Writer: Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning
Director: Delbert Mann
Starring: Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall
Synopsis
Female ad executive (who can't manage her way out of a paper bag) resents the success of a competing male ad executive because he takes his clients and prospects out for pussy. There is a case of mistaken identity.
The Woman
thanks go to moster for putting this atrocious movie on the queue. this movie made "send me no flowers" look like a feminazi women's lib propaganda movie. it was gross and unbelievable. the sad part is, i think they were trying to be progressive by having doris day be an ad executive on madison ave. it back fired tremendously. her character came off as a teetotaler amateur who would rather rat someone out than outsmart them. probably because she was incapable of outsmarting, since she was, after all, just a silly woman. horrible. i hope that is the last doris day/ rock hudson/ tony randall movie i ever have to watch. it done me in.
MOster
OK. I'm going to try to be objective first. Objectively, this was a good movie. Objectively, while not quite original the story was decent. It included secondary characters and some of those characters had arcs which ended in development. Objectively, the scenes and locations were the epitome of the Technicolor era. Objectively, there was a cute score which underlined the points that needed underlining. Objectively, the acting matched the aesthetic of early 1960s filmmaking to a T.
The problem here is that this movie is kind of like Birth of a Nation. It portrays women as ineffective dopes trying to make it in a man's world, and failing because they just don't understand the rules. It portrays men as either predatory or facile. It portrays society as complicit in a manner which is just not feasible. It glamorizes the glory taken by the men and it revels in the retardation of the women. There is not a single scene in which Doris Day's ambition is treated like an asset. There's one spot where she does well for herself in being mean to the dude but immediately afterwards she's just overrun by his success. Only when she's about to become a mother does it appear that her opinion has any weight whatsoever; but even that is undermined by the likelihood that she's been doped up beyond belief.
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