CinemaLit - Pillow Talk (1959)

March 21 - Pillow Talk (1959), 103 minutes, directed by Michael Gordon, starring Rock Hudson, Doris Day, and Tony Randall.

Go in search of the quintessential “sparking romantic comedy” and you’re likely to come across Pillow Talk. Doris Day plays a high-energy Manhattan interior decorator forever vexed by the playboy (Rock Hudson) sharing her phone party line. Mistaken identity and revenge ensue, enlivened by a boundary pushing Oscar winning screenplay by Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin. It’s startling what they got away with at the conclusion of the Eisenhower era. Effete Tony Randall and wisecracker Thelma Ritter add to the fun, while Hudson and Day had such fantastic chemistry they became number one box office stars and were paired in two other films. Today they’re still on the short list of cinema’s great duos. 

Read more in “Pillow Talk” by Matthew Kennedy, Library of Congress National Film Registry, 2016.

March 2025 CinemaLit - Rock Hudson Centennial

Two points emerge immediately when considering Rock Hudson. One was that he was exceedingly good looking. The other was that his tragic death at 59 after an AIDS diagnosis, alongside the revelation of his homosexuality, was front page news. These facts obscure something else about Hudson: He was a fine actor who was at home in multiple genres. CinemaLit is devoting March to honoring him at the centennial of his birth with three of his strongest films. 

Rock Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer Jr. in Winnetka, Illinois in 1925 to working-class parents. He took an interest in acting in high school, but he often forgot his lines and had little stage presence. After serving in the Navy as an aircraft mechanic in World War II, Roy moved to Los Angeles to follow his acting dream. Hudson’s good looks got him the attention of talent scout Henry Willson, who reinvited Roy Scherer as Rock Hudson. After he received exhaustive training under a contract at Universal-International and apprenticed in a number of supporting roles, he graduated to leading man in 1952 with Scarlet Angel. He moved into the top ranks of stardom with the hit Douglas Sirk melodrama Magnificent Obsession (1954), followed by All That Heaven Allows (1955). Giant (1956), an epic of modern Texas, earned Hudson a Best Actor Oscar nomination, while Written on the Wind (1956), became another major success directed by Sirk. 

By this time, Hudson had excelled in dramas, period pieces, westerns, and action-adventure. Nobody expected his great facility for comedy as displayed in Pillow Talk (1959), the first of three phenomenally successful on-screen pairings with Doris Day. Hudson continued to star in dramas and comedies in the 1960s. His star faded late in the decade and into the 1970s as more offbeat and unconventional actors, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, and Al Pacino among others, rose to prominence. 

Under an unforgiving media microscope, Hudson died in 1985 of complications from AIDS. That remains an indelible part of his legacy, but March at CinemaLit honors his considerable talent as a film actor. Come see Rock Hudson in All That Heaven Allows on March 7, Pillow Talk on March 21, and Written on the Wind on March 28.

Host or Publisher Mechanics' Institute