Doris Day

Doris Day!! One of the movies stars of my youth; I liked a lot of the films she was in especially the ones with Rock Hudson and James Garner.
The 1950's clip from Annie Get Your Gun, The Deadwood Stage was shown on British Television almost weekly. I used to watch the film programmes on TV and another weekly event would be Gene Kelly Singing In the Rain and Judy Garland's Trolly Song.
Over the years I saw most of the films the clips came from but I never saw Annie Get Your Gun.
I had nothing against Doris Day but she wasn't Jane Mansfield or Marilyn Monroe – they were really sexy and dangerous but Doris Day was safe and played a virgin. She was just too good for my imagination.
When I got older I went for sexy movie stars like Simone Signoret – she was with Laurence Harvey in Room At the Top one of the angry young men films of the 50s.
He took her in his sports car to the top of a hill; stopped the engine of the car and looked at her; she looked at him and then as their lips touched and she was enveloped in his arms the screen faded to black.
My mother said oooooo!
Yes I went with my mother to see films that you had to be 16 to see as I didn't look old enough; I was only 14.
I didn't know that the oooooo was a little signal for them 'doing it.'
I also used to like Jack Lemmon films especially the ones where he had a bachelor pad – that was going to be me when I grew up; of course I didn't need to be taken in by my mother to Jack Lemmon films; or Doris Day.
Later on when hippies and trendies and topless beauties came onto the screen I went for those too and didn't really go and see a Doris Day film.
So she wasn't really sexy to me. It was a bit ironical for this seemingly un-sexy bird to record one of the most sexy records ever released; Move Over Darling. I know Je t'aime came along a few years later but if ever I was in a situation with a young girl and that record came on she would almost melt in my arms.
Our lips shouldn’t touch
Move over darling
I like it too much
Move over darling
That gleam in your eyes is no big surprise anymore
Cos you fooled me before

I’m all in a spin
Move over darling
I’ve got to give in
Move over darling
And though it’s not right, I’m too weak to fight it somehow
Cos I want you right now

The way you sigh, has me waving my conscience bye-bye
You can call me a fickle thing
But I’m practically yours forever, because

I yearn to be kissed
Move over darling
How can I resist
Move over darling
You captured my heart, and now that I’m no longer free
Make love to me.
Yes how can you resist such a lyric and the tune and tempo were just plain naughty!!
When we went to see the film, Move Over Darling, the song wasn't in it as far as I can remember, and ironically it was the last film that Marilyn Monroe worked on; she worked with Dean Martin in it and I have seen some of the footage; he was patience on a monument but she was very sick and they fired her.
In the movie she was lost at sea and living on a desert island, with Chuck Connors, and on the day she returns to the USA she finds her husband is about to be married; good fun.
When Richard Harris worked with Doris Day he fell for her hook, line and sinker. He chased her all over the set but she would have none of it. I remember thinking at the time what does he see in her?
Obviously with a bit of maturity I can see; I've seen all her films over the years, except Calamity Jane, but the one I have seen more times than I can remember is Love Me Or Leave Me with one of my favourite actors of all time James Cagney; she played Ruth Etting and he Martin Synder. They were based on real life characters: she was a singer of the 1920s and he a gangster.
In real life, when Doris Day's husband died she found he had squandered her money and she was broke. So she had to do some television and worked on The Doris Day Show for a number of years till 1973.
Since then she has led almost a reclusive life with her animal sanctuary but recently, at the age of 87, Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff is back in the charts with her new CD, MY HEART; good old Doris Day; pity she's supposed to be a bit right wing but that happens to a lot of old people; I forgive her.