That Touch of Mink

A surprisingly funny film with some very good comedic performances. In particular, a wonderfully, gleefully neurotic Gig Young as Cary Grant's secretary. Love the scene when he asks his secretary to let down her hair and then take off her glasses. She remains unattractive. "Funny, he says, it always works in the movies." And what a great and bizarre first name Gig is.

Audrey Meadows is very good as well, as Doris Day's cynical roommate, and John Astin (of "The Addams Family" fame) nearly steals the show as a smarmy Government clerk. "Muscatel, for my lady's pleasure." Sure the plot is dated and predictable, but everything is handled with a light touch and the movie is very watchable. Love the scenes in the automat simply for nostaglia's sake.

Funniest moment. Gig young getting slapped by a hand that emerges from the tiny automat window.

Great writing, cool gowns, and Cary Grant panache only begin to describe the pleasures of this surprisingly refreshing film. Cary Grant is an overly-controlling business executive; Gig Young plays his side-kick, junior, and alter-ego. Doris Day is strong-willed and fun to watch, but Audrey Meadows is sensational in her over-the-top performance as Doris Day's older and wiser roommate. Two scenes stand out: one in the fabled NY quick-meal restaurant, the Automat, the other a computer room scene that has to be seen by anyone who knows what IBM stands for. See this movie. It will surprise you.

Doris Day and Cary Grant were my parents favorites as well as mine. To see That Touch Of Mink in 2018 is a bit of a cringing exercise. Two mega stars in their, let's say, mature years, specially Grant, behaving like adolescents it's a bit hard to take. Doris's character shares an apartment with Audrey Meadows - who I believe also needs some professional attention - they sleep in little twin beds. So bizarre to see. But and here is were the Doris Day mystery resides. I believed her unbelievable character, one hundred per cent. Doris Day was 39, Cary Grant 58 but everything I saw in Doris Days was true. That's why, I presume, this is a favorite comedy of the Coen brothers. My niece, who is 15, saw the film with me and her comment was that Cary Grant's and Gig Young's characters should be arrested. Yes, 2018 is not 1962 and films are socio-historical documents.

This was probably the fourth or fifth early sixties sexual innuendo comedy that I've caught up on during the 2020, now 2021 pandemic. By caught up, I mean I've been trying to screen one film a night, that I've been meaning to watch for years, from my eight thousand plus video collection. The script was funny, the actors were good and the direction was fine. I just had a couple of problems.

Cary Grant was an entity onto himself in not less than ten brilliant, classic comedies of the late thirties and early forties. He was a suave middle aged leading man in Hitchcock suspense films of the forties and fifties. By the early sixties, while he was still sophisticated and sharp, he didn't quite have it as the romantic comedy Lothario. And Doris Day, at age forty, while still quite beautiful, charming and witty, didn't convince me that she was the nervous, starry eyed young virgin who was living the lifestyle of a twenty two year old, trying to find herself.

The original idea for the Mary Tyler Moore show had Mary Richards newly divorced and starting over in a new city. They decided to change it and have her fresh out of a long term relationship. She was thirty years old and they knew the idea that she was still a naive virgin wouldn't quite fly. If Doris' character in this one was divorced from the only man she'd ever been with, and nervous and anxious with someone new, it would have worked for me. A forty year old woman, living in a tiny apartment with a roommate, working at temp jobs and staying in a room with a man for the first time was less than credible. Yes, women like this exist and I've met them. They're usually not the type that a suave billionaire playboy who looks like Cary Grant would do an immediate backflip over.

Okay, now I sound like a sexist and an ageist. The fact is, a forty year old virgin, male or female, isn't usually the most sought after partner in New York. To leave on a positive note, Audrey Meadows was perfectly cast as the wise and cynical best friend. I wish she had done more films but I guess I should be happy that Alice Kramden is forever a part of my DNA.

I would not place 'Touch Of Mink' with the likes of Tarkovsky's films, but I will say that it is a beautifully-filmed fantasy that is really titillatingly funny in a genuinely charming way. Even the most serious film viewers cannot deny the smiles that are inevitable when Doris is on the screen. The film's story evolves when two lives are randomly thrown together - that of a hard-working waitress and a rich bachelor playboy. What ensues is delicious full-on Technicolor romantic comedy.

There are also some classic moments: The hand emerging from the 'atuomatic' restaurant where Doris and Audrey work to smack the face of a particularly offending male patron (those where the days when a woman could smack a man in a film and get great laughs...) - Doris's fantasy sequence as she's driven through the streets in a bed - with a man - and they're NOT MARRIED! It's a harmless, light film that still has such a centered beauty and sophistication that shows off the bright side of Hollywood-produced films of that era. As previous posters have commented, HD Digital video just cannot produce the same wonderful hues of celluloid - and there is something irresistible about Ms. Day in this film - her character's innocence is rather genuine, as is her male lead (Cary Grant) who obviously loves her for his ability to win her over with gifts and his own brand of charm.

I think it's important to have a second look at many of Doris Day's films in the lights of the 21st century. Touch of Mink, in particular, holds a dream-bubble of blissful idealism and moral irony that has incredible resonance today, when so many have found that we must reexamine our attitudes toward casual sex. This is the central core of the film, and many would now see's Ms. Day's character's reaction to such a thought as far more intelligent than when it was viewed in the 1970's- 80's.

Give the film a view; especially on a Friday night when you really, truly want to be entertained by a dazzling screen star.