The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown, 1957
Laurel (Jane Russell) is a movie star whose new film,
The Kidnapped Bride, is about to hit theaters. But on the night of the premiere, Laurel is kidnapped for real by a recently exonerated prisoner, Mike (Ralph Meeker) and his slightly dim-witted friend, Dandy (Keenan Wynn). The only problem is, everyone assumes that Laurel's disappearance is a publicity stunt.
Movies are full of nice-guy kidnappers and their feisty female hostages, a weird variation on the romantic-comedy that has to get things just right or else end up coming off as actually pretty creepy, really stupid, or both. Unfortunately for
The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown, many of its story beats are just a bit off and neither the romance nor the comedy land all that well.
One good example of the film failing to land correctly is an early moment where Laurel has first been kidnapped. Insisting that they let her out of the car, she struggles a bit with Mike while Dandy drives. Upset that she won't cooperate, Mike
punches her in the face. Now, to be clear, this is a film where every major character sustains head trauma at some point. People get knocked on the head with everything from telephones to weighted wigs. But this punch in the car is just . . . a woman getting punched in the face. There's nothing funny about it, nothing slapstick in the way it is staged.
Russell does a pretty good job as Laurel, starting out as someone who is more manipulative, but then warming up to her captors as she learns more about them. The best comedy beats come from Laurel's immediate understanding that no one will believe that she has actually been kidnapped, and then her offence at the low amount they plan to demand from her studio as ransom. Wynn is fine as the dim Dandy. I suppose the character gets some credit for being like, "Hey, maybe let's not punch her in the face."
Ralph Meeker's acting in the film is weird, in that it feels like it belongs in a different, more serious film. Mike is stoic and withdrawn, and there is a character of a police detective who helped get him released from jail who notes that Mike is angry and that he worries about how Mike might lash out. This is all actually kind of interesting . . . but not in this movie. Meeker's Mike is too subdued, and it has the effect of making his moments of lashing out against Laurel feel really ugly. He's constantly telling her that she's a fake, that no one cares about her, that she's shallow, and mocks her for worrying about sexual assault (with that old chestnut, "Don't flatter yourself"). And this is in addition to frequently manhandling her and threatening her. If this were a thriller it would be perfect, but it isn't a thriller and it creates a rift in the tone of the film.
The movie does move along at a decent clip, so despite all of the stuff that doesn't quite work, it's not the worst way to spend 90 minutes. But with all of the talent present, it feels like there was a better movie in there somewhere.