Movie of the Week: Teacher’s Pet (1958)

This week, Clark Gable is Doris Day’s star pupil in Teacher’s Pet (1958).

Clark is Jim Gannon, a hard-nosed editor of a New York newspaper. When Professor Erica Stone (Day) requests that Jim speak to her journalism class, he rebuffs her with a sarcastic and mean-spirited letter, saying that people can only learn the newspaper business by working in the newspaper business and classes are a waste of time. When Jim, forced by his boss, goes down to Erica’s class to apologize, she reads the letter aloud to the class before he has the chance to explain himself. Embarrassed but charmed by Erica, he signs up for her class and calls himself Jim Gallagher. He quickly becomes her star pupil and he makes his romantic intentions known. He is, however, involved with a sultry nightclub singer (Mamie Van Doren) and she is involved with a know-it-all psychology professor (Gig Young). As their romance is blossoming, Erica goes to Jim’s boss to see if he can arrange a job for her star pupil. It is there that she is faced with the real Jim and learns he has deceived her all along.

This movie is a delight. Just a delight. It is the type of film Cary Grant (who actually turned down this role, as did Jimmy Stewart) did with much success in the late 1950’s: a smart, swift comedy.

You do have to overlook the fact that Clark is looking very much his 57 years here, a fact that the characters blindly ignore. Doris encourages this new student to quit his job and start a new job at his age, like he’s a spring chicken. He might want to start thinking about his retirement instead of a new career!

I do think that Doris and Clark have chemistry, despite their 21 year age difference.

The fact that Clark and a then-25 year old platinum blonde Mamie Van Doren would be an item is quite the stretch, however.

He’s competing with Gig Young, who is 12 years younger than him, for her affections. The best scene is Clark trying (and failing) to outdo Gig at the nightclub. Gig knows everything, can play the bongo drums, can dance! This is an interesting change for Clark, he was usually the guy that every girl wanted; here he is falling short and getting bitter about it.

Hey, Gig at this time was married to Elizabeth Montgomery (not-yet star of “Bewitched”), who was the daughter of Clark’s friend Robert Montgomery.

Despite the script seemingly calling for a younger man, Clark is having fun here, making goofy faces that make amusing screenshots.

Especially when he orders all of Gig’s books and the assistant brings in armfuls, telling him the total was $83 (that is over $700 today!) and on top of that he sees Gig’s attractive picture!

Doris Day is one of the few Gable leading ladies who is still alive. She had nothing but nice things to say about him: “I could actually feel the magnetic force of his personality. There was something very affirmative about him, and a directness that suggested great inner strength.” Mamie Van Doren, who played Clark’s stripper friend Peggy in the film, is also still with us and still blonde and buxom. She said of Clark, “He was as masculine as they come…and extremely nice to me.” Mamie famously called Doris out for acting like a spoiled star with a disagreeable attitude in her autobiography. Doris always refused to discuss Mamie in interviews. Well, at least they both thought Clark was a class act, if they could agree on nothing else!

Random things:

The guy credited as “Guide” who is leading a group through the newspaper offices on a tour may look and sound familiar, as he is Jack Albertson, later known as Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Doris jumped at the chance to work with Clark and was at the time trying to branch out from strictly musical parts. She did sing the theme song to the film; it was released on Columbia Records and was a smash hit. “Teacher’s pet…I wanna be a teacher’s pet…”

Clark was coached by Norton Mockride, editor of the New York World Telegram and Sun. He taught him certain mannerisms and how to type with two fingers, “newspaperman style”.

Doris’ black dress and pearls in the nightclub scene are so classic and wouldn’t look out of place if she walked down the street in 2019.

However, she might get a few stares if she decided to walk down the street today in this odd hat, which I said looked like a plant pot and my husband declared reminded him of the 80’s band Devo’s “Whip It” music video.

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