Pillow Talk

Pillow Talk

Pillow Talk is a 1959 American romantic comedy film in CinemaScope directed by Michael Gordon and starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. The supporting cast features Tony Randall, Thelma Ritter, Nick Adams, Allen Jenkins, Marcel Dalio and Lee Patrick. The film was written by Russell Rouse, Maurice Richlin, Stanley Shapiro, and Clarence Greene. It tells the story of Jan Morrow (Day), an interior decorator, and Brad Allen (Hudson), a womanizing composer and bachelor, who share a telephone party line. When she unsuccessfully files a complaint on him for constantly using the line to woo his conquests, Brad decides to take a chance on Jan by masquerading as a Texas rancher, resulting in the two falling in love. The scheme seems to work until Brad's mutual friend and Jan's client Jonathan Forbes (Randall) finds out about this, causing a love triangle in the process. According to a "Rambling Reporter" (August 28, 1959) item in The Hollywood Reporter, RKO originally bought the script by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene in 1942, but since it was not produced, the writers bought it back in 1945. In 1947, they sold it as a play, but bought it back once again four years later, finally selling it in 1958 to Arwin Productions, the company owned by Doris Day's husband, Martin Melcher. Although the film was originally titled Pillow Talk, according to a February 2, 1959 "Rambling Reporter" item in The Hollywood Reporter, the title "displeased" the PCA, and was changed to Any Way the Wind Blows. In August 1959, however, the original title was reinstated. The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Doris Day), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Thelma Ritter), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color (Richard H. Riedel, Russell A. Gausman, Ruby R. Levitt) and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.This is the first of three romantic comedies in which Day, Hudson, and Randall starred together, the other two being Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964). Upon its release, Pillow Talk brought in a then staggering domestic box-office gross of $18,750,000 and gave Rock Hudson's career a comeback after the failure of A Farewell to Arms two years earlier. On July 14, 1980, Jack Martin reported on Pillow Talk as "biggest hit of 1959". In 2009, it was entered into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant and preserved.

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