Send Me No Flowers (1964)

Pretty Good

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

critics like 'pillow talk' more, but I really think this movie is the best one they made together. they are both at the top of their game and amazingly doris was the biggest movie star in the world when she did this film. at the age of 40. rock is a hypochondriac who mistakenly believes he is dying. through a series of mishaps doris thinks he is covering up an affair. she throws rock out of the house and in an ironic twist he ends up in tony randall's bed, in tony's pajamas. there are lots of in jokes thrown about in the funny and clever script. both stars look great-like movie stars-and we have the inevitable happy ending. lots of fun and they don't make 'em like this anymore. that's too bad.

Ben Mankiewicz, in his introduction to "Send Me No Flowers," mentioned some big screen teams and then said, "And some would add Rock Hudson and Doris Day." Some? They were huge box office. And they show why they were in this very funny film, which also stars Tony Randall, with Paul Lynde.Hudson plays George Pemberton Kimball, a hypochondriac, who goes to the doctor constantly expecting the worst. Unfortunately, there's nothing wrong with him. While he's in the office, the doctor receives a call about someone with a bad heart condition who isn't going to make it. Standing nearby, George assumes that it's about him and nearly breaks down. He doesn't tell his wife Judy (Day), but he does tell his neighbor Arnold (Randall), turning him into an instant, sobbing alcoholic.George picks out a cemetery plot with the encouragement of the cemetery salesperson, Mr. Akins (a hilarious performance by Lynde), and then turns to the business of finding a new husband for Judy. As he emphasizes to Arnold, however, this is only for companionship.Then Judy runs into an old sweetheart (Clint Walker), a suitable replacement. Miscommunications and misunderstandings abound.Hudson and Day had great chemistry - Hudson said they made three movies and could never look directly at one another because they couldn't stop laughing. It's a shame they didn't make more films together, but the right script didn't come along. Randall is perfect as he writes George's eulogy and crosses out lines like "loyal friend," whenever George says something to him. The three of them together were dynamite.For their first film, Pillow Talk, Day said to Hudson, who had not done comedy before, "You don't have to worry. It's pretty funny." It was. They all were.

After directing Doris Day in 1963's still-hilarious "The Thrill of It All!", Norman Jewison showed similar comic sensibilities with this screwball 1964 marital farce complemented by a sharp screenplay by longtime veteran Julius Epstein. This one represents something of a departure in that Day and Rock Hudson, in their third and last pairing, play a married couple from the outset. As George and Judy Kimball, they are a happily married suburban couple hamstrung by his persistent hypochondria. Convinced that he is dying after a regular check-up, George spends the rest of the story preparing for what he thinks will be his imminent death, including setting up Judy with her next husband, a former suitor whom they literally run into at their country club.Unlike the previous two films, Hudson actually dominates this movie, and he is in peak comic form with a dryly funny turn as George. With her glamour minimized in favor of her homespun likability, Day is relegated to the role of the confused wife here, though she has funny moments along the way. Randall steals practically all his scenes as devoted neighbor Arnold constantly in a drunken stupor in his premature bereavement over George's departure, and Paul Lynde has a riotous scene as an overly zealous memorial park director. This one may lack the will-she-won't-she dilemma of the first two films, 1959's "Pillow Talk" and 1961's "Lover Come Back" and is usually dismissed as a domestic comedy, but I think the set-up is genuinely clever and the laughs well-earned. The only extra on the 2005 DVD is the original theatrical trailer. For those interested in all three films, your best bet is to purchase the bargain-priced "Doris Day and Rock Hudson Comedy Collection".

Doris Day is much preferable (and convincing) playing smart, savvy businesswomen than the ditsy housewife she is here (and the cumbersome wig she's wearing doesn't do her beauty justice). Rock Hudson, however, is very smooth as her hypochondriac husband who thinks he's dying and plans to find Doris the perfect future husband. Based on a stale play, this re-teaming of Rock and Doris (and Tony Randall, the eternal third banana) from "Pillow Talk" and "Lover Come Back" has some funny scenes but not enough wit. Day has a great silly moment in a dream sequence, and she puts a funny spin on some of her lines (like the way she asks/demands, "Dolores Yellowstone?!"). Unfortunately, director Norman Jewison seldom cuts loose; he's too confined to the script, which itself is too confined to its stage origins. **1/2 from ****