Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Steineded How sad is this?

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

TheLittleSongbird Seeing 'The Tunnel of Love' as part of my Doris Day completest quest, there was a good film somewhere. Having Gene Kelly on board as director, an interesting and at the time under-addressed subject matter and a great cast promised a lot.Unfortunately, 'The Tunnel of Love' was one of those promise more than deliver films. Certainly not a calamity, it just could have been so much more (especially when you have Day, Richard Widmark and Gig Young in the cast and considering that it bases itself around a subject matter that has a lot of interest and there is some truth behind some of the points the film says) and could have done a lot more with its subject. It is one of those mixed feelings/difficult to rate films rather than either extreme of love and hate.Day is typically effervescent and charming, giving her all and attacking what she has with gusto, though there is the sense at times that she knows that the script is weak and the character tends to be strangely written.There are other bright spots in the cast, especially Gig Young, who has the film's best line and brings some fun to a real sleazebag of a character, and Elizabeth Fraser who is lovely and fun to watch. Elizabeth Wilson also makes much of relatively little.Another bright spot is the beautifully sung and pleasant title song. 'The Tunnel of Love' is nicely shot, not bad for such a rushed production. There are times where the script should be praised for its frankness and candour, there are instances where characters say something truthful that not everybody dares to say, there are parts that are amusing. The subject is a difficult and under-addressed one and there are moments where one can totally see where it's coming from.However, despite being the first time Kelly directed without him being in it, it did seem like he was ill-suited to the material and didn't know what to do with it or the cast. While Widmark deserves some credit for expanding his range and doing something different from his usual villain, tough guy and anti-hero roles, he does try too hard in a role that he plays too heavily instead of having the necessary lighter touch and seems out of his depth.He and Day lack chemistry too, and some of the characters are strangely written and don't make much sense. The script has moments but mostly it's weak, it's never hilarious (some of it is repetitive and wears well thin long before the film is over) and it's not particularly sophisticated, some of it is actually uncomfortably sleazy.Story similarly is problematic. Again there are moments but a lot of the pacing is dull, what is really interesting could have been explored with more detail, some of it is very stagy (initially it was based on a play, but not all based-on-play films have this problem, far from it) and many of the plot strands are contrived and take ridiculousness and lack of sense to a whole new level.Overall, watchable with things that do work well but for Doris Day completests 'The Tunnel of Love' is a lesser effort. 5/10 Bethany Cox

JLRMovieReviews Doris Day and Richard Widmark!, yes Richard Widmark, are a married couple who move to the country to leave the city life behind them. They are also in the middle of adopting, because "they say" when you adopt a child, you have one of your own, which is what they really want. That basically is the plot, without complications. The last time I saw this was on the last weekend of August in 1997, so I have a mental connection with this movie and a tragedy in the news. I didn't really have good memories of it, but, upon seeing it recently, I found it surprisingly funny near the beginning. But most of its jokes comes with innuendos of a particular sort, part of it being about having babies (I did enjoy the line, about "exhausting" every possible means in having a baby.) The movie seemed to enjoy making fun of Gig Young's proclivities, who is a next-door neighbor whose wife knows nothing about his extra-curricular activities. Directed by Gene Kelly, this should have been made in color and maybe with a more comedic actor. I mean, really, Richard Widmark! He's a great actor in westerns and rough 'n' tough movies, but here he seems out of his element. Despite the amusing situations and inevitable complications from the presence of the investigator from the baby agency, which seems a bit confusing to the viewer, this still feels like it's missing something. It simply doesn't come off very well. It's not your usual brisk Doris Day fare, and that is probably why it bombed at the time it came out. If you're a die hard Doris day fan, you may want to see this once, but then you can find Pillow Talk for some real baby making.

solarblast I noticed this move on TCM the other night as part of the Richard Widmark tribute to his career. I watched about 5-10 minutes wondering why they did a cinemascope movie in b/w. Very odd. Widmark was equal to the task, and seems to have handled comedy quite well. Definitely a good actor. I see I need to chatter on for a total of 10 lines to submit this. What can I say? It's certainly a far cry from his first movie, a Kiss of Death, I believe. His star quickly rose after his portrayal of a sadistic killer. Day was her usual bubbly self. The movie was based on a hit play. Maybe some day it will be explained as to why it was b/w. On cinemascope, TCM had a one hour feature a few nights before this about Merian Cooper who created the movie King Kong and invented Cinemascope. He had quite a life of adventure, and spent a considerable time commanding and flying planes in WWII.

bkoganbing The Tunnel of Love ran for 417 performances on Broadway for the 1957-1958 season and starred Tom Ewell and Nancy Olson. It was written by Joseph Fields and repeating their roles from the original production are Elizabeth Fraser and Elizabeth Wilson.The play didn't survive the journey to Hollywood, mainly because of the horrible miscasting of Richard Widmark as the husband. He and wife Doris Day are trying to either have a child or adopt one whichever comes first. After a night's indiscretion with social worker Gia Scala, Widmark thinks he's the father of her kid and when she hits him up for a loan, that seems to clinch the deal.Widmark was in a role that should either have gone to Dean Martin or Glenn Ford. In their screen roles I've seen aspects of Augie Poole's character that would have fit Dino or Glenn easily. But in Widmark's hands it drops like a lead bassinet.Best in this film is Gig Young playing one of his male lead best friend types he started perfecting around this time. It seemed for a while like you couldn't make a domestic screen comedy that either he or Tony Randall weren't in playing the same kind of parts. He took over from Darren McGavin who did the part of the wolfish playboy neighbor on Broadway whose growing family doesn't slow him down in the hanky panky department a bit.My guess is that Widmark was trying to expand his range a bit. The best comedy effort in his career was on the I Love Lucy Show and there he was just a foil for the movie star struck Lucy Ricardo. Doris was all right in her part, but she certainly did much better work with Rock Hudson who also would have been good casting as the male lead.Best thing about The Tunnel of Love. Doris sang and recorded the title song that's sung over the opening credits. If the rest of the film had been as good as the song.