant comic actor, underplaying with a kind of wry Cary Grant cool, and throwing in heaps of self-parody.”

“ With a palpable on-screen chemistry emanating partly from their physical compatibility - both so glossy and sleek, she platinum blonde, he dashingly dark - and partly from their strong off-screen friendship, they made a perfect comedy duo.”

“Pillow Talk opens with a slow pan up Day’s long, bare, sexy leg as it introduces us to Jan Morrow, Manhattan-based interior designer and archetypal Modern Woman.”

“Brad first sees Jan at a nightclub and is blown away by her sexy bare back and swaying backside (frankly, you’d have to be dead not to be - she’s wearing an incredibly gorgeous open-backed white sheath dress that caused something of a stir at the time).”

“The movie was a major box ofiice success,….”

“For audiences nowadays, however, its knowing, fizzy humour, glossy 1950s palette and sheer sassy energy should carve it out a place as a modern classic, not nearly as old-fashioned as those Doris Day detractors would have us believe.”

“Most underrated chick flick: Pillow Talk

“Doris Day has been seriously maligned. This super-talented comedienne is far too often derided as the eternal virgin, a wholesome sap, and the so-called “sex comedies” she made with Rock Hudson in the late 1950s and early 60s are glibly accused of setting feminism back twenty years.”

 ”One wonders - have any of these people actually seen a Doris/Rock movie? Pillow Talk, the first and the best of the three they made together, would be a good place to start. An effervescent battle-of-the-sexes comedy, it looks just wonderful, with a sophisticated champagne-fizz sheen and palpable chemistry between its two gorgeous stars.”  

“Audiences at the time got how great it was - the film won an Oscar for its crackling, very funny screenplay (Day and co-star Thelma Ritter were also nominated), and went on to become the second-largest-grossing film of the decade - and it is only since the sexual revolution of the 1970s that it has been so betrayed.”

“Such was this movie’s success that Doris and Rock went on to replay their roles as feisty fashion plate and predatory rogue in Lover Come Back (1961), and again as a married couple in Send Me No Flowers (1964), but Pillow Talk remains the funniest and the freshest of the lot. “

“And as for Doris - a wholesome sap? Pillow Talk has her as an independent New York career girl who is more than a match for her man. Throughout, we see her in a succession of delicious outfits, designed by top couturier Jean Louis, and spouting endless perfect put-downs. She’s got a voice like honey and she gets to kiss Rock Hudson. What could possibly be the problem?”  

I couldn’t agree more with the author. As I always say the fans and intelligent writers, who actually watch the movies, understand the Doris Day personna the best.