New Pillow Talk

What shocks one epoch may fascinate another. And bore a third. Ten years ago, Rock Hudson pursued Doris Day across what seemed to be miles of snowy sheets. Doris retained her maidenhood beyond the final fadeout (and for many pictures thereafter), but the shrewdly timed movie passed for daring and became one of the biggest box-office hits of 1959.

Professional virginity has had its Day; in cinema, the current trend is toward making it. This year's version of Pillow Talk is John and Mary, a Now movie that dares to open with its leading players (Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow) together in bed. Director Peter Yates (Bullitt) riffles through flash cards of identity, exhibiting the fun couple nude and clothed, before, after and during the New York-based affair. Mary, it turns out, has been grooving with a married politician. John seems the sort of clumping, turtle-nosed customer who could not seduce a girl in a brothel. Such appearances, however, are deceiving; he too is a successful swinger pursued by one bird while he chases another. Not until J. & M. have known each other in the biblical sense do they know each other in the classical one. At the finale, they exchange names for the first time--reason enough, the film implies, to show they have found love.

Director Yates knows how to shape even the sketchiest scenario, and if John and Mary is no deeper than an eggshell, it is every bit as functionally designed. Mia Farrow adds an otherworldliness to her character by reciting her lines as if they were cabala. Hoffman, one of the shrewdest young actors in the business, manages to be at once predator and victim. But when the film tries to make the audience care for the characters, it proves bankrupt. For beneath the Manhattan chatter and the glossy confrontations, John and Mary is as empty as a singles bar on Monday morning. Leaning on the stars' reputations, it never bothers to show who the lovers are, or how they got to be that way.

Such faults should not inhibit the film's success. Like Pillow Talk, it catches two attractive actors rising beyond competition and criticism. With proper management, Dustin could pursue--and catch--Mia all through the '70s. By that time, audiences, and maybe even movies, may have matured.

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