What makes it different from others?

What a beautiful movie!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The play is about workers in an Iowa pajama factory whose owner wishes to refuse them a raise and to this end hires a new site manager told to keep it from happening until the new guy falls for one of the three elected representatives of the staff. Broadway performers cast in the film include four of the leads - John Raitt, Eddie Foy, Jr., Carol Haney and Reta Shaw. Doris Day in the film takes the part played on Broadway by Janis Page as one of the three union leaders. A fine memory of life in these times for those who lived through them but so dated today it may not please every movie buff. Its two production numbers, Once A Year Day and Seven And A Half cents are well done on screen.

I like John Raitt, Eddie Foy, Jr., and especially Doris Day in this movie, and I liked the songs, but the plot was somewhat controversial in this George Abbott/Stanley Donan production from Warner Brothers from 1957. The plot centers around the workers in a pajama factory putting forth endless efforts for their seven-and-a-half-cents-an-hour raise. Thus, to some extent this is a "serious" musical,though, granted, it is humorous in places, but again is a story about a sensitive issue. Too often anymore too many places go on strike for a raise, and it ends up affecting the whole economy in this country.Does this movie seem to say that fighting for raises is "cute"? I wonder. But again, the songs and occasional comedy are very entertaining, john Raitt and Doris Day click, and it does end up on a positive note. Yet, if this is supposed to be a comedy, then deal with something less controversial.

I remember seeing The Pajama Game when it first came out back in 1957 at the old Nostrand theater in Brooklyn. It played on a double bill with The Joker Is Wild. It was the first Doris Day film I ever saw and it became and remains my favorite. By the way that was some double bill because The Joker Is Wild became my first and favorite Frank Sinatra film.The Pajama Game was the successful product of a lot of creative talent, starting with director/writer George Abbott and also including composers Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. All the principal parts of the show that ran from 1954 to 1956 for 1063 performances on Broadway made it to the screen with the exception of Janis Paige who was Babe Williams.In fact Jack Warner in keeping with his policy of making sure at least one movie name for box office was included, something we all commented about when he brought My Fair Lady to the screen seven years later with Audrey Hepburn instead of Julie Andrews, was going to do the film with either Janis Paige or John Raitt from the Broadway cast. How the decision was made who knows it could have been a coin flip. But what happened was that Doris Day got her best musical film role in my humble opinion. It's so incredibly right for her.Now if it had gone the other way, rumor has it that Dean Martin would have co-starred with Janis Paige. Dino would have been great as Sid Sarokin, but at least we got an opportunity to see John Raitt do at least one of his Broadway roles for the screen.Raitt had the big hit out of The Pajama Game, Hey There. The Pajama Game Broadway Original Cast and Film record both sold well with Hey There being featured. However Rosemary Clooney and Sammy Davis, Jr. had the big hit records on the charts for this song. In Sam's case it was the first big recording hit of his career. As for Rosemary's version, it's done the way John Raitt does it on screen, into a Dictaphone with him commenting on the playback.George Abbott and Stanley Donen co-directed The Pajama Game and their collaborative effort did a wonderful job in translating the musical from stage to screen. The Pajama Game has as much dancing as singing in it and I find it hard to believe the entire thing was done on the Warner Brothers sound-stage, looking at that Once A Year Day number that Bob Fosse choreographed. I refuse to believe that wasn't done outdoors. In fact The Pajama Game showed influences of the film version of Picnic released the year before in that particular number.Doris Day's big number is I'm Not At All In Love which is perfectly suited to her sunny optimistic style of singing. Done with a touch of irony because union organizer Doris is definitely falling for plant superintendent Raitt.We can also thank the Deity that Carol Haney got to repeat her part as kookie Gladys the secretary and get to Hernando's Hideaway. Would you believe that Shirley MacLaine was understudy to Haney on Broadway? It's a fact and again she would have made a great Gladys. But I'm happy Haney got to do her part. She was also a great choreographer in her own right and you can bet she had her input with Bob Fosse in doing her numbers.It's sad, but The Pajama Game is quite dated now. The labor situation in Eisenhower America is a whole lot different than in Bush II America. The whole plot of The Pajama Game revolves around a small town in middle America where the main employer is the SleepTite Pajama company and a labor dispute involving a 7 1/2 cent per hour raise for the workers. More than likely today, SleepTite Pajamas are being made by some third world workers for subsistence wages and there's another depressed former company town in America.Dated though it is, this is one great musical, one of the best ever done on Broadway and transferred for posterity to the cinema.

While the music and dancing are wonderful, the story is really off the wall. Who could believe that workers want just 7 1/2 cents more? Anyone ever hear about an hourly wage increase? Ludicrous.This is not one Doris Day's best performances. She needed to more than challenged here. That challenge does not come about from the performance of John Raitt. Yes, their voices are great but the writing does them in.Then there is Reta Shaw. She probably never made it big in Hollywood as there was a Marjorie Main to take the type of parts that Shaw could have done well in. She does an unbelievably good song and dance routine with Eddie Foy Jr.Must Barbara Nichols play the typical factory worker in her usual stupid voice? Ms. Nichols was far better gifted than what is able to do here.Yes, Carol Haney shines but alas, she is given not that much to do here.Naturally, we're all happy to see that the threatened strike was averted by film's end, but the writing is so amateurish, we might have needed a walkout to make things more interesting.