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Film Critics and Doris Day

Molly Haskell: 

For a revisionist reading of Doris Day, see Haskell, From Reverence to Rape, 262-67.
“I had advanced, in public and in print, the novel idea that Doris Day ought to be treated with several degrees more seriousness than has characterized most articles and critiques of this–I think–underrated actress,” she wrote in her first article for Ms. magazine, more than 20 years ago. “Not only was I defending her talent, but, more preposterously, her movies– something not even her best friends would buy.” Doris Day? Hollywood’s “frozen virgin” championed by the grande dame of feminist film criticism, the author whose 1974 book, From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies, is widely credited with bringing women’s consciousness to the subject of the movies? Mike Field Staff Writer John Hopskin’s Gazett

Author’s note: Mike Field refers to Doris Day  disdainfully as the “frozen virgin“ reinforcing the stereotype

Kyle Counts

 He told me he spent his 21st birthday watching ‘Strangers on a Train’ for review,” Lowerison recalls. Hitchcock was an enduring fascination along with Disney cartoon films. His first pro publication was an appreciation of Doris Day for the Canadian magazine Take One, and he later campaigned with Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales to get Day a special career Oscar. S.D. film critic Kyle Counts loved movies, music and art

Pauline Kael

Julie Copeland: talking about Pauline Kael.  Her feminism, I suppose, is something we haven’t discussed. She was often criticised for being very catty and nasty towards other talented women, particularly female actors. She wrote some pretty tough reviews on women like Joan Crawford and Doris Day and Meryl Streep. I wonder, today, if she’d have those views?

iNiel Rishoi „And then there is Kael’s review of Doris Day in LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME; Kael dismissed Day with a disdainful, “(she)is a little less butch than usual, though you can’t tell what makes her Ruth Etting a star.” The fact was, Day was outstanding in this role, taking a big risk by allowing herself to be cast against type, and succeeding rather brilliantly. My point is, would Kael ever endanger her image of the Cool Cat New York Critic by praising “popular” Doris Day, of all people (even if Kael had definite criteria for what she construed as a good performance, she doesn’t explain so)? I highly doubt it, and this attempted masking of insecurities is my only serious reservation about Kael as a critic. Roger Ebert, for example, is not as sharply engrossing as Kael was, but he’s far more confident of exposing his weaknesses and giving in to populist enjoyment. I don’t think Kael was confident enough to risk her shrewdly handed-out image. At this, Kael herself would vehemently deny pandering to her readers, but I can’t for a moment believe that someone exists who doesn’t want to be taken seriously

Rick McGinnis

Doris Day’s career is due for a reappraisal. Once the biggest star in America, her coy, husky-voiced, virginal image was burnished largely by a series of films made with Rock Hudson, and codified by her hit 1968-73 TV series. They overwhelmed the former big band singer and smart sex symbol who became a star in the 50s with films like Calamity Jane, which is included in this collection of her Warner Bros. films Rick McGinnis/Metro Toronto Published May 3, 2005