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IMDbPro

The Pajama Game

  • 1957
  • Approved
  • 1h 41m
IMDb RATING
6.6/10
4.4K
YOUR RATING
Doris Day, Ralph W. Chambers, Ralph Dunn, Eddie Foy Jr., Owen Martin, John Raitt, and Jack Straw in The Pajama Game (1957)
An Iowa pajama factory worker falls in love with an affable superintendent who had been hired by the factory's boss to help oppose the workers' demand for a pay raise.
Play trailer3:17
1 Video
44 Photos
ComedyDramaMusicalRomance

An Iowa pajama factory worker falls in love with an affable superintendent who was hired by the factory boss to deny the workers' demand for a pay raise.An Iowa pajama factory worker falls in love with an affable superintendent who was hired by the factory boss to deny the workers' demand for a pay raise.An Iowa pajama factory worker falls in love with an affable superintendent who was hired by the factory boss to deny the workers' demand for a pay raise.

  • Directors
    • George Abbott
    • Stanley Donen
  • Writers
    • George Abbott
    • Richard Bissell
  • Stars
    • Doris Day
    • John Raitt
    • Carol Haney
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.6/10
    4.4K
    YOUR RATING
    • Directors
      • George Abbott
      • Stanley Donen
    • Writers
      • George Abbott
      • Richard Bissell
    • Stars
      • Doris Day
      • John Raitt
      • Carol Haney
    • 71User reviews
    • 32Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win & 3 nominations total

    Videos1

    Trailer
    Trailer 3:17
    Trailer

    Photos44

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    Top cast41

    Edit
    Doris Day
    Doris Day
    • Babe Williams
    John Raitt
    John Raitt
    • Sid Sorokin
    Carol Haney
    Carol Haney
    • Gladys Hotchkiss
    Eddie Foy Jr.
    Eddie Foy Jr.
    • Vernon Hines
    Reta Shaw
    Reta Shaw
    • Mabel
    Barbara Nichols
    Barbara Nichols
    • Poopsie
    Thelma Pelish
    Thelma Pelish
    • Mae
    Jack Straw
    • Prez
    Ralph Dunn
    Ralph Dunn
    • Myron Hasler
    Owen Martin
    • Max
    Jackie Kelk
    Jackie Kelk
    • First Helper
    Ralph W. Chambers
    • Charlie
    • (as Ralph Chambers)
    Mary Stanton
    • Brenda
    Buzz Miller
    • Dancer
    Kenneth LeRoy
    • Dancer
    Rodney Bieber
    • Dancer
    • (uncredited)
    Buddy Bryan
    Buddy Bryan
    • Dancer
    • (uncredited)
    Florine Carlan
    • Bit Role
    • (uncredited)
    • Directors
      • George Abbott
      • Stanley Donen
    • Writers
      • George Abbott
      • Richard Bissell
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews71

    6.64.4K
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    Featured reviews

    9Hinda

    High-energy musical that may surprise you.

    Who'd have thought that a labor dispute could be such fun? Just add Doris Day's smile, Bob Fosse's choreography, amazing music and dancers and a bag of popcorn! This is a highly energetic film, super-charged with charisma. I can't count the number of times I hit "pause" and "rewind" just to get another look at a surprise dance move. Boy, do I dare say that this may have been what "Grease" was hoping it could aspire to? I want to see this one again real soon!
    8roslein-674-874556

    Real, warm, and lovable

    Do you dislike musicals because you feel they are about nonsense and fantasy? Well, here is a musical about, okay, a man and a woman falling in love, but also capital and labour, exploitation of the workers, crooked financiers, and a heroine who is a strong woman whose work is important to her and who gets angry when her boyfriend doesn't take her seriously. Call that a fantasy? I don't dislike musicals, but I have always disliked Doris Day, who always seemed to me to be a phoney, a woman who was always pretending to be arch and super-feminine. Here, for once, she is the tough girl she really was, a blue-collar heroine who is robust and forthright, and she is terrific.

    More important, of course, than the subject is the way it's handled, and the team of Adler and Ross (who also wrote Damn Yankees!) provide lots of charming, unpretentious, but also clever and peppy songs and two very slinky dance numbers, which last are a fine memorial to Carol Haney, the beautiful, talented, but sadly disturbed and short-lived dancer who originated the role on Broadway. Even the throwaway lines in the songs are enormously funny--for instance, when one song wants to make a point about a posh restaurant, the lyric is not "In a posh restaurant" but, referring to a generic fictitious posh restaurant, "At The Golden Finger Bowl..."

    Those who love musicals, of course, will appreciate one that is so well crafted and directed. But nostalgia freaks in general are richly served here. Typewriters? Time clocks? And UNIONS? Organisations that protect the rights of the workers? Gee, daddy, what are those?
    7elgee

    Fifties magic

    When it was released in 1957, The Pajama Game joined a long procession of song and dance Movies that grabbed us all who watched them with their energy, vitality and infectious romance. Doris Day bounces and radiates her way across the screen as only she can and has done many times previously in musicals, singing, dancing and looking great, teaming up this time with some of the cast from the Broadway Production, Eddie Foy Jnr., Carol Haney, Rita Shaw and John Raitt. As you would expect from this array of talent something special would arrive, and it didn't take long for us to taste it. In the opening minutes we are treated to one of Choreographer Bob Fosse's routines with Eddie Foy Jnr. and Rita Shaw singing and stepping to 'I'll never get jealous again ' and as the show moves on more memorable sequences appear like Carol Haney dancing to ' Steam Heat,' Doris Day singing ' Seven and a Half cents ' and everyone it seems giving a rousing rendition of ' Hernando's Hideaway.' The Pajama Game is alive with Fiftie's colour, vigour and good old fashioned song and dance, put together by ideas and talent that perhaps in those days we had the chance to take it all for granted. Sadly.....these days, with the absence of musicals we don't have that opportunity.
    9jayraskin1

    Enjoyable Music, Dance and Interesting Class Conflict Settting

    This was the reactionary 50's, so showing a conflict between management and labor, however comically presented, was quite daring. While not exactly a Marxist textbook case, it does show exploitation of workers and their attempts at fighting back. One can also view it as trivializing the harsh and terrible struggles of workers and unions against capitalist exploitation, but that seems a bit mean-spirited. While no "Cradle Will Rock" it does make the point that even a small issue (a pay raise of seven and a half cents) can be important in the context of a worker's life.

    I liked most of the songs and dances. There may be two or three too many as they do tend to slow down the plot a bit.

    I loved Doris Day, but I didn't feel that John Raitt was a good leading man for her. I didn't feel any chemistry between them. Someone suggested that Dean Martin was up for the lead. I would have preferred him. Carol Haney was good, but I was kind of sorry that the part didn't go to her Broadway understudy Shirley Maclaine. It now seems to me that Maclaine imitated Haney for the first eight years of her movie career. Still, Haney was 32 when she did the part and not in good health. She appears to be an older version of early Shirley. A 22 year old Maclaine would have been terrific.

    The song "There Once Was a Man" reminded me of the great duet between Betty Hutton and Howard Keel in "Annie Get Your Gun" - "Anything You Can Do." I would put this in the second tier of great movie musicals. It isn't "Cabaret" or "Singing in the Rain," or "Dames," as it does drag in a few spots, but for 75 out of its 95 minutes, its delightful.
    8Isaac5855

    A wonderful almost forgotten musical

    The 1957 film version of the Broadway musical THE PAJAMA GAME is one of the best translations of a stage musical to the screen ever. The screen version is extremely loyal to its origins, utilizing almost all of the original Broadway cast (except for Janis Paige, who lost the role of Babe to 50's box office powerhouse Doris Day)and keeping most of the original score intact (only one song "Hers Is" was not used in the film and a song written especially for Doris for the film, ended up being cut). This delightfully original musical centers around the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory where the head of the grievance committee (Doris) is trying to negotiate a 7 and a 1/2 cent raise for the factory workers by butting heads with the new factory supervisor (John Raitt, reprising his Broadway role)but eventually falling for him. Musicals were past their prime by the time this one made it to the screen, but it is still beautifully mounted and has some of the greatest songs in musical comedy ("Hey, There", "I'm not at all in love", "There Once was a Man"). Day and Raitt make an engaging screen couple (Day has rarely been so adult or sexy on screen) and the imaginative choreography by the legendary Bob Fosse is a big plus. Carol Haney's "Steam Heat" is classic Fosse and one of the highlights of this wonderful stage musical that inexplicably died at the box office upon release. A great musical that is a must for Day and Fosse fans.

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    Will Ferrell in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
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    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama
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    Romance

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      This is the only film in which Carol Haney had a speaking part. In all her other films she was strictly a dancer.
    • Goofs
      When the Annual Picnic is announced on the banner outside the Sleeptite Pajama Factory, it shows it as Thursday, 12th July. Look carefully at the calendar in Sid Sorokin's office: the 12th is a Monday.
    • Quotes

      Katie 'Babe' Williams, Grievance Committee: Married life is lots of fun / Two can sleep as cheap as one

    • Connections
      Featured in Siskel & Ebert's Holiday Video Gift Guide (1990)
    • Soundtracks
      The Pajama Game
      Written by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross

      by Ensemble

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • December 10, 1957 (Portugal)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Juego de pijamas
    • Filming locations
      • Hollenbeck Park - 415 S. St. Louis Street, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California, USA(Picnic & Lake sequence, inluding song: "Once a Year Day")
    • Production company
      • Warner Bros.
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Gross worldwide
      • $4,020
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 41m(101 min)
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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