It’s a Great Feeling (1949) is a bit of a spoof picture with Jack Carson playing himself and Day playing a studio commissary looking for her big break. It is one of Doris Day’s earliest motion pictures and it’s interesting to see how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed she is. She fits the comic energy of the movie well enough, but it feels out-of-date.
And that’s the problem with performers like Doris Day in general. Fans will surely disagree and they are welcome to it, but there’s something almost exceedingly wholesome about her as a performer. She is capable, no question about it, but the sunshine-and-puppy-dogs Americana she exudes can be tiresome.
Tea for Two features Day and Gordon MacRae in a “romp” that features Doris playing a character who strikes up a bet to say “no” to everything for a full 48 hours. The songs do well to prove her mettle as a singer, with “I Want to Be Happy” and “I Only Have Eyes for You” featured.
Wrapping up the set is perhaps the most interesting movie of the Doris Day Collection. In The Tunnel of Love, Day plays alongside Richard Widmark in a Gene Kelly-directed project. Day, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for this role, and Widmark are a couple attempting to adopt a child and the innuendo makes for some fun. The film was based on a 1958 Broadway hit.
Each disc features vintage shorts and classic cartoons as bonus features, with theatrical trailers thrown in for kicks.
For a glimpse at a bygone epoch of American filmmaking, check out the TCM Spotlight: Doris Day Collection. With tonnes of flaxen, vivacious ambition and a whole slew of gee-golly goodness, this sugary-sweet gathering will doubtlessly reach its audience.
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