Send Me No Flowers

In "Send Me No Flowers" Hudsons performance was certainly as good as Stanley Holloway's in "My Fair Lady" that same year, 1964.
This proves that comedy acting hadn't at the time and doesn't today, get the respect it so richly deserves. Similarly, Janis Paige was certainly nominee-worthy for her 'Deborah Vaughn' in "Please Don't Eat the Daisies".
Instead, the Academy gives awards to people like first time nominee, Laugh-In's "sock-it-to-me girl", Goldie Hawn for "Cactus Flower", which was certainly not Oscar-calibre acting.
Even Miss Hawn commented that she "appreciated the award" but wishes that she had "gotten it for something else".
After six nominations, the legendary Thelma Ritter ("All About Eve" and "Pillow Talk") was still Oscar-less.

"Send Me No Flowers" has been described as a "dark comedy" probably because of its subject matter, hypochondria.
Why George Kimball (Rock Hudson) has developed this condition is not explained. We know from his doctor, Ralph Morrissey (Edward Andrews) that he has complained about everything since he became his doctor.
His medicine cabinet is filled with prescription bottles and he pops pills like a dope fiend.
His wife, Judy (Doris Day), seems to be a happy housewife living in "the burbs" who takes her husband's "health problems" with a grain of salt. She seems to find it amusing.

Always feeling that he "has something", George visits the doctor for a check-up.
While he is taking a pill in the rest room, he overhears the doctor discussing another patient, one who is terminally ill and about to die.
This being a screwball comedy, George immediately believes the doctor is talking about him. Distraught, he confides in his best friend and next door neighbour,

Arnold (Tony Randall) who falls completely apart and starts drinking to deal with the impending "tragedy".
The whole thing is a bunch of nonsense.
A must see for all Doris Day & Rock Hudson fans.

Doris Day Update

One of the most popular and successful American multimedia stars to emerge since the end of WWII and the most forward-looking heroine in popular culture of the 1950s and 60s.
Day entered films in 1948 after a brief but highly successful singing career as a band vocalist, and for the next two decades virtually defined the wholesome blonde girl-next-door type in musicals, dramas and innocent but sly sex farces.
Day became an immediate star with her debut film, "Romance on the High Seas" (1948), and was one of the last stars developed under the old studio system by Warner Brothers, starring in such nostalgic light musicals as "On Moonlight Bay" (1951) and "I'll See You in My Dreams" (1952).
She also showed promise in drama ("Storm Warning" 1950) and raucous comedy (at her most tomboyish in the cult classic "Calamity Jane" 1953) when given a chance. Day's rich alto voice and supple dramatic phrasing also enjoyed considerable success on the pop singles ("It's Magic", "Secret Love") and album charts through the 40s and 50s.

After her screen career petered out in 1968, Day immediately embarked on the mild TV sitcom, "The Doris Day Show", which opened with "Que Sera Sera", typecast her as a bright career woman and stayed high in the popularity ratings for the length of its five-year run.
It was only after the death of Day's husband-manager Marty Melcher that it came out that he had entrusted the majority of Day's substantial earnings to a lawyer who flagrantly squandered them.
Day's income from her show supported her lengthy court battle,
and since the close of her series she has been largely retired, devoting most of her energies to pet adoption and animal rights advocacies.

Lover Come Back

The movie-going public was waiting with anticipation for this movie. The re-teaming of Doris Day and Rock Hudson.
How could they equal or top "Pillow Talk", which had been a runaway hit- garnering Miss Day with an Oscar nomination and hurling her to the No. 1 spot on the Herald's Top Box Office list?
Critics were sharpening their poison pens and their wit, to bring down those who have climbed to the top of the heap.

They were shocked to discover that screenwriter, Stanley Shapiro, now teamed with Paul Henning had produced a clever,
bright script that actually equaled or bettered "Pillow Talk".
Doris Day's performance was much improved here, for she had found the right key in which to present the totally sophisticated character of Carol Templeton and Rock Hudson
(Jerry Webster) looked more comfortable playing comedy than he did in the former film.
This movie became an instant success and was hailed as a triumph by the majority of film critics worldwide.

This time 'around, there was a better director, Delbert Mann, who handled this material with an expert's touch.
In reality, the film is very much like "Pillow Talk" because of the deceptive nature of the story, but the lines are funnier here and the situations are more risqué.
Jerry Webster and Carol Templeton work for rival advertising agencies on Madison Avenue. Webster's firm has a reputation of stealing accounts from other agencies by using unscrupulous tactics to nab new accounts (wine, women and sex).

Carol has plans to snag the Miller's Wax account, which is metamorphosing it's image with a new can and Templeton has, she thinks, just the right ideas to convince Mr. J. Paxton Miller (Jack Oakie) to give the account to her firm.
Webster, on the other hand, decides to shower the gentleman with liquor, women and carnal activities. Guess who wins out?
Furious at Webster's tactics, Carol accidentally learns from Webster's some times girlfriend, nightclub performer, Rebel Davis (Edie Adams) that he is going after a new account for a product called VIP.
Determined to "get even" with Webster for stealing the Paxton account, Carol sets out to outsmart her competition.She begins to mount a campaign for a product that doesn't exist.
Jerry Webster invented "VIP" to accommodate Rebel's disappointment in him at not getting her lucrative commercials and to bribe her into not testifying before the Advertising Council against him for unprofessional tactics in advertising.
You see, Carol Templeton has filed a complaint.

Listen to the opening music to "Lover Come Back"
"Lover Come Back" became an instant success"
The movie-going public was waiting with anticipation for this movie.
The re-teaming of Doris Day and Rock Hudson.
How could they equal or top "Pillow Talk", which had been a runaway hit- garnering Miss Day with an Oscar nomination and hurling her to tNo. 1 spot on the Herald's Top Box Office list?

Critics were sharpening their poison pens and their wit, to bring down those who have climbed to the top of the heap.

They were shocked to discover that screenwriter, Stanley Shapiro, now teamed with Paul Henning had produced a clever,

bright script that actually equaled or bettered "Pillow Talk". Doris Day's performance was much improved here, for she had found the right key in which to present the totally sophisticated he character of Carol Templeton and Rock Hudson
(Jerry Webster) looked more comfortable playing comedy than he did in the former film.
This movie became an instant success and was hailed as a triumph by the majority of film critics worldwide.
This time 'around, there was a better director, Delbert Mann, who handled this material with an expert's touch. In reality,

the film is very much like "Pillow Talk" because of the deceptive nature of the story, but the lines are funnier here and the situations are more risqué.
Jerry Webster and Carol Templeton work for rival advertising agencies on Madison Avenue. Webster's firm has a reputation of stealing accounts from other agencies by using unscrupulous tactics to nab new accounts (wine, women and sex).
Carol has plans to snag the Miller's Wax account, which is metamorphosing it's image with a new can and Templeton has, she thinks,

just the right ideas to convince Mr. J. Paxton Miller (Jack Oakie) to give the account to her firm. Webster, on the other hand, decides to shower the gentleman with liquor, women and carnal activities.

By the Light of the Silvery Moon

Doris Day and Gordon Macrae

"By the Light of the Silvery Moon" is the tuneful follow-up to the very popular 1951 hit for Warner Brothers, "On Moonlight Bay".
Like its predecessor, it recalls another time and place in America, directly after World War I, bathing it in a nostalgic warmth and glow in stunning technicolor and reassembling most of the cast from the earlier film.
The characters and story are very loosely based on the "Penrod" series of stories written by Booth Tarkington.
Marjorie and Bill, the sweethearts of the piece, are played by Doris Day and Gordon MacRae, in their 5th and final on-screen pairing.
They harmonize beautifully and play their scenes with genuine and totally unaffected warmth and believability. Watching Day, it's easy to see why see held the lofty position within the industry that she held for so long.
Her natural likeability and never cloying manner are soothing and when she sings, as she does frequently, one is transported to a safe and comfortable haven. The songs include the title tune, "If You Were the Only Girl in the World" and "Ain't We Got Fun" to name but a few.
Video clip from the film


The remaining members of Marjorie's family are back from the earlier effort and seem to be more a family than ever before.
Leon Ames is part bluster/part patriarch, while Rosemary DeCamp, as usual, is better than much of the material Hollywood generally gave her to work with.
Billy Gray is appropriately rowdy but skillfully avoiding the obnoxious elements as Wesley and Mary Wickes, as she is prone to do, shines in every scene she plays, a natural treasure as one of the most unique character actresses in film history.
If you look quickly in the beautifully staged skating sequence near the film's conclusion, you'll spot Merv Griffin talking through a megaphone and urging everyone to skate with their sweetheart.
Doris Day was responsible for getting Griffin a contract at Warners, which launched his career. In 1970, she made her first ever talk show appearance on his program.

Doris day mini biography

One of America's most prolific actresses was born Doris Mary Ann Von Kapplehoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her parents divorced while she was still a child and her mother gained custody. Like most little girls, Doris liked to dance.
She would sometimes dance with friends and, sometimes, just by herself. She had dreamed of being a ballerina, but an automobile accident ended whatever hopes she had of dancing on stage. It was a terrible setback, but after taking singing lessons, she seemed to find a new vocation, and began singing with local local bands.
It was while on one singing engagement that she met Al Jordan, whom she married in 1941. Jordan was prone to violence and they split after two years, not long after the birth of their son Terry Melcher, who later became a record producer.
In 1946, Doris married George Weidler, but this union lasted less than a year.
Day's agent talked her into taking a screen test at Warner Bros.
The executives there liked what they saw and signed her to a contract (her early credits are often confused with that of another actress named Doris Day, who appeared mainly in B westerns in the 1930s and 1940s).
Her first starring movie role was as "Georgia Garrett" in Romance on the High Seas (1948). The next year, she made two more films, My Dream Is Yours (1949) and It's a Great Feeling (1949). Audiences took to her beauty, terrific singing voice and bubbly personality, and she turned in fine performances in the movies she made for Warners (in addition to having several hit records).
She made three films for the studio in 1950 and five more in 1951. In that year, she met and married Martin Melcher, who adopted her young son.
In 1953, she starred in the title role in Calamity Jane (1953), which was a major hit, and several more followed: Lucky Me (1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and what is probably her best-known film, Pillow Talk (1959).
She began to slow down her filmmaking pace in the 1960s, even though she started out the decade in a hit, Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960).
Her husband, who had also taken charge of her career, had made deals for her to star in films she didn't really care about, which led to a bout with exhaustion. The 1960s weren't to be a repeat of the previous busy decade.
She didn't make as many as she had in that decade, but the ones she did make were successful: Do Not Disturb (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968) and With Six You Get Eggroll (1968).
Her husband died in 1968, and Doris never made another film, but she had been signed to do her own TV series, "The Doris Day Show" (1968).
That show, like her movies, was also successful, lasting until 1973. After her series went off the air, she made only occasional TV appearances. Today, at 86, she runs the Doris Day Animal League in Carmel, California, which advocates homes and proper care of household pets. What else would you expect of America's sweetheart?