Doris & Me

It was just like old times. My parents were in town from Denver for the holidays, and on Christmas morning, my mother and I watched Doris Day in the frothy “April in Paris,” which was airing on American Movie Classics.

“Have we seen this movie before?” asked my mother. I told her that 30 years earlier, we had watched the movie one afternoon after I came home from school. The rest of our conversation rang with familiarity: “She wore such cute clothes,” said my mother. “Ray Bolger is the love interest?”

As a baby boomer, I grew up watching Doris Day films. Though my parents took me to all sorts of films as a kid, Doris Day and Disney films were always tops on our list. Day’s films were fun, cheery and uplifting. She sang catchy tunes--I can still sing most of the theme songs to her movies, much to the chagrin of friends and co-workers.

Day’s films seemed to reflect the innocence--albeit an artificial innocence--that still permeated that country in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s--the time before John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the Vietnam War forever changed our lives. Her films were sexy without being dirty, funny without being too silly. She wore great clothes and lived in gorgeous New York apartments. And she was teamed up with the hottest leading men, though even as a little kid I found Rock Hudson a snooze.

Of course, I went through my rebellious anti-Day stage as a teenager, when I found her totally uncool. It was only when I stayed up one night during college to watch her in “Love Me or Leave Me,” in which she played torch singer Ruth Etting, did I realize admiring Day didn’t make me a square. She really was great.

My first encounter with Day was when I was 4 and living in East Orange, N.J. I was an overly well-behaved child who adored the movies, so my parents took me to see one of the Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies, “Pillow Talk,” the only film for which Day was nominated for a best actress Oscar. Day played this perky virginal interior decorator sharing a party line with a womanizer (Hudson). Of course, I didn’t understand exactly what was going on, but I remember enjoying it, as I did “Lover Come Back,” another romantic comedy she made with Hudson two years later.

Though Day’s movies were considered wholesome, her 1962 comedy with Cary Grant, “That Touch of Mink” was deemed risque--at least in Miami, where the Miracle Theater gave it an “A” rating--meaning strictly for adults. But because it was a Day film, my parents still took me to see it. Needless to say, I was the only child in the theater, and my presence got a few stares from the audience.

Only when I saw it on TV much later did I realize the more adult implications of the script. Grant, a wealthy and womanizing bachelor, invites Day to a vacation in the Caribbean. When she gets to the hotel, she finds out they will be sharing the same bedroom. Fearing her chastity is on the line, she breaks out in hives, thus ending Grant’s romantic plans. Of course, I had no idea what this meant.

Besides catching Day at the theaters, my mother and I were always watching her movies on TV. I remember our being both glued to the set enjoying “Young at Heart,” a musical tear-jerker in which Day marries cynical pianist Frank Sinatra.

Throughout the ‘60s, we continued to go to Day films, including “Move Over, Darling” with James Garner and “Send Me No Flowers,” her last comedy with Hudson. The quality of her films, though, noticeably started to decline. Though we sort of enjoyed “The Glass Bottom Boat,” a romantic comedy she made with Rod Taylor in 1966, we didn’t even bother going to the dreadful 1967 spy comedy “Caprice,” with Richard Harris. Day then made this slim Western comedy in 1967, “The Ballad of Josie,” with Peter Graves, which we caught as the bottom feature on a double bill.

Day’s time had passed. The Vietnam War was raging. Feminism was on the rise. It was a very serious time, and her comedies suddenly seemed wan and inconsequential.

Though Day hasn’t made a movie since 1968’s “With Six You Get Eggroll,” her films and her talent live on thanks to cable and video. And I always try to catch my favorite Day films whenever they air, including “Young at Heart,” “Lover Come Back,” “Love Me or Leave Me,” “Young Man With a Horn,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” in which she sang “Que Sera, Sera,” and “Teacher’s Pet,” a terrific, smart comedy--one of the best movies ever about journalism--she made with Clark Gable.

On Christmas night after my parents went to bed, I turned on AMC to watch Day in “Move Over, Darling,” and the memories of our going to the film back in 1963 flooded my mind. It seemed like old times.