PRETTY IN PINK Day knows the strategic uses of bubbles.

A full half century has passed since Doris Day first bickered with Rock Hudson across the wide-screen—meaning that Pillow Talk now feels about 75 years old. A sexually retrograde affair even in 1959 (when hard-charging Angie Dickinson beguiled viewers in Rio Bravo), the movie operates on a series of brittle, candy-colored lies, least of all the popularity of the shared “party line,” already a fusty conceit, which draws lothario Brad (Hudson) into a telephonic clash with nosy neighbor Jan (Day). Xylophones telegraph the forced wackiness, while voiceovers italicize lax acting: “Bedroom problems?” wonders Jan’s head.

Am I being too harsh? Pillow Talk works for some as a camp object, as if tightly closing one’s eyes could exempt you from a thunderstorm (in this case, the brewing sexual revolution). Day, alternately imperious and robotic, is a Plasticine throwback to priggishness, incapable of providing warmth to the rising action. Hudson, meanwhile, is a much better actor than suspected. His double life is the subject of some respectful, sensitive commentary on this anniversary disc; less successful is a featurette about Hudson and Day’s “Chemistry 101,” requiring a serious compartmentalization of the fake from the real.

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