The Pajama Game (1957)

Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Sadly Over-hyped

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

I like John Raitt, Eddie Foy, Jr., and especially Doris Day in this movie, and I liked the songs, but the plot was somewhat controversial in this George Abbott/Stanley Donan production from Warner Brothers from 1957. The plot centers around the workers in a pajama factory putting forth endless efforts for their seven-and-a-half-cents-an-hour raise. Thus, to some extent this is a "serious" musical,though, granted, it is humorous in places, but again is a story about a sensitive issue. Too often anymore too many places go on strike for a raise, and it ends up affecting the whole economy in this country.Does this movie seem to say that fighting for raises is "cute"? I wonder. But again, the songs and occasional comedy are very entertaining, john Raitt and Doris Day click, and it does end up on a positive note. Yet, if this is supposed to be a comedy, then deal with something less controversial.

I'm currently working my way through a Doris Day box set and having now watched 10 of them this is by far the least entertaining one I've seen.I agree with those that think there are too many songs for the amount of time the films lasts but that wouldn't really matter if the songs were more memorable than they are.The biggest problem though for me is the lack of a decent story and the very unappealing leading man. It also manages to be bland and at the same time rather sinister which makes you feel a bit unsettled. The whole knife throwing at the picnic scene being the main example of that. It's possible that the songs might grow on me if I heard them a few times but I don't think I would want to watch the film again. 3/10

I have never seen the pajama game before this week when I managed to get a copy of the DVD. I was too young in the 50's and it hasn't been around much since then. I was a bit apprehensive, another movie I caught up with late was Flower Drum Song and I've yet to take to that. However, this was a joy from go to whoa. Yes, it was stagey and some of the numbers, although well done and entertaining were not what you would get nowadays, so that took some mental adjustment, but once the brain was in gear - WOW! Doris we know and love, Calamity Jane is a standard in this house, (I can't wait until my kids see this!) but the stage ensemble who transferred seamlessly - according to the previous writers, who have the advantage of me in that they knew the stage show - make the whole thing go with a bang. Let's face it you could have Doris sing the phone book, and it would be entertaining, so you can't judge a show by her. But Carol Haney, John Raitt (swoon, swoon) et al are fantastic and I wish I'd been born 20 years earlier and lived in New York if this is what I've missed. I loved that there were real people in this, an older lady - Reta Shaw? - and Barbara Nichols? and others. My only gripe with the whole thing is that I am sick of having women dancers groins thrust into my face during dance sequences, and just when I thought we'd managed without it, the Once a Year Day sequence let me down. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the movie, There Was A Man, Hey There, etc. I've been raving about this all week, and the songs wont go away. Now that's a sign of a good musical.

Can Stanley Donan end a movie? Two classic movies he directed, "Charade' and "The Pajama Game" end so abruptly it's almost like he has them on a stopwatch and simply decides to cut them off with a cleaver.Otherwise, "The Pajama Game" is a dandy diversion. The Broadway hit hosts a handful of great songs ("Hey There", "I'm Not at all in Love", "There was a Man", "Steam Heat" and "Hernando's Hideaway" have all become standards). The movie might be a little too stagy. About half way through it opens up about at a picnic with the less famous, but energetic number "Once a Year Day" where choreographer Bob Fosse has his dancers in a park performing all sorts of tricks on what appears to be uneven ground. Otherwise, the movie is a little too aware of the proscenium. The pajama factory is far larger than it could have been on stage, but it looks like a set.The "Hernando's Hideaway" number has STAGE is stamped all over it, but it's the most effective number in the movie.Many actors are recreating their Broadway characters. The big replacement is Doris Day, a proved movie performer who does well in a new role. The male lead, John Raitt, reprises his Broadway role. Male lead Raitt has a good voice and sings well in a duet with himself in "Hey There"; but he's so stiff he might have played the Commendatore in Mozart's Don Giovanni before he came to life. He desperately needs Day's inestimable charm to pull him through as well.The second leads, Eddie Foy Jr. as Vernon Hines and Carol Haney as Gladys Hotchkiss, are both pros able to translate their practiced Broadway performances to the screen with new energy. Their parts are truncated from Broadway, and this is a good thing: with their energy they'd have swamped Day and Raitt and it would have become the Gladys and Hinesy show. Although, from what I understand, the excisions mean that Hines comes off as unreasonably (maniacally, even) jealous of Gladys, if these two were allowed any more to do in this picture Day and Raitt might as well have stayed home and phoned in their lines.The plot – based on Richard Bissel's slight novel 7 ½ cents, about a labor dispute at a pajama factory, is of no interest. The workers themselves don't even seem to care about the story until it raises its head again as a convenience. The story is simply a clothesline to string up a collection of great songs.There's nothing here for anyone with a low threshold for musicals. This is no treatise on arbitration. It's a fun romp through romances in a pajama factory with lots of singin' and dancin' and knife throwin'.