TEACHER’S PET, a mildly amusing comedy from 1958, paired Clark Gable with Doris Day; their chemistry puts it across, along with a good second banana turn from Gig Young and a tease from ever-suggestive vamp Mamie Van Doren. Directed by George Seaton, it pulled in $7,700,000 and two Oscar nominations, one for Young as Supporting Actor, another for the screenplay by Fay and Michael Kanin.

College journalism instructor ‘Erica Stone’ (DD) invites newspaper editor ‘Jim Gannon’ (Clark) to do a guest lecture for her class. Crusty old school (as in dinosaur) vet Gannon snubs her new approach to news in a letter, but is then directed by his boss to attend. He does so, disguising his identity and sets out to disprove her ‘intellectual’ theories. Naturally, since this is a comedy, all it takes is some lying, jealousy, ego ruffling, pride swallows and a few hangovers. They will both end up learning from each other; she melts, he adapts, the democracy-preserving presses keep on rolling. For a while.

Box office ranked 28th in ’58, Teacher’s Pet outperformed each of the star’s other releases that year, Gable’s terse WW2 submarine drama Run Silent, Run Deep and Day’s marital lark The Tunnel Of Love, which always gets unfairly rapped but we, taking the minority view, think is funnier than this one (it also has Young in good form, backing up Richard Widmark).

Prickly hay is usually raked about the age dif (‘The King’ was 56, Doris 34) so if you want to let that upset you, sniff away into irrelevance. He’d goose that ‘issue’ ten years further with Sophia Loren for 1960’s It Started In Naples and it actually worked better; that’s a more engaging flick. While generally enjoyable, Pet is dated (what’s a newspaper? ask your phone) and at 120 minutes, overlong. The Kanin’s first wrote it as a drama, and the best lines in the script are better suited to that form—“Newspapers can’t compete in reporting what happened any more, but they can and should tell the public why it happened.”  “You’re stupid, and I think you’re proud of it. And that makes you cruel.”   “As my father always said, “Education teaches a man how to spell experience.” *

Gable falls back on his time-tested battery of mannerisms (hey, we like ’em) and Gannon is too grumpy;editing would have helped. Spirited, bright and sexy, Day comes off better, Young’s timing is sharp, even bombshell Van Doren, 26, is less over-the-top than usual—this was in the same year she unlimbered the camp classic High School Confidential. Here she nightclub bumps & grinds “The Girl Who Invented Rock and Roll”. Not to be outsizzled by a Monroe clone, Doris then shows she can throw hips with accuracy when her character playfully imitates Mamie’s showgirl. To each, Clark reacts appropriately, all-American red blood heated to boil. Doris also minxes the cute title tune written by Joe Lubin.

With Nick Adams, Marion Ross, Charles Lane, Jack Albertson, Harry Antrim, Army Archerd, James Bacon and Terry Becker.

* Gable practiced farce fencing with Claudette Colbert, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, Norma Shearer, Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner, Deborah Kerr, Ava Gardner, Loretta Young, Eleanor Parker, Carroll Baker and Lilli Palmer.