That Touch of Mink

A surprisingly funny film with some very good comedic performances. In particular, a wonderfully, gleefully neurotic Gig Young as Cary Grant's secretary. Love the scene when he asks his secretary to let down her hair and then take off her glasses. She remains unattractive. "Funny, he says, it always works in the movies." And what a great and bizarre first name Gig is. Audrey Meadows is very good as well, as Doris Day's cynical roommate, and John Astin (of "The Addams Family" fame) nearly steals the show as a smarmy Government clerk. "Muscatel, for my lady's pleasure." Sure the plot is dated and predictable, but everything is handled with a light touch and the movie is very watchable. Love the scenes in the automat simply for nostaglia's sake. Funniest moment. Gig young getting slapped by a hand that emerges from the tiny automat window.

Question: Name the film where Art Passarella, famous baseball umpire, tosses out five celebrities from a game. Answer: THAT TOUCH OF MINK. Passarella tosses out Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra, Cary Grant, and Doris Day from a game, because of some rule infraction caused by Day (who is in the dugout with the others during a game), and then for escalating reasons in which the three Yankees deny any infraction. The reason Doris and Cary are in the dugout is that they are attending a Yankee Game (Cary has some stock in the Yankees - this film was in the period before George Steinbrenner took control of the baseball team. Grant is a multi-millionaire whose limousine has damaged Days' clothing by spraying her when the car went through a puddle. He (at first) just wants to repair the damage but he slowly falls for her. But Day is acting like ... well like Day usually does; She is a NYC career woman, and does not want to be the victim of hanky-panky from any man. She is egged on in this by her closest friend, Audrey Meadows. Grant slowly uses his considerable economic muscles to get Day to agree to a trip to the Caribbean, but he finds having her there is not the same thing as getting to know her physically there. This film is loaded with nice bits by the supporting players. One of the other reviews points out John Astin as an obnoxious suitor for Day, whom (at the end) she does willingly go out to a motel in New Jersey with, only to have him fail to score when Grant shows up. But also see this for Gig Young, as Grant's secretary, who finds that Grant's effortless economic and social success are undermining Young's delicate mental balance. See it too for Alan Hewitt, as Young's therapist, who finds that it really pays to have Young as a client (because of all the great stock market tips the naive secretary blabs to the Doctor). Their last moment on screen together is quite funny, when Young is gushing over the baby he is watching (actually Grant and Day's child) and Hewitt is momentarily left thinking that somehow Young and Grant had a baby together. Finally, the late John Fiedler has a good moment as a newlywed husband who concludes that a man's best friend is his mother. An easy to take Day sex romp, I recommend it for the amusement it generates. The baseball trivia connection is also a reason (though a minor one) to watch the film at least once.

...misogyny, sexual harassment, sexual harassment in the workplace, casual conversation about domestic violence when a women doesn't put out after buying her a mink coat, homosexual innuendo, homophobia, an arranged marriage "to keep the little lady in line"....ah, the early 1960's. Really what more is there to say? This is the 1960's version of Pretty Woman. Rich guy picks up down-on-her-luck girl and buys her fancy clothes and takes her on fancy trips all in the expectation that he's gonna get some. All this goodness is set against the zippy backdrop of old Hollywood Cary Grant/Doris Day style. Really it's like Mad Men only less tongue in cheek. So yeah...go forth and uh...drink your way through this wild ride of setting feminism back about 50 years.

That Touch of Mink was made at the height of Doris Day's reemergence as a comedy star and at some point it seemed only natural that she be teamed with the King of Sophisticated Comedy, Cary Grant. Too bad a better property wasn't found for either of their talents. Not that they don't have their moments, but basically both of the stars just go through the motions doing material they've both done before. Cary's a rich sophisticated businessman and probably the quintessence of a phrase most popular at that time, a limousine liberal. As he's going to his office he drives through a puddle and a big splash hits Doris Day. He's sincerely troubled by the whole thing, but by mere coincidence he spots here from his office window going into the Automat where Day's roommate and confidante Audrey Meadows works. He sends his assistant Gig Young after here and that starts an involved courtship ritual. The really good performances here come from the supporting cast. Gig Young and Tony Randall at this point were playing interchangeable roles as the hero's best friend. Young has some funny moments in that selfsame Automat where he's being victimized by Meadows. If That Touch of Mink were made today, Audrey Meadows's part would have been more explicitly lesbian. She's full of all kinds of advice for Day, but notice she's older with no husband of her own or mention of one in the past. But the guy who steals this film and dominates every scene he's in is the pre-Gomez Adams John Astin. He's Mr. Beazley who works at the Unemployment office and he's obviously been watching too many old films because he thinks he's Cary Grant. We meet him hitting on Doris Day as she goes for her unemployment check. And later when Day tries to get Cary jealous by going off to a motel in New Jersey with the most repulsive man she knows, Astin, ever the charmer, hits her with that never to be forgotten line, "Muscatel for my lady." Who could possibly resist that?

"That Touch of Mink" has its high points as well as its lows. The film's main theme revolves around undulating social morays of a cultural transition which, if one examines history, aren't all that transitional as they would appear to be. Day, Grant, Meadows and Young give some solid performances in an early 60's "sex" comedy. The humor is suggestive rather than explicit, which should create some fun for the more conservative minded. I can't say I laughed a whole lot (if at all), but I did enjoy the film on its own terms. Regrettably the currant DVD offered by Artisan Entertainment is sub par. "That Touch of Mink" isn't the greatest film ever made, but, like so many other offerings of the period, it is a solid piece of cinema, and deserves a better visual release. Currently Artisan Home Entertainment bolsters a "Digitally Mastered" disk, but the only mastering that was done was to put the film onto DVD format in the first place, and nothing more. I say nothing more because the film image is absolutely horrible. There's lots of video noise overlaying the film image, and where the film is shown in widescreen format, it's hardly an anamorphic transfer. Instead the consumer is given a low resolution transfer which, were it not for Day, would not be worth watching. The audio is clear, even though its monaural. A remastered soundtrack really isn't required for a film like this, as there's really nothing more to listen to other than dialog and incidental music. That is there're no explosions, gun shots, rockets, bands or other things demanding a digital 5.1 mastered soundtrack. Still, having said all this, good clean audio should accompany a good clean image. Too bad this disc is missing both.

This one is on a par with the wartime musical "Sweethearts of the U.S.A." and probably a few dozen Nazi-era German comedies for the sheer lack of laughs compounded by bad taste. The whole premise rests on a rapidly ripening Doris Day resisting the sexual advances of a nearly-mummified Cary Grant by following the advice of her best (spinster) friend, Audrey Meadows. Ms. Day is so adverse to sexual congress outside the sanctity of marriage that she develops hives, gets drunk, etc. And the only way she can get her man to propose is to make him jealous with another man (John Astin) she wouldn't normally give the time of day to. This film is not only unfunny, it is downright demoralizing and insulting to the intelligence of many Americans. Granted, the era was stifled and ripe for a sexual revolution but was it so bad that any mention of a compromising situation could send an audience into titters? This film is the cinematic equivalent of a 30's dirty joke. Its world view is that women are funny when they try to preserve their dignity in the face of overwhelming odds. Just so you know how backward this opus is, let me add that a running gag concerns the Gig Young character being mistaken for (are you sitting down? This is so droll!) a homosexual!!! This is what the movie trailers called "hell-a-rious!" back then. But the really humiliating thing about this film is that it was actually nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar that year against Ingmar Bergman's "Through a Glass Darkly", Alain Resnais's "L'Année dernière à Marienbad" and the movie "Freud". That it lost to "Divorce - Italian Style" allows the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to retain a modicum of dignity through what must have been a very close call.

Doris Day and Cary Grant were my parents favorites as well as mine. To see That Touch Of Mink in 2018 is a bit of a cringing exercise. Two mega stars in their, let's say, mature years, specially Grant, behaving like adolescents it's a bit hard to take. Doris's character shares an apartment with Audrey Meadows - who I believe also needs some professional attention - they sleep in little twin beds. So bizarre to see. But and here is were the Doris Day mystery resides. I believed her unbelievable character, one hundred per cent. Doris Day was 39, Cary Grant 58 but everything I saw in Doris Days was true. That's why, I presume, this is a favorite comedy of the Coen brothers. My niece, who is 15, saw the film with me and her comment was that Cary Grant's and Gig Young's characters should be arrested. Yes, 2018 is not 1962 and films are socio-historical documents.

Cary Grant is the greatest actor who ever lived, whose mask-like suavity concealed astonishing depths and darkness, and who starred in more genuine masterpieces than any other performer. He retired early because the quality of material put his way was severely diminishing. With this film you can see why - whatever your views on his co-star, the direction is rather too in awe of shallow wealth to be satirical, and the comedy? Let's say you're probably familiar with most of the 'jokes'. Grant, in a rare instance of Hollywood application of Brechtian theory, steps out of the film to grimace at us in double-taking agony. There is one excellent fantasy sequence to suggest what might have been.

The film should come with a warning: Attention! People under the age of 75 might find this offensive. The humor is unbelievably dated and so is Doris Day. It could have been fun and playful had the film not been based entirely on a single joke.

Very cute movie. It was very enjoyable and put a smile on my face. It's obviously a bit dated, I doubt there are many young, independant working women that swoon over losing their virginity these days. I even doubt it was quite like that back in 1962. It's still very sweet and it would make a good date movie. I should also mention the movie looks beautiful. Movies from this era tend to look great. The quality of production in movies seriously declined the closer Hollywood got to the 70's.