Let's Make Love (1960)

Let me first say that I watched this movie in three installments at the gym.  This led me to wonder really inconsequential things, like, why does Amanda (Marilyn Monroe) knit in the first section of the movie but not in the second section?
"What are you making?"
"I haven't decided yet.  It keeps my hands busy."
It turns out she does in fact knit in the third section... she knits sequined yarn in a musical fantasy dreamed by Jean-Marc Clement (Yves Montand).  Phew.  I was worried about continuity.
I also noticed that I was not in any rush to go back to the gym to find out what happened to the characters.

Let's Make Love is your standard "I must pretend to be someone I am not so that you will see the true me and love me.  And then you will quickly (VERY QUICKLY) forget how humiliated you felt by my lying and fall into my arms" movie.  Sometimes this works for me, sometimes it doesn't.  This time it didn't.  Maybe because I just couldn't get myself to care at all about the characters.

Poor Jean-Marc Clement.  He is a French billionaire, and someone is making an off-Broadway musical that uses ten seconds of its stage time to make a joke about him!  His PR man convinces him to visit a rehearsal to show that he can laugh at himself, thus making other people laughing at him seem a little more friendly.  And there on stage at the rehearsal, slithering down poles in a sweater and panty hose, is Amanda (Marilyn Monroe).  Jean-Marc is told he bears a striking resemblance to Jean-Marc Clement, Amanda makes disparaging remarks about the "real" Jean-Marc Clement, and Jean-Marc decides to assume a new name and get cast in the show as himself to get close to Amanda.

More songs, skimpier outfits, Jean-Marc making hoity toity remarks...  and so on.

Highlight for me:  When Jean-Marc needs to learn how to dance (so to better woo Amanda), Gene Kelly comes to his office and gives him a lesson.  Not a great scene, but got me to perk up and pay attention.  Cameos from Bing Crosby and Milton Berle as well.

Two stars, and I don't want to see this again.

Lover Come Back (1961)

Doris Day and Rock Hudson? Sign me up! Advertising agencies again...almost as much fun as the newspaper business.
I'm about 40 minutes in when I know for certain this was the inspiration for Down with Love - which was awesome. I just hope Doris doesn't get duped.
Three stars - one whole star for the hats!

Oh the hats! I wish I could show you a picture of each and every one! But is there ONE good picture of the hats on the internet? No there is not!


Tony Randall is awesome as Rock's bumbling boss and Ann B. Davis (Alice from the Brady Bunch) as Doris' secretary.

Renee Zellweger did an admirable imitation of Doris Day in Down with Love.
In Down with Love the two main characters are engaged in a public fight over women's liberation while at the same time the guy ends up wooing the girl under an assumed identity to get back at her.

In Lover Come Back they are basically just fighting over clients although there is a loud subtext about women who don't want to put out and men who sleep around.
I can't give this four stars because the ending is just too weird and unsatisfying. I won't give it away because you already KNOW it's a "happy" ending so the only fun part is how do they get together in the end and I can't deprive you of the enjoyment of discovering that, however limited that enjoyment might be.

Only if you've seen the weird Sandra Dee movie "Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding" will you feel that the ending is vaguely familiar. Maybe they hired the same screenwriter to finish both scripts. Or maybe they just lost the last five pages and didn't feel like bothering with a re-write.

Regardless, enjoy the hats, enjoy the bizarre insight into product development, but don't hold your breath for the ending.