On This Day... That Touch Of Mink (1962)

 Released today back in 1962, That Touch of Mink was Cary Grant's 69th full length feature film.

Summary:

Cathy Timberlake (Doris Day) is an old-fashioned country girl who meets the man of her dreams, Philip Shayne (Cary Grant), after his Rolls Royce splashes her with mud on her way to a job interview. Philip is a romantic businessman who is taken by Cathy's honest heart. There's one problem, he's not interested in marriage while Cathy has never thought of anything else.

Cast:

Cary Grant..Philip Shayne

Doris Day...Cathy Timberlake

Gig Young...Roger

Audrey Meadows...Connie Emerson

John Astin...Mr. Everett Beasley

Dick Sargent...Young Man (Harry Clark) (as Richard Sargent)

Joey Faye...Short Man

Laurie Mitchell...Showgirl

John Fiedler...Mr. Smith

Willard Sage...Tom Hodges

Jack Livesey...Doctor Richardson

Did You Know?

When Cary Grant noticed an ad for a raincoat that he thought would be appropriate for Doris Day to wear in the picture, he called the owner of the company who made it. After explaining who he was and what he wanted the coat for, he was given the brush-off by the manufacturer, Norman Zeiler, who later recalled that he didn't believe it was Grant. "So I told him if he wanted to see our collection, he'd have to come up himself. And he did." The much-imitated Grant, who usually made all his own calls and answered his home phone himself, often had that problem. People just couldn't believe it was really Cary Grant they were talking to.

Doris Day was 39 when this film was made, although her character was supposed to be in her twenties.

Rock Hudson had expected to be cast as Philip, but director Delbert Mann wanted Cary Grant.

In her autobiography, Doris Day wrote: "Of all the people I performed with, I got to know Cary Grant least of all. He is a completely private person, totally reserved, and there is no way into him. Our relationship on That Touch of Mink (1962) was amicable but devoid of give-and-take...Not that he wasn't friendly and polite - he certainly was. But distant. Very distant. But very professional - maybe the most professional, exacting actor I ever worked with. In the scenes we played, he concerned himself with every little detail: clothes, sets, production values, the works. Cary even got involved in helping to choose the kind of mink I was slated to wear in the film."

Cary Grant involved himself in many details of the production. For a scene that took place in his character's library, he arrived to work with boxes of items from the library in his own house and placed them about the set. According to Doris Day, this served not only to make the set more attractive but also made him feel more relaxed and at home, giving his performance "that peculiarly natural, suave quality that is the hallmark of his pictures."

The movie was filmed on location in New York. Some sources claim it was also shot in Bermuda, but others state that the scenes of the Bermuda resort were actually shot at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica.

Cary Grant was a huge fan of the New York Yankees, which likely made it easier for the producers to get Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris to appear in the film.

Quotes:

Cathy Timberlake: [very drunk] Do you like the way I walk?

Philip Shayne: Poetry in motion.

Cathy Timberlake: I learned when I was a baby, been walking for years.

Philip Shayne: The Four Horsemen now have a riding companion. There's War, Famine, Death, Pestilence, and Miss Timberlake!

Cathy Timberlake: Look, he doesn't love me. He just feels sorry for me.

Roger: Doesn't love you? He's compared you to the plague!

Cathy Timberlake: How would you feel? Here I am, he practically runs me down and then drives right away! And doesn't have the decency to apologise himself. Furthermore I have a job interview and have to go like this. He doesn't care.

On set.

Roger: Ohhh...

Cathy Timberlake: You know what I'd like to do?

Roger: Throw the money in his face?

Cathy Timberlake: Exactly! I'd like to throw that money right in his face.

Roger: Would you?

Cathy Timberlake: Yes, I would.

Roger: I've waited seven years for this moment. You come with me!

Philip Shayne: That's it, Roger. Now you have plenty of friends. Find her a husband. A simple, dull, unimaginative man who'll smile tolerantly when he comes home from work and learns she's misplaced the children.

Cathy Timberlake: [Cathy is rushing off to meet Philip, over Connie's objections] Connie, this is terribly important to me. I've got to *prove* to him that I'm a woman!

Connie Emerson: [calls after her] Well, there are easier ways to do it. Send him your birth certificate!

Cathy Timberlake: And I'm unstable. What kind of mother would I make for our children?

Philip Shayne: Well we'll try three or four if that doesn't work out, we'll breed poodles.

Lobby Cards:

Directed by Delbert Mann

Distributed by Universal-International

Produced by Granley Company-Arwin Productions.

Running time: 99 minutes. 

Artwork by Rebekah Hawley at Studio36.