The Pajama Game (1957)

Film: The Pajama Game (1957)

Stars: Doris Day, John Raitt, Carol Haney, Eddie Foy, Jr., Reta Shaw, Barbara Nichols

Director: George Abbott & Stanley Donen

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Doris Day: click here to learn more about Ms. Day (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Doris Day's popularity and more so the length of how long she was popular is kind of hard to grasp.  Day became a box office draw, a consistent one, as early a 1951's I'll See You in My Dreams, her most successful film for Warner Brothers at the time.  After that she would enjoy 15 years where not only she made a string of successes, she made a successful film every single year; very few actors of her era achieved that king of longevity.  Day's popularity, and the ubiquity of it, makes her easy to underestimate because so many of her films are similar, but it's worth noting how much she added to her pictures.  A good example of this would be today's, film The Pajama Game, which was brought to Hollywood as a vehicle for Frank Sinatra, but when Sinatra didn't do it, Day was brought in because the studio wanted a movie star as box office insurance given that the rest of the cast was unknown.  The result is a pretty much textbook lesson in why movies & the theater are different, and a lesson that very much comes out in Day's favor.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about the Sleeptite Pajama Factory, a small-town company that produces loungewear and where the workers are threatening to go on strike.  They are led by Babe Williams (Day), who must go toe-to-toe with the factory's superintendent Sid (Raitt), but the two find this difficult when they fall in love with each other.  Babe leads a "slow-down" at the factory as a union tactic, but when that doesn't work, she breaks one of the machines, leading to her being fired by Sid.  They split apart, but it becomes clear after he does some investigating that the raises that the workers are asking for had already been approved, and the plant's manager is the one who has been stealing the cash himself.  The film ends with Babe & Sid getting together, and we get a fashion show of the pajamas before the closing credits.

The best part about The Pajama Game is the music.  I was struck while watching this how many totally grand musical numbers are in this show that is rarely revived on Broadway.  Everything from "Hey There" to "Hernando's Hideaway" to "I'm Not At All in Love" are wonderful productions, really catchy tunes.  There's honestly not a bad song in the film, and that makes you wonder why the movie isn't better-regarded.  Other films of that era based on big-time Broadway musicals (like South Pacific or West Side Story) were Oscar-nominated or at least huge box office bonanzas, and The Pajama Game doesn't stand out as a particularly important film (and received no nominations, not even for scoring).

The reason for that is the cast.  Day is perfectly cast in this film-she's always good as a virginal noblewoman who is discovering love for the first time.  But the rest of the call sheet was actually a carry-over from the Broadway production, including Tony-Winning dancer Carol Haney in her only speaking role in a movie.  But they don't work.  Film and theater are two different mediums, and in movies you have to sort of seduce the camera.  Raitt, especially, feels like a disappointment compared to Day, even though he's in fine vocal performance and is handsome (just not in the way that movie stars are supposed to be handsome).  It's hard not to wonder what it might've been like had Frank Sinatra & Shirley MacLaine replaced Raitt & Haney (casting movie stars of the time, that's what would've happened), as while it would've been a bit gaudier, it would've been less of a curio and more of a fully-fledged movie spectacular.  I think in the end, it would've been a better movie (even if this isn't bad).