Truly Dreadful Film

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Clearly, Universal was hoping this romantic comedy would ride the coattails of their previous very popular Hudson-Day comedy: "Pillow Talk". And, it did turn a handsome profit. It easily shows that the same director(Delbert Mann) and writer(Stanley Shapiro) were involved in both films. The same plot device was used in both films, just the details differ. Rock, Doris's nemesis, assumes the identity of a nice guy, whom she might be interested in marrying. This is made possible by the fact that Doris has never seen her nemesis, thus can be duped by an expert performance(which she gets). In the present film, halfway through, Rock serendipitously assumes the identity of local Nobel Lauriat chemist Linus Tyler.(It's clear to me that the name Linus is derived from famous physical chemist Linus Pauling, who was more in the news in the '50s and '60s for his 'ban the bomb' campaigns.) ....The idea that an advertising agency could push on TV a product that only existed in Rock's mind, is absurd. Who would pay for the advertisements? We have to rely on the charisma of the principals and the interest of their interactions to counter this absurdity. Tony Randall's character, who owns the agency Rock works for, jumps the gun in airing various commercials for Rock's supposed Vip product, using Edie Adams to fill the screen with fluff. Requests to ship the product, whatever it is, start pouring in. This is a satire on the advertisement industry, as well as the gullibility of many of the public. Actually, Rock made up this fabrication to satisfy Edie, whose role in advertising another product had been cancelled.....Jack Oakie has a role early in the film as head of a business Rock and Doris are competing for.. Rock sets up a wild party which he figured Oakie would like , and he got the contract. This miffed Doris, who decides she has to resort to some similar tactics in the future......I didn't like the last part, where some mints supposedly containing a substance that turned into alcohol in the stomach were manufactured by the real chemist Tyler, after many explosive failures. The subsequent antics of the samplers suggests something more potent than alcohol was involved. But, the censors presumably wouldn't allow mention of such illegal substances. Rock wakes up to find himself in bed with Doris, and a marriage license on the table. Neither remembers anything about that, and Doris seeks an immediate annulment. Later, she discovers she's pregnant, presumably by Rock. As she's being rushed into the maternity ward on a stretcher, Rock and a minister convince her to marry him again, right there, despite the fact that she still hasn't forgiven him for his deception and impregnation.

Let's face it, folks - If you've seen one Rock Hudson/Doris Day Comedy/Romance, then, yep-yep, you've, pretty much, seen them all.With only a slight variation on the theme - This predictably trite, little story about deliberate identity deception (set in the bustling, backstabbing world of NYC advertising agencies) really prolonged its ridiculous, little charade for far too long. And, that, in turn, totally wore on my overall patience as I desperately wanted to get through this nothing-picture, like, pronto! Believe me, I am trying to keep in mind that this flighty, little film (from 1961) was, in fact, made in a much more naive era of movie-making history than we live in today. But, regardless of this, its storytelling was pretty stale stuff, for the most part.And, speaking about the likes of Rock Hudson and Doris Day - Personally, I found the on-screen chemistry between these 2 to be pretty terrible and very unconvincing. I wonder if this was because, off screen, they (perhaps) hated each other's guts (?).

"Lover Come Back" is both a romantic comedy and a satire on the advertising industry. The main characters are Jerry Webster and Carol Templeton, executives working for rival advertising agencies. Although the two have never met in person, Carol knows Jerry by reputation and loathes him for his unethical method of securing new accounts by plying prospective clients with alcohol and procuring attractive young women for them. (For a film made when the Production Code was officially still in effect, this one is surprisingly frank about sex). Carol reports Jerry to the Ad Council (here portrayed as a professional body along the lines of the Bar Council with the power to discipline its members), but the smooth-talking Jerry manages to talk his way out of trouble. Further misunderstandings lead to Jerry creating a series of advertisements for a non-existent product, "Vip", and to these being broadcast by accident on television. Having succeeded in creating massive demand for "Vip", Jerry now has to come up with the product itself, and hires a brilliant but eccentric chemist, Dr. Linus Tyler, to invent it. It doesn't actually matter what "Vip" is- it could be anything from an aftershave to a brand of whisky- the important thing is that there has to be something that Jerry can sell. Further complications arise when Jerry poses as Dr Tyler in order to date Carol, hoping to win commercial information from her. I had previously thought of Rock Hudson as an action hero, particularly in Westerns, or the star of serious dramas like "Giant" or "A Farewell to Arms". This was the first time I had seen him in a comedy, and I must say that he is excellent. He gives a very assured performance as Jerry, the sort of man who lacks any sense of decency or honour but who can always relay upon his quick wits, his smooth tongue, his good looks and his charm to get himself out of any trouble. Hudson receives good support from Tony Randall as Jerry's neurotic, incompetent boss Pete.Hudson and Doris Day had been cast together in another rom-com, "Pillow Talk", two years earlier, and although I have never seen that film I understand that it was well received. Someone at the studio therefore obviously thought that the two worked well together and that it would be a good idea to team them again. I felt, however, that Day was miscast here. The film would have worked better had Carol been played as idealistic but naive and inexperienced, and also considerably younger than the wily older man Jerry. In 1961 Day was 37, a year older than Hudson, and I think that a younger actress was needed in the role. A twenty-something Carol would have come over as fresher, more innocent and with more excuse for being taken in by Jerry than a woman approaching middle age who really ought to have known better. I said that the film is both a satire and a romantic comedy, and as a satire it works very well. The idea of an advertising executive creating a demand for a non-existent product and then creating the product to match the demand is a brilliant satirical conceit and a sharp comment on the consumer society. As a rom-com, however, it does not work nearly so well, and would have been stronger had it been made as a pure satire without the need to conform to the standard romantic comedy formula complete with "happy" ending. I put that word in inverted commas because the marriage with which the film ends seems to be a recipe for perfect misery for at least one of the parties to it. Jerry, charming but completely unscrupulous both in business and in his private life, is really a comic villain rather than a romantic hero, and the naively idealistic Carol deserves something better than being lumbered, via a shotgun marriage, with such a rotter for a husband. The scriptwriters should have come up with a better ending, preferably one which involves Jerry getting his come-uppance or (if he is allowed to triumph on a material level) Carol walking away from him, a sadder but a wiser woman. 7/10, a mark which would have been higher had the ending been better.

Doris Day was and is a tremendous talent, an excellent singer and an excellent actress, but you wouldn't really know it from some of the idiotic stereotypical 'good girl' roles her husband forced her to play. While on a surface level, "Lover Come Back" has a lot of funny lines and good acting from everyone, it simply reminds me of the horrid choices Day made with regard to men. Forcing her to star in movies that were really beneath her was a form of abuse, and then when Marty Melcher (the husband) died, she found out that she was almost bankrupt. Her television situation comedy helped to restore her reputation and her self-esteem, but the damage had already been done. She is still thought of as a virgin-type, when her real life was anything but.It's a real pity that she rarely got to show what she could do as an actress. Yes, "Lover Come Back" is funny, but it is also stupid, very dated and the ending is slap-dash. I'll gladly watch "Love Me Or Leave Me" or "Calamity Jane" over this movie.