That Touch of Mink

Unread post by **webmaster** » 12 Oct 2005, 10:23

Time to review "That Touch of Mink".

This film seems to divide people into loved-it or hated-it camps
- as apparent by the two reviews by Ralph and Paul:

http://www.dorisday.net/that_touch_of_mink.html

What do you think?

Director Delbert Mann with Doris Day.

ray · Unread post by **ray** » 12 Oct 2005, 11:53

Doris must hate this title with all her animal welfare work!

But there are some redeaming qualities and funny scenes in this movie. Doris with the bottle on her toe on the bed saying 'Hi' to Cary Grant when he enters the bedroom - and the scene with the unemployment clerk are a scream, along with the little man calling his mother to say you were right about woman because of the goings-on with Doris and Cary at the motel.

This was the early sixties remember, and most woman would not admit to being 'loose' . Kathy Timberlake wanted to sleep with Cary but only if married her, which fits those victorian-minded years when even on TV a married couple had to have twin beds.

Things changed, even with Doris - on her TV series she dated more than one man. It was kind of uncomfortable seeing a 40-year old protect her chasity, but it really was about mariage first. The great way back in the day to 'trap a man'!

Jas1 · Unread post by **Jas1** » 12 Oct 2005, 12:23

Alot of people have a problem with the plot in this film and it really is a bit much that a woman looking like Cathy Timberlake on the verge of the sexual revolution would be so small town prudish - especially when it was "Cary Grant" trying to bed her!

However, there is no doubt the production is top notch in all areas - even the script is slick - although the situation unbelievable. Doris never looked better - that picture shows my 2nd favourite "Day" look - around 1962-63 "Thrill of it all" period. The first being the short haired "Day" - around about the "Julie/ Teacher's Pet" period. The clothes too in this film are stylish yet timeless - I think that could have alot to do with Cary Grant's influence. Doris said somewhere he played a large part in how Cathy Timberlake should look. I remember reading somewhere that no unemployed gal ever looked as good as that - even drenched in rain! Remember too that amazing black evening gown and Doris so ultra stylish with her hair piled high - and Cary admiring her shoulders and back.

So, all in all, setting aside the absurdity of the situation, I love this film - helps too that Cary is probably my favourite actor and I agree with Doris, he was style personified.

howard · Unread post by **howard** » 12 Oct 2005, 12:27

I voted average for this one. It's the only film, I believe, where Doris truly acted like a "virgin." It just was not believable that a good looking dame like DD, who was not a kid, would put up such a battle to hold on to her virginity! It did have its moments, however - I love the scene at the automat where Doris is explaining about her plight to Gig Young. She looks so cute in that scene and her delivery is brilliant! Back to the automat: the scene there with Audrey Meadows is also a good one. And I find the soft focus in the film (TOTALLY unneccesary!) to be very distracting. Oh yeah, I like the scene in the pool with Cary ... DD's freckles show - the photography is clear - and our gal looks smashing in that swim suit!

Unread post by **webmaster** » 12 Oct 2005, 12:42

I think we are getting hung up on this idea of her 'just protecting her virginity'. There was also the dynamics of the (any) relationship. The power play. If she submitted to him on his terms, when by her terms (the norm then) he had yet to prove he was after anything more than sex, he becomes the dominant person.

She wanted a relationship based on more than just sex - isn't that still true today? I think she was protecting her individuality and her values more than her virginity as she obviously fancied him.

If you forget the way we call those standards (which I don't pretend to have, but sometimes wish I did) 'old fashioned', today, it's not such an unbelieveable tale. Forget the sex, it was really about trust.

Jas1 · Unread post by **Jas1** » 13 Oct 2005, 05:57

Bryan, I don't agree this applies to Touch of Mink - it certainly does to Pillow Talk & Lover come Back - Jan and Carol were certainly players in the sex field (in my mind) it was the man they objected to rather than the act. Cathy Timberlake however was verging on the absurd in her protestations and Audrey Meadows was even worse. Yes "girls" of that time were probably alot more innocent but Cathy Timberlake (at best) was in her thirties (Doris was almost 40) and breaking out in a rash even at the thought of sex was a bit OTT. Has Stanley Shapiro ever discussed his screenplay? Maybe he was trying to satirize Doris' previous "career gals" - Jan and Carol?

Vicki M · Unread post by **Vicki M** » 13 Oct 2005, 17:15

I had this discussion with my brother and he one-upped me. He actually became a Doris Day fan after me.

I made the argument that Cathy wasn't afraid to have sex so much as it was having it with such a sophisticated man. Her upbringing and experience may have been more limiting in that department. BUT, he stated why did she cover her ring finger when in the elevator with the minister? Why did she keep imagining everyone watching her on that canopy bed? I said, "good question" and that was the end of that.

Betty · Unread post by **Betty** » 14 Oct 2005, 02:27

In answer to the last post, it was ALL about sex after marriage that Kathy was looking for. Sure she broke out in hives with the thought of having sex with a near stranger who would have dumped her if not married. Bryan was right, its wasn't about virginty but trust!!!

Debbi Austen · Unread post by **Debbi Austen** » 08 Jan 2006, 21:23

This script was wriiten by the same guy that wrote Lover Come Back . It's another movie that pokes fun at early 1960's morality. I agree with Howard it's the only movie that makes Doris out to be a "virgin" (and she was 38 when she made the film). However, it has some great lines and funny scenes.
Excellent cast, although I don't think that Cary and Doris had as much chemistry as they did with their other co-stars. Audrey Meadows, Gig Young and John gave perfect performances.
Did you just watch this on TCM tonight, Magic? Me too. I was drinking tea, and almost choked when I saw Doris laying in bed with a bottle on her toe.

Debbi Austen · Unread post by **Debbi Austen** » 08 Jan 2006, 21:28

Good point Bryan.

Debbi Austen · Unread post by **Debbi Austen** » 09 Jan 2006, 02:18

Hi Lauren,

I don't think this is one of Doris' best films. But I think Doris was great in it. Audrey was wonderful too and added to it. I laughed three times when I saw this film and smiled when they mentioned Rock Hudson's name. Did you notice a young Dick Sargent as one of the newlyweds?

Every time I saw Gig Young, I imagined Tony Randall in the part. I think it was funny that he was trying to find someone who could say "no" to Grant. (But I agree with you Magic, I didn't like the part with the Psych, it was stupid).

Grant came out of retirement to do To Catch a Thief, not this film. He did Charade, Father Goose and Walk Don't Run after this.
Grant can really turn a line, but what I noticed in a lot of his later films is he lacks the facial expressions he used when he was younger.

It's Magic · Unread post by **It's Magic** » 09 Jan 2006, 18:53

This movie is NOT one of Cary's best performances.He's the type that just has to be goofing off in something like Arsnic and Old Lace or it's just not really Cary you're watching.I thought this movie had some funny lines in it.Didn't like when Doris and Cary broke out just because they were nervous,DID like when Cary was commenting on Doris' back and shoulders.I thought it was cute when he said,"You have a lovely back." She,stiff,said,"My mother always made me sit up straight." I knoticed what you are talking about,Lauren,Garnt's facial expressions.It was during the 30's and 40's when he seemed to have all the good ones--not that he didn't make some good movies later on,I love Father Goose and Charade,just he seems to be CARY in those old black and white comedies.I heard The Glass Bottom Boat was good.I hope so,'cause I'm just about to flip I'm so excited to watch it.

Debbi Austen · Unread post by **Debbi Austen** » 10 Jan 2006, 02:19

I think so too Magic.(about Cary). I agree with you on critque of That Touch of Mink , that there were some silly parts in it. However, I watched it three times now and each time it made me laugh. The last time I watched with my sisters. One loves Cary Grant, and everytime he made a sarcastic remark she cracked up.

Maybe I underrated this film.

Unread post by **webmaster** » 09 Apr 2006, 15:43

Came across this DVD review from Digitally Obsesed:

Now, without getting too vulgar — this is a trite little comedy, after all — That Touch Of Mink is essentially a story about Doris Day's maidenhead. Will she or won't she sleep with Cary Grant? It's from the early 1960s, so the movie cannot say as much, but any audience member out of preschool will know that this is a movie basically about Doris Day's virginity, and about how everyone is after it.

Things get underway immediately, when poor Cathy (Doris), on a rainy New York morning, is splashed and muddied by a passing limousine, mussing up her dress on the way to a job interview. (It took nearly another forty years for so much fuss to be made again about a stained dress: Monica Lewinsky's.) In that limo was corporate titan Philip Shayne, played by an older but still dashing Cary Grant; he knows he should have stopped to apologize, but has to scurry off to Very Important Business instead. When he catches sight of the young woman from his office — she's on her way into the Horn & Hardart Automat — he dispatches his lieutenant, played by Gig Young, to apologize for him. Young's character is a professor of economics at Princeton lured away by Shayne's money to the corporate corridors, but he's wracked with guilt about it; an unusually large percentage of his ample salary goes to his therapist, whom he sees daily. (The shrink, in turn, pumps his patient for stock tips.)

Doris thinks that Cary should apologize himself, not send an emissary, and she intends to tell him so. But when they meet, since she's a big movie star and he's a big movie star, they instantaneously fall in love. They paint the town, zip around on his corporate jet, and then he asks the big question: Will she accompany him on a trip to Bermuda? No, it's decidedly not a marriage proposal; she wants to go, but does a nice girl do something like that?

More: http://www.digitallyobsessed.com/showre ... p3?ID=3020

Debbi Austen · Unread post by **Debbi Austen** » 11 Apr 2006, 01:30

I wondered why you picked this review? This person reviewed several of Doris' films gave them better ratings and was less vulgar in discription.

dorisdayicon · Unread post by **dorisdayicon** » 12 May 2007, 22:54

This, I think, is one of the more interesting takes on That Touch Of Mink

May 6, 2007
filed under color, Doris Day, girl on top, MidCentury Modern retrocinema.

"That Touch of Mink (1962)
Doris Day at the height of her come-back popularity as the prim but lovable “girl” who won’t put out without a ring on her finger, meets her match in playboy executive Cary Grant who is willing to fly her around the world but doesn’t want to settle down and get married. What’s a good girl to do?

He’s charming, wonderful, and wealthy. He showers her with gifts and shopping trips to Bergdorf’s, but a girl who strays with her reputation always pays. Can an old fashioned girl be bought for a trip to Bermuda and a mink coat? Mmmmmaybe…

It’s actually never implied that Day is inexperienced with men. The joke of her being the world’s oldest virgin is a sexist slur, a label Day hated because it flippantly denied any positive aspect to her wholesome sex comedies. The real trophy at stake isn’t her virtue but her value. Easily won is easily discarded — it takes a woman of experience to know how men think, and to hold out for what she wants.

Far from being a prudish throwback in an age of carefree swingers, Day forges her own brand of lipstick feminism: the right to wear skirts and high heels and still insist that men respect you in the morning, no matter what your age or experience.

That Touch of Mink seems like such formula star vehicle fluff that it’s a surprise the original script by Stanley Shapiro and Nate Monaster almost won the Academy Award (it did win the Golden Globe)! The mildly amusing dilemma “will she or won’t she”, which has Day breaking out in hives and hallucinating everyone can see her in bed with Grant, is easily overshadowed by the antics of the supporting cast.

Audry Meadows takes a break from the Honeymooners as Day’s protective conscience who dispenses advice along with lunch through the tiny windows at the Automat, and Gig Young shines as Grant’s employee and confidant who worships the industrialist but openly hopes someday he will get his comeuppance. New York Yankees favorites Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra make a strained cameo, and even UNIVAC isn’t safe from Day’s feminine touch as it spews colorful punch cards after one of her emotional piques.

Plenty have criticized Day’s comeback career as an outdated fantasy with its aging star and wrinkled morality, but it probably plays better now than it did in the pseudo-liberated ’70s. Nearly half a century has passed and women still earn less, are still judged by their femininity, and still struggle with society’s double-standards — Day is perhaps more resonant today after the collapse of equality. Women want to be respected on their own terms, not for adopting the cavalier morality of bachelors.

What works for this Cinderella fairytale is its satire of the age, poking fun not just at stunted feminism but also at eligible industrialists who welcome womanly advice, and a Freudian psychologist who is perplexed when he mistakes Young’s obsession with Grant for romantic attraction. Day admits she has an uncle who is a socialist, and even the unemployment line becomes another gauntlet of wolfish (or maybe just dog-ish) men.

The whole courtship takes place in a matter of days, as if middle-age romance can be had as easily as a sandwich from the Automat, assuming it hasn’t been sitting out too long and getting stale. If it’s not exactly fresh, That Touch of Mink is something akin to refrigerated left-overs: comfort food for women old enough to measure and know their own value"
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Natalier · Unread post by **Natalier** » 13 May 2007, 08:08

I really like this movie because Doris and Cary worked very well together in this movie. Its said in Doris's book that Cary Grant was a very quite man and off set kept himself to himself, in this movie you dont see that at all/. The scene that always makes me laugh is the part when Doris has reliesed that she love Cary and she has a little to much to drink and starts to talk really funny. The movie is very funny but also has its side of romance in it.

dorisdayicon · Unread post by **dorisdayicon** » 13 May 2007, 11:57

Here's another interesting review of That Touch of Mink I found:

"That Touch of Mink: Relentlessly Retro Romance
By Amy Rambow

"The sexual-revolution did not burst fully-formed from the prefeminist fifties, not even when the US Food and Drug Administration approved the birth control pill as we know it (albeit in dangerously high doses) in 1960. Morals and mores move more like glaciers than avalanches. Delbert Mann's Oscar-nominated romantic comedy That Touch of Mink (1962) slips and slides through that shifting sexual terrain with steady smiles and flawless acting, but little comprehension that its simple alternatives had already begun to fracture and multiply for its audience.

Starring Doris Day at the height of her popularity, and reinvigorating Cary Grant's career, That Touch of Mink grinds in Day's reputation for stubborn innocents. Her poor small-town virgin, Cathy Timberlake, faces not only Grant's rich big-city playboy, Philip Shayne, but inappropriate attentions from her own boss, her roommate's boss, and an astonishing little sleazeball delightfully played by John Astin (best known as Gomez on The Addams Family). Cathy's environment is a constant barrage of dire sexual harassment by twenty-first century standards, but the advice she receives on navigating it is to dress dowdily and not brush her hair -- the ancient canard that it's somehow her responsibility that these men have no self-control.

The Cinderella plot naturally, if mind-bogglingly, resembles Pretty Woman (1990). Bachelor tycoon secures temporary companion, hilarity ensues, they live happily ever after. The difference, of course, is sex. When playboy Philip propositions good-girl Cathy, she thinks he's proposing. When she fully grasps his expectation, she breaks out in hallucinations and hives, positively allergic to what she believes people will think of her if she has sex outside marriage. A subplot about a home for unwed mothers -- or "unfortunate girls," as the movie says is the polite term -- repeatedly raises pregnancy as an unavoidable consequence of sex. Today, of course, the social stigma of premarital sex has vanished (and even reversed: try to recall the last time you saw an adult virgin besides Steve Carell's on the big screen) and contraceptives are readily available. So would that mean Cathy should have sex if she lived now? Should the world of the aspiring matron succumb to that of the eternal playboy? Having raised no ethical, religious, health, psychological or even sentimental concerns alongside those two practical qualms, the movie would seem disarmed by history, which is disappointing. That Touch of Mink comes tantalizingly close to worries with which individuals will always wrestle, but finally taps out as an amusing artifact of a baffling bygone age. We live now in the world of the playboy, for better or for worse.

Still, the movie boasts some timeless wisdom. No one goes from schoolgirl to sex goddess in one date, or even with the acquisition of a ring. That absurd notion is jauntily mocked and gently dismantled. And though such a thing never happened to the breezy bachelor, on his wedding night he breaks out in hives with worry over what his new wife will think of him. Satisfying as comedic reversal and gender justice, this hint that marriage reveals another emotional dimension in sex also undercuts his previous lifestyle, suggesting the launch of a greater adventure. That Touch of Mink is classic Day and Grant, archetypal romantic comedy, and just a touch off from the march of time."

dayniac · Unread post by **dayniac** » 13 May 2007, 18:05

Not one of my favorite DD movies. I used to like it more than I do now.
This seems to me the one movie that she is playing the "protect my virginity" part. And she's really too old to be doing that. She gets that rap as a career description - which I really don't understand. In PT and LCB I don't see her as virginal. She talks about the many men she has dated and is more than willing to take the relationships to the next level - until she finds out that the men are lying to her. In those movies I think she is a career woman that is more than willing to have a full relationship with the RIGHT man.
Yes - at that time we were probably all raised to believe that you had to have the ring on your finger first. But - the times - they were a changin'.
And for some reason Doris seemed to receive the disdain and wrath from the morally changing society. I don't know if its because she was such a HUGE star and typified the 1950's society and morals. (and really what was wrong with some of those morals ? Wish we had a few of them now !)
But - she seemed to be the target - and therefore got the perennial virgin tag.

I think there are some very funny scenes in this movie. And of course the fashions were wonderful. Could have done without the fashion show. I love the scenes with John Astin. The beginning unemployment office scene and the drive in the chicken delivery van are funny. And the drunk scene is funny too.
I just didn't see a spark between Doris and Grant. Nothing like she had with Hudson and Garner. I'm not sure I think these two should be together !
But - being a huge Doris fan I watch this movie and usually enjoy it.

I don't know about all of you - but - I was confused when TCM chose this as an essential. From what they said they didn't think it was a very good movie. They chose it because it had Day and Grant in it. I could give them several Doris movies to put in the essentials (and Grant ones for that matter)-- this wouldn't have been my choice.

Toni

Jas1 · Unread post by **Jas1** » 14 May 2007, 06:00

Doris never looked better than in this film - all the elements were right, hair, clothes etc - the script is the thing that divides us!

I remember when I first saw this - and even now, the first scene of Doris Day on the subway - it just gives my heart a lift - she looks sensational, that outfit, so stylish, the hair, so chic - wonderful on that level at least; oh, and Cary Grant, come on!

dayniac · Unread post by **dayniac** » 16 May 2007, 19:08

Well - I'll have to agree with you on that. She looked lovely in this movie. Just wish the movie would have had a different script or subject or something !!

And - I LOVE Cary Grant --- but somehow they didn't click for me.
But - as always -- I watch this movie and enjoy a lot of it.

Toni

Jas1 · Unread post by **Jas1** » 18 May 2007, 08:45

Doris said too [in some interview, or maybe at the 1987 Convention] that Cary had a big say in her wardrobe in this movie and I think of all her outfits, the ones in this are probably the most classic and therefore date the least as time goes on. That black evening dress is amazing.

dayniac · Unread post by **dayniac** » 18 May 2007, 17:59

I know Grant had a lot of say on many things. She said that he brought furnishings from his home to put in his office on the set (paintings etc.). I used to have some pictures of Doris and Cary at Bergdorf's picking out the clothes for the movie but I can't find them... I'm so frustrated about that. It took me a long time to search the internet for them !! They were candids and they were so neat ! They were interacting - laughing - having a good time. I'm going to search for them again. I'll post them if I find them.
Toni

Barb_DDD · Unread post by **Barb_DDD** » 18 May 2007, 18:32

Toni,
I love looking at all your pictures. Do you have them catagorizied? I don't know how you keep them all straight. If you fine those pics, great, but don't beat yourself up over it. What you do is wonderful.
Barb

dayniac · Unread post by **dayniac** » 19 May 2007, 10:14

Hi Barb --
Glad you enjoy the pictures. I do have them catagorized by movie, magazines,music, pictures, etc. It just frustrates me when I know I have certain pictures and I can't find them. Our old computer crashed and we thought we transfered everything -- I think we must have lost some things. It took me quite a bit of time to find those certain pictures. I love the candid ones - they're so much fun.

Thanks,
Toni

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That Touch of Mink

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