Lover Come Back
Lover Come Back is a 1961 American romantic comedy directed by Delbert Mann, starring Rock Hudson, Doris Day, and Tony Randall as rival Madison Avenue advertising executives, and written by Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning. It was the second of the three comedies Day and Hudson made together, following Pillow Talk (1959), and it satirizes the advertising business of mid-century America.1 • 2
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | 22 December 1961; Los Angeles opening at the Warner Beverly Hills Theatre, New York opening 8 February 1962 at Radio City Music Hall3 |
| Runtime and format | 107 minutes, Eastman Color by Pathé, English3 |
| Principal cast | Rock Hudson (Jerry Webster), Doris Day (Carol Templeton), Tony Randall (Peter Ramsey), Edie Adams (Rebel Davis), Jack Oakie (J. Paxton Miller), Jack Kruschen (Dr. Linus Tyler)2 |
| Writers and producers | Screenplay by Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning; produced by Shapiro and Martin Melcher, with Robert Arthur as executive producer3 |
| Awards | Academy Award nomination for Best Writing, Original Screenplay; Golden Globe nomination for Tony Randall as Best Supporting Actor4 |
| Reception | 91% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (11 reviews) and 77% from audiences; IMDb rating 7.1/105 |
| Box office | Reported revenue of $16.9 million6 |
Spoilers
Plot
Jerry Webster (Hudson) and Carol Templeton (Day) are account executives with rival advertising agencies who have never met but are sworn enemies. Jerry's practice of using liquor and chorus girls to land clients galls the hard-working Carol, who reports him to the Advertising Council. To deflect the charges, Jerry pays off a nightclub performer, Rebel Davis (Adams), with a starring spot in commercials for a nonexistent product called VIP. When Jerry's neurotic boss Peter Ramsey (Randall) puts the commercials on television, VIP is accidentally launched, and Jerry must find a product to match.3
Jerry engages an eccentric scientist, Dr. Linus Tyler (Kruschen), to invent something marketable as VIP. Carol visits the laboratory to steal the account, mistakes Jerry for the scientist, and Jerry, delighted by the chance to ruin his rival, pretends to be Tyler and lets her wine and dine him. She learns the truth and reports him again, this time for advertising a nonexistent product. Jerry arrives at the hearing with VIP in hand: a mint-flavored candy invented by Linus with one drawback, each wafer has the same effect as three triple martinis.3
Production
The film re-teamed producer Martin Melcher, co-screenwriter Stanley Shapiro, and the three lead actors from 1959's Pillow Talk. Universal-International acquired the original screenplay by Shapiro and Paul Henning, and a Los Angeles Times brief published on 25 April 1960 indicated that the sale marked the highest price Universal-International had ever paid for an original story.1 Production began on 5 January 1961.3
The crew included cinematographer Arthur E. Arling, editor Marjorie Fowler, and art directors Alexander Golitzen and Robert Clatworthy, with music by Frank De Vol. The songs included "Lover Come Back to Me," words and music by Alan Spilton and Frank De Vol, and "Should I Surrender," by Adam Ross and William Landan.3
Reception and awards
The screenplay was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay, and Tony Randall received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor.4 Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the script as having "some of the sharpest and funniest situations you could wish, and some of the fastest, wittiest dialogue that has spewed out of a comedy in years," and the paper called the box-office smash "the funniest picture of the year."2 • 4 In The New Yorker, Brendan Gill called the film "extremely funny and therefore not to be missed," crediting the screenplay's writers and Mann as its real stars, though he judged the satire of Madison Avenue so broad that nobody on the avenue was likely to be offended.7
Later assessments have been more divided. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 91% Tomatometer from 11 reviews against a 77% audience score, and some critics and viewers treat it as a facsimile of the superior Pillow Talk.5 Turner Classic Movies, by contrast, calls it the second, and for most critics the best, of the three Day-Hudson comedies.2
The Day-Hudson formula
Lover Come Back repeats the formula of Pillow Talk: Day's virginal career woman against Hudson's devious ad executive, with Randall as the couple's droll, neurotic foil, and a masquerade in which the hero woos the heroine under a false identity.2 A scholarly account of the film notes that Universal set out to replicate Pillow Talk's profitable pattern, moving the story to the advertising world of Madison Avenue while keeping the same three stars.8
Although the film seems tame by later standards, it was considered very risque at the time. For the scene in which she and Hudson get drunk and end up in bed together, Doris Day insisted that it be made clear the pair had gone to a justice of the peace and married during their drunken bender, in the manner of 1930s screwball comedies.2
Day and Hudson made one more film together, Send Me No Flowers (1964), and remained friends until Hudson's death in 1985.2
References
- AFI|Catalog
- Lover Come Back, Turner Classic Movies article by Margarita Landazuri
- Lover Come Back (1961), AFI Catalog
- Lover Come Back, Laemmle Theatres
- Lover Come Back, Rotten Tomatoes
- Lover Come Back, Cinegraph
- Troubled Couples, The New Yorker, Brendan Gill, February 1962
- Alicia Baches, undergraduate thesis on the Day-Hudson comedies, University of Zaragoza (2022)
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1960s
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
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