The second of the three Doris Day - Rock Hudson - Tony Randall romps, LOVER COME BACK actually is a slightly sharper film than it's closer rival PILLOW TALK, with SEND ME NO FLOWERS a bit behind them. The reason for this positioning is that PILLOW TALK did not really spoof anything (Randall is producing a show and needs music composed by Hudson; until the end when Hudson decides to allow Day to decorate his apartment - with horrendous results - Day's interior decorating career really was just a mild peg in the screenplay). SEND ME NO FLOWERS comes closest to satire in the business with Paul Lynde's friendly, helpful cemetery plot salesman. Most of the rest deals with hypochondria and the world of the suburbs. Only in LOVER COME BACK does the center of the script involve itself in the profession of the three leads: Madison Avenue Advertising Agencies.
Hudson is the right hand man (one might say the central brain) for an ad agency that is owned (by inheritance, not character or brains) by Randall. Hudson has a formula for getting accounts - find the client's weakness, and play to it, pushing booze and girls at the same time. We see him steal the account of Jack Oakie (his final performance on film, but a nice one) as a Virginian who is still a loyal Confederate, and likes his booze ("jest a tetch" is a mantra of his, with Hudson or anyone else filling up the glass), and likes his fair ladies as well. Unfortunately for Hudson, Day had been scheduled to give a presentation to Oakie, and is really angry by the way Hudson stole the account. She starts asking questions, and finds the chief one of the chorus girls that Oakie was set up with (Edie Adams). When Hudson learns Adams plans to talk he tries to talk his way out by saying he was planning to make Adams the new "girl" for a new product. "Well, what is the product?", Adams asks. Hudson looks at a newspaper headline referring to V.I.P.s and says it is called "Vip". Adams does not testify against Hudson because he has a number of specious and vague, but sexy commercials shot with Adams selling "Vip".
All this might have still remained under wraps, but Randall, in his first attempt to show he can make decisions rather than Hudson, tells his assistant (Joe Flynn) to release the commercials and saturate the television airwaves with them. Only later does a horrified Hudson tell him that there is no product called Vip.
Day learns of "Vip" from Adams. She starts more of an investigation, and discovers that nobody is quite sure what VIP is. Her boss, Howard St. John, is dubious of any result. Her own job on the line she decides to investigate on her own. Hudson has decided to use an eccentric Nobel Chemistry Laureate (Jack Kruschen - in a fun performance) to concoct a product called Vip. At one point Day shows up at Kruschen's house, and sees Hudson wearing an apron. She jumps to the conclusion he is Kruschen, and starts trying to prevent him from signing with Hudson's agency. Hudson decides to take full advantage of this situation: it preoccupies Day in her snooping, and she is more attractive than he imagined.
The plot then follows that of PILLOW TALK with Day not realizing she is dating the man she loathes, not the imagined great man of science with a fragile psyche. Hudson plays it to the hilt (his comic abilities were first brought out by Day in their films, and it possibly enabled his career as a star to last really as long as it did). As for Randall, his desire to show he is worthy of his father "the Commodore" (a forbidding portrait of Randall in yachting costume is above the desk the son sits at) is confronted by his total lack of understanding his business, of making decisions, or taking responsibility. He keeps hoping either Hudson or Flynn will fall on their sword (symbolically will do, but he is open for actual suicide) to save his firm from being wrecked. His only apparent close relationship is with his therapist Dr. Melnick (Richard Deacon - in a sadly wasted single scene with Randall at the end), and even Randall mentions that Deacon has said he finds him boring.
So what does the great Kruchen concoct out of chemicals and smoke (multi-colored, as Randall finds to his cost)? Put it this way: It is very possible that that great Vice President of the U.S., Thomas Marshall, would have fully appreciated the perfect companion invented by Kruschen for Marshall's really good five cent cigar!
Hudson is the right hand man (one might say the central brain) for an ad agency that is owned (by inheritance, not character or brains) by Randall. Hudson has a formula for getting accounts - find the client's weakness, and play to it, pushing booze and girls at the same time. We see him steal the account of Jack Oakie (his final performance on film, but a nice one) as a Virginian who is still a loyal Confederate, and likes his booze ("jest a tetch" is a mantra of his, with Hudson or anyone else filling up the glass), and likes his fair ladies as well. Unfortunately for Hudson, Day had been scheduled to give a presentation to Oakie, and is really angry by the way Hudson stole the account. She starts asking questions, and finds the chief one of the chorus girls that Oakie was set up with (Edie Adams). When Hudson learns Adams plans to talk he tries to talk his way out by saying he was planning to make Adams the new "girl" for a new product. "Well, what is the product?", Adams asks. Hudson looks at a newspaper headline referring to V.I.P.s and says it is called "Vip". Adams does not testify against Hudson because he has a number of specious and vague, but sexy commercials shot with Adams selling "Vip".
All this might have still remained under wraps, but Randall, in his first attempt to show he can make decisions rather than Hudson, tells his assistant (Joe Flynn) to release the commercials and saturate the television airwaves with them. Only later does a horrified Hudson tell him that there is no product called Vip.
Day learns of "Vip" from Adams. She starts more of an investigation, and discovers that nobody is quite sure what VIP is. Her boss, Howard St. John, is dubious of any result. Her own job on the line she decides to investigate on her own. Hudson has decided to use an eccentric Nobel Chemistry Laureate (Jack Kruschen - in a fun performance) to concoct a product called Vip. At one point Day shows up at Kruschen's house, and sees Hudson wearing an apron. She jumps to the conclusion he is Kruschen, and starts trying to prevent him from signing with Hudson's agency. Hudson decides to take full advantage of this situation: it preoccupies Day in her snooping, and she is more attractive than he imagined.
The plot then follows that of PILLOW TALK with Day not realizing she is dating the man she loathes, not the imagined great man of science with a fragile psyche. Hudson plays it to the hilt (his comic abilities were first brought out by Day in their films, and it possibly enabled his career as a star to last really as long as it did). As for Randall, his desire to show he is worthy of his father "the Commodore" (a forbidding portrait of Randall in yachting costume is above the desk the son sits at) is confronted by his total lack of understanding his business, of making decisions, or taking responsibility. He keeps hoping either Hudson or Flynn will fall on their sword (symbolically will do, but he is open for actual suicide) to save his firm from being wrecked. His only apparent close relationship is with his therapist Dr. Melnick (Richard Deacon - in a sadly wasted single scene with Randall at the end), and even Randall mentions that Deacon has said he finds him boring.
So what does the great Kruchen concoct out of chemicals and smoke (multi-colored, as Randall finds to his cost)? Put it this way: It is very possible that that great Vice President of the U.S., Thomas Marshall, would have fully appreciated the perfect companion invented by Kruschen for Marshall's really good five cent cigar!