THAT TOUCH OF MINK (1962) * Not surprisingly Yogi Berra beats Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in the battle of Yankee cameos, but not as badly as you'd think. It's cool, seein' 'em all. John Astin has some semi-amusing moments. There are a few very clever lines scattered about (the cluster that includes "Neurotics of the world, unite!"), but Cary Grant and Doris Day just annoy me in this one. Others will feel differently. I'm not really of the age where I particularly care who touches her mink, and…back then it must have in some way struck someone as glamorous to waste money they way he does, but to me-in the early 21st century-it's grotesque. They are actors I like, generally, but their strengths (his sophistication, her overwhelming goodliness) are turned into dangerous weapons here, and the audience is flogged with them mercilessly and-so far as I can tell-pointlessly. Was this sort of thing ever really considered morally provocative, or racy in any way? I wonder why, but not enough to linger on it, the decades have rendered the entire language unintelligible. Dick Sargent is in it, but I don't feel sorry for him, and am not mad at him, because he would get to go on to immortal glory, married to Samantha in "Bewitched."
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