Review: Rock Hudson and Gina Lolllobrigida Re-team in 'Strange Bedfellows'

Reuniting four years after playing so well together in "Come September," Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida this time play an estranged married couple who are so sexually charged around one another they reconcile, only to split up again, in "Strange Bedfellows."

GIna's a bohemian fighter for social injustice (or a caricature of one, anyway). Rock is an ambitious company executive who will do what it takes to make his bosses happy. They basically never agree on anything. Except they can't seem to keep away from one another when they're in close proximity. Love or lust? But when Rock's promotion hinges on a happy marriage, he deliberately rekindles things with Gina, who finds out the truth and then turns into the fiery Italian we expect. Madonn!

Writer-director Melvin Frank, who would go on to make the Oscar-winning "A Touch of Class" a decade later, fashions a fun, silly romantic comedy that, in the final reel, pulls out all the wacky stops including dressing Gina as Lady Godiva! In 1965 this was viewed as pushing the envelope... perhaps...

The film contains some fun moments and an ongoing taxi scene bit that is hilarious even today – but with these two talents and the amazing, yet wasted, Gig Young ("They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"), it should have been savvier and smarter.

Still, there's enough to entertain – especially an extended bed scene between Hudson and Edward Judd, a Lollobrigida suiter. It's hilarious watching Hudson and Judd creating quite a bit of their own homoerotic chemistry lying in bed next to one another.

Brit comic Terry-Thomas enters in the last reel and steals his two scenes with panache!

Hudson would try and change his comedic image a year later with John Frankenheimer's shattering, "Seconds." And the forever underrated and charming Lollobrigida would deliver her best performance in "Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell," in 1968, a film that would go on to inspire the Abba megahit, "Mamma Mia."

The film looks splendid on Blu-ray with Leo Tover's lush cinematography popping.

The audio commentary has film historian Eddy Von Mueller discussing the generational change going on in the country, including the cultural shift. It's an interesting listen.

Blu-ray Extras Include: