Plot:
- by Zoë
Shaw
Cathy is an out-of-work single girl trying to make ends meet in New York
City. She meets Philip
as the result of a minor street accident. Philip is a charming millionaire
businessman, and wines and dines her, jets her to exotic resorts and showers
her with gifts. He is soon making a proposal, but it is not the kind of
proposal the small-town girl has in mind.
Review:
- by Joy Huffman
Wealthy business tycoon Philip Shayne is a handsome and
irresistible playboy. After his chauffeur inadvertently splashes Cathy Timberlake, he
sends his employee and best friend, Roger to make amends.
When Roger meets the naive, indignant and unemployed Cathy,
he thinks Philip will finally get what he deserves and arranges for Cathy to meet Philip
face to face and tell him what she thinks of him. The plan backfires when Cathy falls
under his spell (who wouldn't?) and ends up flying with him to Baltimore, Philadelphia and
New York.
In New York, they attend a Yankees game, where Cathy,
sitting in the dugout, is responsible for having Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Roger Maris
(in cameos) thrown out of the game for arguing with the umpire.
When Philip asks Cathy to accompany him to Bermuda for a
little romance, her wholesome upbringing prompts her to decline but somewhere along the
way her good intentions go bad and she agrees to go.
Cathy's nervous rash puts an end to any fun and she returns
home with innocence in tact but terribly humiliated. Resolved to regain her dignity, she
returns to Bermuda and calls Philip to join her so she can prove she's a woman.
("Send him a birth certificate," is roommate Connie's advice.) When Philip
arrives, he finds Cathy passed out with an empty bottle on her toe. Romance is once again
foiled.
To make Philip realize how much he loves Cathy, Roger and
Connie convince Cathy to go away with the repulsive Mr. Beasley from the unemployment
office so Philip can rescue her. Cathy reluctantly agrees to the plan and what follows is
the funniest chase scene. Of course, in the end, Philip and Cathy end up together -- on
Cathy's terms! Favorite Lines:
Cathy: "She wouldn't say yes until he came to the
house. They have eight children now."
Philip: "That couldn't have happened over the phone."
Cathy: "I would enjoy going out with you, Mr. Beasley,
if I just didn't find you so personally distasteful. You're a sneaky, crude, offensive
man. Of course that's just how I feel. I'm sure there are hundreds of girls in this city
who admire those qualities."
This movie was the first movie to gross over a million
dollars in a single theater. It made twice that in the 10 weeks it played at Radio City
Music Hall. This was Cary's 25th movie to open there and he was presented with a plaque to
commemorate the event. The movie was nominated for four Academy Awards.
VARIETY Film Review - May 9, 1962
- by "Pit"
- submitted by Barry Martin
The recipe is potent: Cary Grant and Doris Day in the old
cat-and-mouse game. Pure gag-propelled farce, in which the
commercial values tote up in a way that should handily extend the
recent continuity of comedic success at the boxoffice. The
gloss of "That Touch of Mink," however, doesn't obscure
an essentially threadbare lining. In seeming to throw off a
sparkle, credit performance and pace as the key virtues of this
Universal release. The rest of it is commonplace.
The Stanley Sapiro - Nate Monaster
screenplay maintains a generally good clip, all to the good, but
too often there's a hampering second-hand air about situation and
joke. Throughout, it seems, the determination is too keep
faith with American sex mythology at any cost.
In this particular arrangement of
coy he-she-nanigans, the comedy is premised on the conflict of her
inexperience and his old pro suavity. He's a
company-gobbling financier; she's a trim chick legging it through
Manhattan canyons in search of a job. It starts when his
limousine splatters her with puddle water. Fortuitous
meeting and mating maneuvers follow, with the action shuttling
between Gotham and Bermuda or Gotham and New Jersey suburbia.
Though short of the mark if you
count sharp wit, there's still a fair amount of jollity churned
out of all this for most audiences. Yet the burden for
laughs is on the subsidiary humor - the neurotic syndrome of Gig
Young as Grant's sauce-addicted fiscal adviser, and most
especially in some wacky sequences in an Automat. Funniest
of these is the no-cost method devised by payroller Audrey Meadows
to keep roommate Day in groceries.
However one assesses the
"innocent" fun, there's mention to be made of a
regrettable lapse in the way psychiatry is kidded. Young's
head-shrinker is depicted in the unethical light of capitalizing
on big business tips dropped by his patient, stealing out of the seance
to phone his broker while Young rambles on unawares. This
isn't satire, just an offensive contribution to the mounting
misinformation pertaining to an ambiguous but critical area of
therapy.
Although Grant gives his tycoon the
advantage of long seasoning at this sort of gamey exercise, he's
clearly shaded in the laughgetting allotment. As written,
Miss Day's clowning has the better of it; and she, by the way,
certifies herself an adept farceur with this outing. But not
surprisingly, the featured bananas make the best comedic
score. Young, who may be getting typed as a wisecracking
lush, affirms his claim to the characterization. And Miss
Meadows seems born to the dry, caustic comedienne, which is no
surprise per her tv track record. It pays her high
compliment to say she reminds viewers of the Eve Arden
heyday. There's strong support down the line, with
particularly effective contributions from Dick Sargent, Alan
Hewitt and John Astin.
Delbert Mann's direction suggests
that he enjoys presiding over comedy. Giving his principals
their head, he has also kept the action as lively as the script
permits. The technical credits are all stalwart, from
Russell Metty's camera to Ted Kent's editing.
Of some trade interest,
incidentally, is the wholesale fragmenting of production covet in
what's become a now-familiar maze of profit and tax
maneuvering. The percentage pie carves up three ways, among
Granley (Grant), Nob Hill (Shapiro), and Arwin (Doris Day - Martin
Melcher), per screen credits for each. Further, Robert
Arthur gets executive producer billing, with Shapiro and Melcher
listed as producers, separate and additional to their corporate
identities. Everybody figures to have a juicy melon to
slice.
NEW YORK TIMES Film Review -
June 15, 1962
- by Bosley Crowther
- submitted by Barry Martin
It may be tough for some people to sit by and watch Doris Day
being blandly unfaithful to Rock Hudson, as she is by appearing
with Cary Grant in Stanley Shapiro's, Martin Melcher's and Delbert
Mann's latest comedy-romance, "That Touch of
Mink." But it is, we feel sure, a transgression that
the purists should be able to tolerate, considering the larger
gratifications to be had from this new film at the Music Hall.
For again the adroit Mr. Shapiro
has written a lively, lilting script, this one with Nate Monaster,
that has as much glittering verbal wit and almost as much comic
business as "Pillow Talk" and "Lover Come
Back," in which Miss Day and Mr. Hudson were apparently
inalterably joined. And Mr. Mann has directed it with that
briskly propulsive pace that pinpoint precision in timing
sight-gags that are the distinction of his bright new comic style.
And what's more, for all her coy
flirtations and her ultimate surrender to Mr. Grant, Miss Day does
hold out against his manpower and his frank seductions almost to
the end. Indeed, it is her stubborn prudence - or the
stubborn prudence of the little character she plays - and her
pious determination to stay substantially as nature made her until
she is well circled by a wedding band, that support the entire
dramatic obstacle to Mr. Grant's importunities throughout the
film.
So we man, at least, say she is
faithful to Mr. Hudson - in her fashion. And that's okay.
Okay, too, is the obvious
repetition of the patient, prolonged seduction theme that Mr.
Shapiro appears to find congenial for his brand of comedy.
Sure, we've seen the inviolable
maiden, reluctant but eager, cautious but curious, shy but bold,
in any number of movies. She's still good for kidding and
suspense, so long as she's pursued by a nice fellow - with a
snappy script in hand.
And that's what we have here - a
cautious but curious young shop-girl in New York, suddenly exposed
to and attracted by a worldly and charming millionaire who wishes
to make her his mistress, plies her with presents and mink, gets
her as far as Bermuda and - well, you can take it from there.
No, you'd better not. You'd
better leave it in Mr. Shapiro's and Mr. Monaster's hands, for it
is their gift of gab and gay invention that keeps the comedy
spinning to the end. It is their skill at twining the
involvement of the couple, Miss Day and Mr. Grant, into a neatly unravelable
tangle, their ability to work into the scene a socially conscious,
psychotic adviser and aide to Mr. Grant and their way of arriving
at solutions that make the whole thing an unremitting joke.
Especially nimble is the sub-plot
they have worked out with the psychotic aide and his stiff-faced
psychiatrist, which could be nasty, if it weren't so ingenuous and
droll. Gig Young as the aide and Alan Hewitt as the
psychiatrist have at their roles with such glee and such humorous
affectation that they add a great deal to the whole.
Audrey Meadows, too, as a roommate
and skeptical counselor to Miss Day and John Austin as a tin-horn
suitor do their jobs trippingly.
But Miss Day and Mr. Grant are
finally the ones who carry the whole thing to success. Mr.
Hudson will certainly be broad-minded. He will surely
forgive this happy lapse.
Review:
- by Kathy Fox
THAT TOUCH OF MINK is
Cary Grant's 69th film and his only film with Doris Day and the only time he
will be directed by Delbert Mann. Day was paid $750,000 for her role
as Kathy Timberlake and Grant received $600,000 for his role as Philip
Shane, plus he received a percentage. Also this is the first film to
break over $1,000,000.00 in a single theatre, in this case Radio City Music
Hall in New York. To honor this achievement, Radio City presented
Grant with a sterling silver trophy as the "all-time box office
champion." Shane a wealthy businessman is a bachelor and
accidentally splashes water on Kathy Timberlake on his way to work. He
sees her walking into the automat and sends his business partner, Roger (Gig
Young) out to apologize for him. Kathy comes up to his office and
naturally is very attracted to Shane, and vice versa for him. He
pursues her and they finally end up going to Bermuda, with the idea of
taking a trip around the world. Instead Kathy, being the perpetual
virgin, breaks out in hives and they return to New York. Kathy cannot
stand the fact that Philip did not see her as a woman and returns to Bermuda
and calls him in New York and he flies down to be with her.
However, she is drunk by the time he gets there and falls off the balcony of
the hotel onto the canopy, only her pride being hurt. Finally, Roger
convinces Kathy that Shane is in love with her and they set a trap to get
him. Girl gets boy in the end, and this time Philip breaks out in
hives on their honeymoon. This is a cute little show, and of course,
Cary is most attractive and has developed his on-screen presence to the
nines. He is only three pictures away from his retirement when he
finishes this film.
Review
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