December 30, 2009

Pillow Talk, Redux?

Surely you've seen Pillow Talk? Doris Day is Doris Day, Rock Hudson is a songwriter who woos women with a heavily recycled song*. Okay, maybe you haven't. It's a romantic-comedy: they meet, fall in love, etc. The movie is of its time, but so is how they meet. Ma Bell can't lay down phone lines fast enough to meet demand, so the two had to share, thus providing some forced interactions when they want to use the phone at the same time. The romance doesn't proceed in a straight line from there, but it's the start.

The exercise is: give this movie the You've Got Mail treatment. How could it be modernized? What's an in-demand consumer product that could serve as a foil for Romance? Extra credit for updating the careers of the leads (interior decorator, Broadway composer).

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* NB: "You're my inspiration, [girl of the moment] / A perfect combination, [girl of the moment]" is neither a good lyric or good English.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Possibly they are both divorced/widowed single parents who fall upon the brilliant idea of sharing the seasons most popular toy.

Or, possibly they are forced into a job share as the firm downsizes.

Daniel Wolf said...

Adam,

I think you've got your opera. Don't modernize it, keep it as a period piece, a through-composed American-English comic-verismo opera.