Lover Come Back (1961)

Please don't spend money on this.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Lover Come Back (1961): Dir: Delbert Mann / Cast: Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall, Edie Adams, Jack Kruschen: Side splitting romantic comedy about opposites attract that presents a clever and hilarious third act. Rock Hudson plays Jerry Webster whom Carol Tempelton, played by Doris Day desires to expose when a product called VIP is commercialized. She doesn't believe the product exists and sets out to expose him. Unfortunately she has never met him, which sets a meet cute where he poises as someone else and manipulates her into presenting counter ideas. Director Delbert Mann won acclaim with Marty, but here he takes a simple plot and tired formula and presents it as surprisingly fresh. Hudson is slick as Webster, a womanizer who romances his way to the top, and Day is the perfect counter and foil being duped into his ploys. Whether they eventually fall in love is an after thought as to the weird events that land them both in an elevator with one on a gurney after a product worked too well. Tony Randall plays the business president who feels evaporated into Hudson's scheme and ends up a victim. Edie Adams is too brief as a would be actress convinced to testify for Webster when offered to do VIP commercials. Jack Kruschen plays a chemist whom is bribed to come up with a marketable product. It all arrives at the reality that both genders can be equally played. Score: 8 / 10

The second of the three Doris Day - Rock Hudson - Tony Randall romps, LOVER COME BACK actually is a slightly sharper film than it's closer rival PILLOW TALK, with SEND ME NO FLOWERS a bit behind them. The reason for this positioning is that PILLOW TALK did not really spoof anything (Randall is producing a show and needs music composed by Hudson; until the end when Hudson decides to allow Day to decorate his apartment - with horrendous results - Day's interior decorating career really was just a mild peg in the screenplay). SEND ME NO FLOWERS comes closest to satire in the business with Paul Lynde's friendly, helpful cemetery plot salesman. Most of the rest deals with hypochondria and the world of the suburbs. Only in LOVER COME BACK does the center of the script involve itself in the profession of the three leads: Madison Avenue Advertising Agencies.Hudson is the right hand man (one might say the central brain) for an ad agency that is owned (by inheritance, not character or brains) by Randall. Hudson has a formula for getting accounts - find the client's weakness, and play to it, pushing booze and girls at the same time. We see him steal the account of Jack Oakie (his final performance on film, but a nice one) as a Virginian who is still a loyal Confederate, and likes his booze ("jest a tetch" is a mantra of his, with Hudson or anyone else filling up the glass), and likes his fair ladies as well. Unfortunately for Hudson, Day had been scheduled to give a presentation to Oakie, and is really angry by the way Hudson stole the account. She starts asking questions, and finds the chief one of the chorus girls that Oakie was set up with (Edie Adams). When Hudson learns Adams plans to talk he tries to talk his way out by saying he was planning to make Adams the new "girl" for a new product. "Well, what is the product?", Adams asks. Hudson looks at a newspaper headline referring to V.I.P.s and says it is called "Vip". Adams does not testify against Hudson because he has a number of specious and vague, but sexy commercials shot with Adams selling "Vip".All this might have still remained under wraps, but Randall, in his first attempt to show he can make decisions rather than Hudson, tells his assistant (Joe Flynn) to release the commercials and saturate the television airwaves with them. Only later does a horrified Hudson tell him that there is no product called Vip.Day learns of "Vip" from Adams. She starts more of an investigation, and discovers that nobody is quite sure what VIP is. Her boss, Howard St. John, is dubious of any result. Her own job on the line she decides to investigate on her own. Hudson has decided to use an eccentric Nobel Chemistry Laureate (Jack Kruschen - in a fun performance) to concoct a product called Vip. At one point Day shows up at Kruschen's house, and sees Hudson wearing an apron. She jumps to the conclusion he is Kruschen, and starts trying to prevent him from signing with Hudson's agency. Hudson decides to take full advantage of this situation: it preoccupies Day in her snooping, and she is more attractive than he imagined.The plot then follows that of PILLOW TALK with Day not realizing she is dating the man she loathes, not the imagined great man of science with a fragile psyche. Hudson plays it to the hilt (his comic abilities were first brought out by Day in their films, and it possibly enabled his career as a star to last really as long as it did). As for Randall, his desire to show he is worthy of his father "the Commodore" (a forbidding portrait of Randall in yachting costume is above the desk the son sits at) is confronted by his total lack of understanding his business, of making decisions, or taking responsibility. He keeps hoping either Hudson or Flynn will fall on their sword (symbolically will do, but he is open for actual suicide) to save his firm from being wrecked. His only apparent close relationship is with his therapist Dr. Melnick (Richard Deacon - in a sadly wasted single scene with Randall at the end), and even Randall mentions that Deacon has said he finds him boring.So what does the great Kruchen concoct out of chemicals and smoke (multi-colored, as Randall finds to his cost)? Put it this way: It is very possible that that great Vice President of the U.S., Thomas Marshall, would have fully appreciated the perfect companion invented by Kruschen for Marshall's really good five cent cigar!

My personal preference is for films of all kinds from the '30's to the mid '40's. For me the writing is generally much more sophisticated than later films - especially films from the era of Lover Come Back. That said, I give this film extremely high marks for the script. The writing here is much more sophisticated than Pillow Talk. There is nothing in any of the Day/Hudson movies to compare with the aquarium scene. It is classic.Another key scene is when Rock comes up to Doris' apartment for dinner. The dress that she wears in that scene is one of the best ever! It is sophisticated, chic, glamorous and as sexy as they come! It accentuates her knockout figure without revealing anything! Wow is she ever hot in that dress!But that scene, paradoxically, is why I do not rate this film more highly. Rock really overdoes the poor, sheltered, inexperienced guy. (I wish he had played that scene with the subtlety he displays when Doris mistakes him for the professor in the lab, and in the subsequent aquarium scene. They are both perfect.) As hammy as it is, it is a real blemish on an otherwise great performance and fabulous comedy. That scene just seems more hammy than the rest of the film.One other criticism is the ending. It comes very abruptly. I wish there had been some film footage showing his mailing letters for 8 months before giving up in the 9th, rather than just having his character tell us about that long interval while proposing to Doris on her way to delivery.Lastly, I think that this film gets overlooked because of its title. If it had a title that actually reflected the story, it would be more memorable. Every time I hear "Lover Come Back" I just draw a blank. Day and Hudson aren't lovers except for one night very late in the story, and they are reunited a few scenes later at the very end of the film. The bulk of the film deals with their conflict! The title leads you to expect a story built around the efforts of one lover to rekindle a romance with an estranged beloved - not this movie at all! Big mistake.

Rock Hudson, Doris Day, and Tony Randall are excellent - the movie is not so much. First of all, the film is a one of those sophisticated (?) '60s "sex comedies". There are suggested sexual situations throughout: Mr. Hudson is, I believe, fairly explicitly stated as a promiscuous man; and, Ms. Day makes a conscious decision to have out-of-wedlock sex with Hudson. Also, there are "gay jokes"; and, there are suggestions of marijuana use (note the scene where Hudson explains away an uncomfortable situation by saying he smoked a funny cigarette, lacking a label).The advertising industry is effectively satirized. The VIP storyline is funny. The scenes between Hudson/Day and Hudson/Randall are witty and well-played. I liked Hudson and Randall with their beards. You'll get to see Hudson in his underwear (boxers) and Day in a bathing suit (one-piece, alas).BUT, the script is filled with tired old jokes. The ending is too rushed. Very distracting are the blurring of Doris Day's close-ups in this film. The other performers have very clear close-ups. I would rather they not blur Ms. Day's close-ups, or just blur everyone. I suppose this is a feature of several of Day's sixties films - it's unfortunate. ******* Lover Come Back (1961) Delbert Mann ~ Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall