Send Me No Flowers

Send Me No Flowers, the third and final pairing of Rock Hudson and Doris Day, is unquestionably the duo’s least effective and most uneven effort, as director Norman Jewison – working from Julius Epstein’s screenplay – has infused the proceedings with a plodding sensibility that’s compounded by an egregiously overlong running time. The premise is certainly not at fault; Hudson stars as an obsessive hypochondriac who becomes convinced that he’s dying, and the majority of the movie follows his efforts to find a new husband for wife Judy (Day). It’s the sort of wacky setup that could (and should) have resulted in a fun and frenetic romantic comedy, but Jewison’s refusal to keep things moving at a brisk clip transforms the movie into a distinctly interminable experience (with the stagnant and needlessly drawn-out third act only exacerbating matters). Hudson and Day are fantastic together, of course, and Tony Randall does his usual scene-stealing thing – yet there’s no doubt that Send Me No Flowers ultimately comes off as a desperate attempt at recapturing Pillow Talk‘s charming and effortlessly delightful atmosphere.

** out of ****