The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957)

The greatest movie ever made..!

Memorable, crazy movie

It is so daring, it is so ambitious, it is so thrilling and weird and pointed and powerful. I never knew where it was going.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

In late 1956, actress Marie (The Body) McDonald faked a kidnapping that got a ton of press but did little to help her sagging career. Fuzzy Pink is clearly capitalizing on that unfortunate episode. Also looks like the movie was rushed into production, released in Dec., 1957, by a first-time production company headed by Russell's husband, football great Bob Waterfield. I mention this background since it likely accounts for the film's uneven results. The biggest stretch is having Laurel (Russell) fall for her kidnapper Mike (Meeker). It may have worked on paper, but it fails on screen. Too bad Meeker couldn't muster up some romantic emotion; instead he basically walks through the role in indifferent fashion. Then too, Russell's nightgown is hardly revealing, let alone titillating. Moreover, we have only the b&w movie's word that it's actually pink. Nonetheless she and Wynn do inject some needed spark. Arguably, the movie's best part is its cynical take on the movie industry, from greedy studio honcho Martin (Menjou) to conniving agent Baylies (Harris) to waspish gossip columnist Parker (Venuta). Had the script played up this aspect, the results would have been more compelling. But, of course, that would have cut down on Russell's celebrity screen time. Anyway, there're some good shots of a Malibu beach house, a chic 50's parlor room, and a studio lot.Despite Russell's spirited performance, the movie remains a jumbled disappointment.

Ralph Meeker looks great. He tended toward puffiness in the all too few movies he made after the great "Kiss Me Deadly." Here he is trim and does a good job (with little to work with.) Keenan Wynn is all right. He played sidekicks -- sort of the Tony Randall of the 1950s.Jane Russell wears the title outfit. She got a bad rap as an actress. She was hilarious in "Gentleman Prefer Blondes" and very convincing in her adventure/thrillers with Robert Mitchum.Here she is OK. Her acting is OK, that is. But she's supposed to be a movie star at her peak and this is a little hard to buy. I remember her TV ads in which she spoke of "us full-figured gals." These came a couple decades after "The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown." But the nightgown, and everything she wears, looks like a maternity frock. She looks big here. In the beginning of the film she wears a long blonde wig. It is monumentally unbecoming. She looks better when she takes it off.Still, the movie is a disappointment. It's always a treat to see Meeker. And the supporting cast comprises familiar faces and is amusing. But the movie is a misfire. Russell and Meeker have no particular chemistry. It isn't touching. And it isn't really very funny, director Taurog notwithstanding.

I recently saw this film for the first time, and thoroughly enjoyed it! I'm a big Ralph Meeker fan, so that's what motivated me to watch it, since I can't find many films in which he played leads. I liked how Jane Russell's movie star character who is in control of her career (who happens to be a smart business "girl") interacted with his angry man character! It's not the best movie ever made, but it is very entertaining...I can't believe it 'flopped' when it came out! Maybe it was ahead of its time, or maybe the idea of kidnapping isn't funny to moviegoers! Anyhoo, it's great fun, has a great score by Billy May (who worked with Frank Sinatra). One of my favorite scenes in the movie is towards the beginning, when "Laurel Stevens" (Jane Russell) is trying to charm/seduce the Ralph Meeker/"Mike" character: While they are talking to each other, he avoids looking at her the whole time, and he turns his body away from her every time she gets closer - through the entire scene! All the while, she is using every feminine wile she can on him to get her way! Very funny!

I remember seeing this picture as a kid but recall only the title. It now resembles nothing so much as a high fifties artifact. The unexplained super deluxe beach house complete with private beach is done up in fieldstone and knotty pine, in other words, fifties heaven. The music is by Billy May, the heir apparent to irrelevant big band music jazzed up in fifties fashion. Then there's the reliable fifties trope whereby the feisty bitchy woman is tamed by the alpha male who it is agreed upon will be "the boss". In fact the pairing is the typical one whereby the designated "good looking" guy (just check out the impermeability of what was considered "good looking" in any other period) gets the girl. We have to go through the whole story to arrive at the obvious, predestined ending. To go deeper, the limited cast of three, (and a few others) captured mostly on one set, functions as a sort of fifties commedia dell'arte. We have the hero (Ralph Meeker), his dumb guy assistant (Keenan Wynn) and the beautiful lady (Jane Russell) who must be tamed. There's even a policeman (Fred Clark) to play straight and a denouement based on switching suitcases.I hadn't remembered that the title, obviously used to lend the picture an undeserved prurient aspect, is a terrible misnomer considering its in black and white. Is that '57 T-Bird being drive at the beginning of the picture fire engine red? Who knows. It just seems odd in the extreme for a film with a color in the title to be made in black and white but it is understandable that in that it was a low budget affair produced by Jane Russell and her husband, former football hero Q back (Cleveland and Los Angeles Rams) Bob Waterfield. Not only was FUZZY shot in black and white, but also in academy ratio and not wide screen. There aren't that many sets either so it resembles independent productions of today. However the crafts people, cameraman, editor etc. were first rate. This picture was a flop when it came out, the last picture that Russ-Field made and really the last starring role for Jane Russell, save for a couple of those weird A. C. Lyles nostalgia fests where vintage actors go through the motions in generic scripts as if it were 20 years earlier and they still had careers.The central character, a spoiled brat ego maniac female star, is relevant today, but the whole thought about kidnapping isn't funny or even amusing anymore, even though the kidnapee turning the tables on the kidnappers story has had a long and honorable history since at least O'Henry and maybe existed in 4th century B.C. Greece. Not recommended except for decoration, fashion, design and American Studies students who need inspiration to do a paper for school.