I Hear America Smirking

Down with Love, a retro--sex comedy for a new century

Smirk. Was the word invented in 1959, or did it just bloom into popular consciousness to describe the tone of the Rock Hudson--Doris Day comedy Pillow Talk? That film and its myriad spawn populated the screen with horny men in need of domesticating and bouncy career gals who wore chastity belts beneath their Jean Louis frocks. At a time when Hollywood could still only hint at promiscuity, these movies sublimated their animal urges in the classic farce techniques of innuendo and mistaken identity. If their winks were as subtle as the drop of an anvil, and if their nudges could break...

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