I have a soft spot for late fifties comedies. You know, the ones with the cartoon-like soundtracks, in which a trombone makes a wah-wah editorial comment after a particularly wry joke. The ones with a calypso number in the middle. The ones that, for some mystifying reason, cost $3.99 on Amazon Prime.
I recently watched Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, so I could hear:
“She couldn’t speak English, being from Texas,” (Mean!)
and
(On being told that kissing a celebrity puts him in the major leagues) “I guess all my kissing up to now, that was bush league.” (Nasty!)
And then, since I had sick days to fill, I watched Send Me No Flowers, Lover Come Back, Let’s Make Love, and Down With Love, because I became hypnotized by Tony Randall. Watch Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter and tell me you aren’t watching Stephen Colbert. I can’t tell you why, though: it’s something about his timing or inflection.
And, if you are wondering why I didn’t watch Pillow Talk, I have every word of that movie memorized, so it isn’t funny to me anymore. Well, except for “it’s MY place,” that line kills me every time.