Cinema Tuesdays {That Touch of Mink}

So, I couldn't do Sex Comedies month without doing at least one Doris Day movie. I've never really liked Doris Day, she's just too perfect, perky and wholesome, like an Ivory soap ad. But I did like her in The Thrill of It All.

The obvious choice would have been to pick one of the ones she did with Rock Hudson, except I've never understood why she never went with Tony Randall who actually had a developed a personality.

Instead I picked That Touch of Mink, which has Cary Grant playing Cary Grant as an important businessman. One morning his car splashes Doris Day who plays an unemployed computer operator. She keeps quitting or getting fired from jobs because she doesn't like running around a desk.

There's also John Astin, just before becoming Gomez Addams, playing this really slimy welfare agent who keeps trying to get Doris Day up to his place.

Audrey Meadows plays the best friend/room mate who works in an automat with a nice uniform.

Their apartment is done up in pastels with an occasional piece of bright blue furniture and is larger than it should be, considering their combined salaries.

Plus, you also get to see Audrey Meadows set her hair at night without using a mirror!

Then there's Gig Young (not once wearing his red vest) playing Cary Grant's financial advisor. He's depressed and resents Cary Grant for luring him away from an academic career and giving him a raise when ever he threatens to quit and regain his dignity.

Gig Young is the funniest part of the movie, especially when he's talking to his analyst, who has misheard his patient and thinks that everything that Cary Grant is offering to Doris Day is happening to Gig Young, which is quite daring for 1962.

Anyway, Cary Grant sees Doris Day going into the automat and sends Gig Young to give her some money. Doris Day then says that she'd rather throw the money in his face, which makes Gig Young very happy.

He takes Doris Day back to the office to give his boss what for.

Then Doris Day sees that it's Cary Grant and starts apologizing for throwing herself in front of his car. How could you be mad at Cary Grant? He wears a cardigan at the office. But it does depress Gig Young.

Cary Grant likes Doris Day's small town wisdom and so drags her around to his meetings in Washington, Philadelphia and the UN in his private plane.

Then he takes her to a baseball game.

Then he takes her to an apartment building he's building and offers her a trip around the world and a penthouse.

Doris Day calls him the next day to turn down his offer and Cary Grant intends to take back his offer after realizing that she is too sweet to live in a penthouse. Then they both end up taking each other into it and he says that he'll meet her in Bermuda that afternoon. All this sets Gig Young back years in his therapy.

Then there's the fashion show Doris Day is sent to to select a new wardrobe. Look, capes!

And a mink coat with changeable outer shells! I want one!

Doris Day, in her traditional working girl uniform of black dress and white cuffs and collar, seems to be fine with going away with a strange man.

She even reassures Audrey Meadows that she'll be fine and it's a great opportunity.

But once in Bermuda, Doris Day becomes paranoid and thinks that everyone knows what they are doing and that they aren't married and they are silently condemning her.

Things get even worse that night.

Doris Day breaks out in a rash and makes Cary Grant sleep on the couch because she's gone crazy. No, scratch that. She breaks out in a rash because she doesn't have a ring on her finger and Doris Day has a screen image to maintain.

Once back in New York, Doris Day is humiliated and worries that Cary Grant doesn't consider her to be a woman.

So she flies back to Bermuda and invites Cary Grant to join her. I don't see why she's making that offer while wearing a vest that's strangling her.

By the time Cary Grant arrives, Doris Day has drunk a bottle of scotch and passes out. It's amazing how in every Hollywood picture, no matter how much alcohol is consumed, everyone is still able to put on their pyjamas and correctly button them.

When Doris Day returns to New York, she finds that she has been offered a job operating computers for a credit card company. Then she learns that the only reason why she got a job was because Cary Grant owns the company.

She gets very annoyed that she was not hired for her abilities and quits by pushing buttons and making all of the computer cards spill onto the floor. Cary Grant then decides that since she can't hold a job the only way he can get rid of her without feeling guilty is to have Gig Young find her a husband and farm her out to the suburbs. When he rejects the list of bachelors, Gig Young gets excited because he realizes who the perfect husband is for Cary Grant.

He and Audrey Meadows then come up with a plan. Have John Astin take Doris Day to a motel in New Jersey and have Cary Grant follow them in order to rescue Doris Day.

When he informs Cary Grant of what Doris Day is doing for the weekend, he gets so angry that he storms out of his club and runs around New York in a towel looking for a cab.

When John Astin takes a girl out, he really goes all out. He even brought two TV dinners and the cheapest bottle of wine that's fit for human consumption. What a guy!