# Pillow Talk (1959 film)
**Pillow Talk** is a 1959 American romantic comedy directed by Michael Gordon, starring [Rock Hudson](https://www.edgepedia.org/rock-hudson) as playboy songwriter Brad Allen and [Doris Day](https://www.edgepedia.org/doris-day) as interior designer Jan Morrow, two New York neighbors who feud over a shared telephone party line (telephone line shared by multiple households) before falling in love.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) Produced by Ross Hunter and Martin Melcher for Universal, it won the Academy Award for Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen and became the first of three Day-Hudson-Randall comedies for the studio.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | October 1959 (theatrical), Universal-International Pictures and Arwin Productions[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) |
| Director and writers | Michael Gordon; screenplay by Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin, story by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) |
| Principal cast | Rock Hudson (Brad Allen, alias Rex Stetson), Doris Day (Jan Morrow), Tony Randall (Jonathan Forbes), Thelma Ritter (Alma)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) |
| Academy Awards | Won Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen; nominated for Best Actress (Day), Best Supporting Actress (Ritter), Art Direction Color, and Music Scoring[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) |
| Format | CinemaScope (2.35:1), Eastman Color by Pathé, Westrex mono sound; about 103 minutes[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pillow_talk) |
| Reception | 93% Tomatometer from 30 reviews and 87% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes; 73 Metascore from 10 reviews[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pillow_talk) • [3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053172/criticreviews/) |
| Legacy | First of three Universal comedies with Day, Hudson, and Randall, followed by *Lover Come Back* (1961) and *Send Me No Flowers* (1964)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
In New York City, interior decorator Jan Morrow shares a party telephone line with songwriter Brad Allen, who continually ties up the line singing his love song "Inspiration" to a succession of girlfriends. Jan's complaints to the phone company go nowhere when the investigating researcher is herself charmed by Brad. The two have never met until Jonathan Forbes, a wealthy client and would-be suitor of Jan, describes her to his old friend and hired musical writer, who turns out to be Brad. Fascinated, Brad calls Jan to apologize, then woos her in person under the assumed identity of Rex Stetson, a sincere and upstanding Texas rancher.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pillow_talk)
The deception drives the comedy. When Jonathan discovers that his best friend is moving in on the woman he desires, sparks fly, and Jan eventually learns Rex's true identity and devises a revenge before the customary happy ending.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pillow_talk) • [4](https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2019/05/14/1959-review-doris-day-film-pillow-talk/) [Thelma Ritter](https://www.edgepedia.org/thelma-ritter) plays Alma, Jan's perennially hung-over maid, who sides with Brad's view that Jan needs a more active romantic life.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) • [4](https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2019/05/14/1959-review-doris-day-film-pillow-talk/)
## Production
The property had a long prehistory. RKO bought the script by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene in 1942, returned it to the writers in 1945, sold it as a play in 1947, bought it back four years later, and finally sold it in 1958 to Arwin Productions, the company owned by Doris Day's husband, [Martin Melcher](https://www.edgepedia.org/martin-melcher).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) In early 1959 the Production Code Administration (PCA) found the title "Pillow Talk" displeasing and had it changed to *Any Way the Wind Blows*; the original title was reinstated in August 1959.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal)
**Director and stars.** Pillow Talk was Michael Gordon's first film since *The Secret of Convict Lake* (1951); he had been blacklisted after investigations by the [House Un-American Activities Committee](https://www.edgepedia.org/house-un-american-activities-committee) and was only beginning to receive credited work again.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) Producer Ross Hunter, Universal's most lucrative producer of the 1950s, had remade Day's image from hayseed roles toward sophistication and glamour, and steered Hudson away from bland he-man western parts toward drawing-room roles.[5](https://lcweb2.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pillow_talk.pdf) When Hudson expressed trepidation at playing romantic comedy, Gordon told him to treat it "like the very most tragic story you've ever portrayed."[5](https://lcweb2.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pillow_talk.pdf) Production ran from about February 10 to mid-April 1959; second unit director John Sherwood died of pneumonia during the shoot.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal)
Jean Louis designed twenty-four costumes for Day, and Laykin et Cie. loaned the production $500,000 worth of jewels.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) Hudson recorded the title song and "Roly Poly" for Decca Records, while Day had already recorded "Pillow Talk" for Columbia Records.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal)
## Style and technique
The film was shot in [CinemaScope](https://www.edgepedia.org/cinemascope), and critics have treated the widescreen format as integral to its best-known device: split-screen sequences in which Jan and Brad talk on their party line, sharing the frame while occupying separate apartments.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pillow_talk) Contemporary reviews noted both the split screen and Hudson's skill in his first comedic role.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) [The Hollywood Reporter](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-hollywood-reporter)'s Jack Moffitt credited Gordon's "surprisingly sophisticated direction" with transforming Hudson "from stock leading man to one of the best light comedians in the business."[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pillow_talk)
The script is dense with sexual innuendo that pushed against the still-operative [Hays Code](https://www.edgepedia.org/hays-code). A 1959 *America* review praised the film's clever dialogue and sight gags while noting that its balance between sophistication and offensiveness was imperfect in places.[4](https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2019/05/14/1959-review-doris-day-film-pillow-talk/) A Library of Congress film essay later described the screenplay as "dripping with sexual innuendo foretelling cinematic freedoms waiting to explode on screens in the 1960s."[5](https://lcweb2.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pillow_talk.pdf) Scholars of the period's sex comedy note that no sex was enacted on screen; where sex is implied, the films use discreet fade-outs or visual metaphors.[6](https://philarchive.org/archive/MICAAG)
## Reception and awards
The film was listed on the New York Times' ten best films of 1959 and received five Academy Award nominations, a rarity for a comedy: Best Actress (Day), Best Supporting Actress (Ritter), Art Direction Color, Music Scoring, and the winning screenplay award for Rouse, Greene, Shapiro, and Richlin.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) The film's success pushed Day and Hudson to the top of the box office rankings, and as the most popular performers of 1959 they received Photoplay and Golden Globe honors.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal)
Later assessments have remained favorable. Rotten Tomatoes reports a 93% Tomatometer from 30 critics and an 87% audience score.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pillow_talk) Metacritic aggregates a 73 Metascore from 10 reviews, ranging from the [Chicago Tribune](https://www.edgepedia.org/chicago-tribune)'s 100 to Jonathan Rosenbaum's 50 in the Chicago Reader.[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053172/criticreviews/) Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "one of the most lively and up-to-date comedy-romances of the year."[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053172/criticreviews/)
## Legacy
Pillow Talk redefined Day's screen image. In her autobiography she described the new persona as "a new kind of sex symbol, the woman men wanted to go to bed with, but not until they married her."[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) The film's success ushered in a wave of romantic, often suggestive comedies through the 1960s and led directly to two more Day-Hudson-Randall collaborations for Universal, *Lover Come Back* (1961) and *Send Me No Flowers* (1964).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal) Film scholar Steve Neale identifies the film, together with *Lover Come Back*, as a template in which the male protagonist begins as the "wrong partner," wooing the heroine in the guise of someone else and becoming the right partner by combining the best of his two identities.[7](https://web.colby.edu/sp266/files/2019/11/Neale-Romantic-Comedy-Today.pdf)
The film has also been reexamined for its social content. The Library of Congress essay notes that Day's independent urban professional, appearing one year before the birth-control pill went on the market, was more progressive than later viewers might assume, while the film's use of homosexual stereotypes, including Hudson's character playing gay for laughs with an extended pinky finger, drew negative review only years later.[5](https://lcweb2.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pillow_talk.pdf) Common Sense Media similarly flags the film's underlying sexism alongside Day's charm and comic timing.[8](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/pillow-talk) The film remains in commercial circulation on digital, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD from Universal.[9](https://www.universalpicturesathome.com/movies/pillow-talk)
## References
1. [Pillow Talk (1959), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52988-PILLOW-TALK?cxt=ymal)
2. [Pillow Talk, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pillow_talk)
3. [Pillow Talk (1959), Metacritic reviews via IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053172/criticreviews/)
4. [From 1959: A review of the Doris Day film 'Pillow Talk', America Magazine](https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2019/05/14/1959-review-doris-day-film-pillow-talk/)
5. [Film essay for "Pillow Talk", National Film Preservation Board, Library of Congress](https://lcweb2.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pillow_talk.pdf)
6. [Sheryl Tuttle Ross, philarchive (sex comedy scholarship)](https://philarchive.org/archive/MICAAG)
7. [Steve Neale, Romantic Comedy Today](https://web.colby.edu/sp266/files/2019/11/Neale-Romantic-Comedy-Today.pdf)
8. [Pillow Talk parents' guide, Common Sense Media](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/pillow-talk)
9. [Pillow Talk, Universal Pictures At Home](https://www.universalpicturesathome.com/movies/pillow-talk)
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*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 1950s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license