Rewind to the
beginning.
Philip Shane is the
sort of man who hires the best talent, pays them exceedingly well, and gets
what he wants. Cathy Timberlake is a pretty girl from Upper Sandusky, who’s
currently unemployed, and fending off unwanted advances from Everett Beazley (John
Astin), a lecherous clerk at the unemployment office.On her way out,
waiting to cross the road, she’s splashed with muddy water by a passing
limousine. Poor Cathy. She has an interview later that afternoon, and she’s
soaked! What’s more, the driver didn’t even stop to apologize.
Meanwhile, Philip –
that’s who was in the car that splashed Cathy – is remorseful. He’d had his
driver drive around the block but by the time they got back to the original place
where the accident occurred, she was nowhere to be seen. Philip’s financial advisor,
Roger (Gig Young) is amazed, he says, at this hint of humanity in his boss.
Roger is an
Economics professor from Princeton who had been tempted by Philip to leave
academia and enter the corporate world. However, the lure of big money and
shiny perks has dulled, leaving Roger neurotic and in a love-hate relationship
with his boss. Philip is remarkably good-humoured about the latter’s tiny
temper tantrums, knowing that all he has to do to squelch Roger is to tell him
he’s raising his salary. ‘And you would be sadistic enough to do it too,’
quips a defeated Roger.
But that’s later.
For now, while they are talking, Philip notices Cathy going into an automat opposite
his office. Quick, he tells Roger. Go down there and apologise to her on his
behalf. And take this money so she can get her dress cleaned.
Initially reluctant,
Roger goes down (he always does as he’s told) to the automat to meet Cathy. But
as he notices her indignation, he has a brilliant idea. She should meet
Philip face-to-face and tell him off. Why, she should fling the money back in
Philip’s face! Cathy, indignant, is all for it, but she doesn’t bargain for
Roger almost manhandling her out the door in his eagerness to see Cathy do what
he doesn’t have the guts to do himself.
Unfortunately, Cathy
takes one look at Philip and is instantly charmed by his suave, sophisticated
demeanour. Despite Roger’s remonstrations and cues, she melts into a gooey-eyed
puddle who acquiesces with everything Philip says. Not so Connie who, after
listening to Cathy gush about Philip, quips to a co-worker: “Sent it out to
have it cleaned? I have heard of sneaky ways to undress a girl but...”
By the time Cathy
has inadvertently given Philip an idea of how to persuade a man to sell his
business to him, lunched in Philadelphia ‘where you get the best fettuccini’,
been flown to the UN to hear Philip speak at the economic forum, been to see
Philip’s apartment (which is not at all what she expected it to be), she’s fallen
head over heels in love with him.
And now Philip invites
her to come to Bermuda, and then go on to Paris (“where you can get some
marvellous French food”), Monte Carlo, a cruise around the Greek islands,
and then around the world. By the time they get back, the apartment will be
ready, and if she doesn’t like it, she can have one of the others.
“Did you just ask
me to marry you,” asks a
wide-eyed Cathy.
“No.” The response is quick, blunt and honest.
But he leaves the
decision to her, apprising her that a man’s conscience and his best interests
are usually in conflict. Cathy spends the night agonising about what to tell
him and is very disappointed when he doesn’t call her in the morning as he said
he would.
“I’ve been
wrestling with my conscience all morning,” confesses Philip, when Roger
enquires whether he’s called Cathy or not. “And I lost.”
“That’s an upset,”
responds Roger. “I’ve built this image of a man, cold ruthless predatory,
now you go and do a decent thing like this to destroy that image. You’ve set me
years back in my analysis.”
But Cathy, sure she
wouldn’t go with him if he asked her to, is now bent on proving to him that women
from Upper Sandusky are as sophisticated as any city lass. So off they go to
Bermuda, but not before Cathy has had a makeover – with a brand-new wardrobe
from Bergdoff Goodman.
She’s awestruck by
the luxury that surrounds her but knowing glances (or what she thinks are
knowing glances) from people she meets in the hotel make her nervous. By the
time she enters the room, and spots the four-poster bed, she’s breaking out in
a rash.
Does ‘The World’s
Oldest Professional Virgin’ (as Day was dubbed) succumb to the lure of Philip’s charm?
That Touch of
Mink is not the best Cary
Grant comedy I’ve watched, and the premise – of a man’s pursuit of a woman for
sex, while she holds out for marriage – is dated. Cathy’s handwringing over
whether she should be Philip’s mistress is annoying after a while. And Philip’s
change of heart doesn’t seem very convincing either.
What got me through
the film were Cary Grant, Audrey Meadows and Gig Young, and some humorous lines
of dialogue, though nothing approached the brilliance of the repartee in other
Grant comedies like The Philadelphia Story, The Awful Truth or The
Talk of the Town.
Incidentally, in one
scene, Roger is trying to persuade Cathy that Philip loves her.Cathy: Look, he
doesn’t love me. He just feels sorry for me.
Roger:
Doesn’t love you? He’s compared you to the plague!
And follows it up
with a list of prospective husbands for Cathy that Philip has turned down,
including Rock Hudson. Rock Hudson was initially slated to play Philip Shayne,
but the director wanted Grant. (Personally? I’m glad.)
Grant may not have
been in his prime when he did this movie, but he was as handsome, as elegant
and as charming as ever. He brought the world weariness of a wealthy man-about-town
into his demeanour and carried himself ever so lightly. Grant does deadpan
humour beautifully, and this film is no different. When showing Cathy Pirates’
Cove in Barbados, he mentions that this is the only place in the world where
you could see pink sand. And that pirates used to anchor in that cove. “Only
pirates from the best families, obviously. The others couldn’t afford it.”
His scenes with
Young were the highlight of the movie, both men fencing ever so delicately, and
with such élan. In fact, that much vaunted ‘chemistry’ was more visible between
these two than between Grant and Day. In
one scene, when Cathy has agreed to go to Barbados to prove she’s not an unsophisticated
rustic, Philip tells Roger to make arrangements for new clothes for her. “No,”
says Roger, “I will not dress the victim for sacrifice.” “Bergdorf
Goodman have a new line of sacrificial evening gowns,” says Philip, with a
straight face. I’m not a great fan
of Doris Day, her artless ingénue act palling. I can usually sit through her
movies however, but here, she just made me want to tell her to shut up, grow
up, and stop behaving like a ditz. In her memoirs (Doris Day - Her Own Story) , Day wrote that Grant was
very professional and exacting with details, even decorating the library set
with his own books. "Cary even got
involved in helping to choose the kind of mink I was slated to wear in
the film." But he was also very private, very reserved and very
distant.
Audrey Meadows, on
the other hand, cracked me up every single time she came on screen. She had
chutzpah, some of the best one-liners (of Beazley, she says, “He’s so low, when they bury him, they’re gonna have to dig up.”), and her acerbity lent the right soupçon of zing
when it was acutely needed. In fact, she’s the friend everyone should have.
When Cathy informs her that she’s going back to Barbados because she has to
prove to Philip that she’s a woman, “There are easier ways to prove it; send him your birth certificate,” quips Connie, sarcastically.Meadows, who came into
the film on Grant’s recommendation (he had liked her work in The Honeymooners,
said she had become friends with Grant after That Touch of Mink, but
that “any woman’s initial meeting with Cary is
right up there with the big moments of her world history.”Young as the neurotic
academic-turned-corporate-finance-advisor also got some great lines and chewed
them up with relish. Knocked down two flights of stairs and attacked by a dog
in a cab, Roger comes to see Philip. “This
has been the most satisfying day of my life,” he tells Philip. “Before I go to the hospital, I wanted you to know see what people
think of you. And you deserved everything I’ve got.”Verdict: Cary Grant
apparently hated the film. I wouldn’t go that far; it’s not a great movie, but
passable for an evening’s entertainment when you don’t want to think too deeply
about sexism, misogyny, feminism or anything else. I'd to keep reminding myself that these 'sex comedies' were known to be parodies even back in the 60s, not a reflection of reality. But do ogle the beautiful clothes,
and swoon over Cary Grant. 
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