"Lover Come Back" Different Film Promo Posters
By Kurt Brokaw, Culture Editor
1959: Of the many successful movie pairings of Doris Day and Rock Hudson, this is the one that looks at Madison Avenue as a screwball comedy. The plot is quite clever. Doris is the AE in charge of new business pitches. She notices that Rock, her counterpart down the street, keeps winning new accounts through booze and babes.
She reports him to the Ad Council. Rock hires Edie Adams to smooth over his affairs with the all-male Ad Council, which she does. To thank her, Rock shoots a sample reel for Edie for a spec product called VIP. Rock's boss, Tony Randall, who's not the brightest guy onboard, buys airtime and runs the spots. Rock has to concoct a real VIP to meet consumer demand, and goes to scientist Jack Kruschen to R&D and somehow invent the non-existent product he has running in prime time. Doris sets up a meeting with Jack to preempt Rock. Rock steps in, disguising himself as Jack so he can meet his Mad Ave competitor. Are you following any of this? It gets more complicated. It's also a lot of fun. The most fun is watching Rock Hudson play straight and wonder what's really going through his head as he's romancing Doris Day.
