That Touch of Mink (1962)

Doris Day at the height of her come-back popularity as the prim but lovable “girl” who won’t put out without a ring on her finger, meets her match in playboy executive Cary Grant who is willing to fly her around the world but doesn’t want to settle down and get married. What’s a good girl to do?

He’s charming, wonderful, and wealthy. He showers her with gifts and shopping trips to Bergdorf’s, but a girl who strays with her reputation always pays. Can an old fashioned girl be bought for a trip to Bermuda and a mink coat? Mmmmmaybe…

It’s actually never implied that Day is inexperienced with men. The joke of her being the world’s oldest virgin is a sexist slur, a label Day hated because it flippantly denied any positive aspect to her wholesome sex comedies. The real trophy at stake isn’t her virtue but her value. Easily won is easily discarded — it takes a woman of experience to know how men think, and to hold out for what she wants.

Far from being a prudish throwback in an age of carefree swingers, Day forges her own brand of lipstick feminism: the right to wear skirts and high heels and still insist that men respect you in the morning, no matter what your age or experience.

That Touch of Mink seems like such formula star vehicle fluff that it’s a surprise the original script by Stanley Shapiro and Nate Monaster almost won the Academy Award (it did win the Golden Globe)! The mildly amusing dilemma “will she or won’t she”, which has Day breaking out in hives and hallucinating everyone can see her in bed with Grant, is easily overshadowed by the antics of the supporting cast.

Audry Meadows takes a break from the Honeymooners as Day’s protective conscience who dispenses advice along with lunch through the tiny windows at the Automat, and Gig Young shines as Grant’s employee and confidant who worships the industrialist but openly hopes someday he will get his comeuppance. New York Yankees favorites Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra make a strained cameo, and even UNIVAC isn’t safe from Day’s feminine touch as it spews colorful punch cards after one of her emotional piques.

Plenty have criticized Day’s comeback career as an outdated fantasy with its aging star and wrinkled morality, but it probably plays better now than it did in the pseudo-liberated ’70s. Nearly half a century has passed and women still earn less, are still judged by their femininity, and still struggle with society’s double-standards — Day is perhaps more resonant today after the collapse of equality. Women want to be respected on their own terms, not for adopting the cavalier morality of bachelors.

What works for this Cinderella fairytale is its satire of the age, poking fun not just at stunted feminism but also at eligible industrialists who welcome womanly advice, and a Freudian psychologist who is perplexed when he mistakes Young’s obsession with Grant for romantic attraction. Day admits she has an uncle who is a socialist, and even the unemployment line becomes another gauntlet of wolfish (or maybe just dog-ish) men.

The whole courtship takes place in a matter of days, as if middle-age romance can be had as easily as a sandwich from the Automat, assuming it hasn’t been sitting out too long and getting stale. If it’s not exactly fresh, That Touch of Mink is something akin to refrigerated left-overs: comfort food for women old enough to measure and know their own value.