'60s Career Girls and Marriage

And now it is time to wrap up my Career Girls and Marriage series (although the more I watch, the more I want to add--I may need to revisit in the future). 

Onto the 60s, a tumultuous time of conflicting identities:

• Wheeler Dealers (1963) - In this film, career women are presented as two types: the ones who work in order to find a husband and those who work because they find fulfillment in their job. Molly Thatcher (Lee Remick) is one of the latter while her roommate Eloise (Patricia Crowley) is of the former, working uptown where it is easier to bag a husband. Molly, on the other hand, works downtown where a girl has to be "twice as smart to get half as far." Interesting observation of the glass ceiling. Molly wants to be a respected business woman, but her working environment is less than conducive to her desires. Although she is unaware of it, her bosses are trying to fire her with the rationalization that hiring a female employee was just an "experiment" anyways.
  She belongs to a lunch club, which is full of women who want to move up in the world, yet is managed by men. Apparently the men have not received the memo as they prefer to discuss facts about bobby pins and kitchen appliances as opposed to the facts and figures of Wall Street.
  
  Molly challenges the club's male speaker; she is insulted that women are not being taking seriously in the work world and are considered emotional and "excitable." What a rally cry! The irony, however, is that the women are portrayed as emotional and excitable at the very time she is delivering her message. One step forward, two steps back. To top things off, Molly is relentlessly pursued by the rather handsome Henry Tyroon  (James Gardner...sigh...) who has plans to make her his girl. Along the course of the way, she informs him (and us) that she prefers to be admired for her intelligence, not her beauty.
  She also explains that even if she got married, she would hold off on having a baby because that would end her career. Wow--a different reality back in the '60s! (Yet, I can't help wondering how far we have come. Some hypothesize that motherhood still has a negative effect on career advancement.*)
  
  Molly can predict Henry's every move and successfully resists. Almost. In the end, her plans change. Molly is going to marry Henry and move back to Texas with him.

*See Sarah Hoye's (CNN), Jayita and Murali Poduval's (National Institute of Health), and Lisa Quast's (Forbes) articles for more info on this topic.

• The Thrill of It All (1964) - This week brings us two James Gardner movies (double sigh). During my first viewing, I thought, Oh I like this one--a light, fun movie with a working mother at its center. I still enjoy the movie. I can relate--as I imagine many working moms can--to that torn, guilty feeling of not always being there to for all the little moments in our children's lives. At the same time, I can understand why Beverley Boyle (Doris Day) enjoys her job. She is her own woman, able to contribute to the household fund for the first time. As an added bonus, she gets to communicate with other adults.

  

  The last straw... Source

  While she revels in her new spot on the financial food chain, her husband Gerald (James Gardner) becomes more and more irritated with her career. She is neglecting her duties on the home front such as having his dinner ready and saying good night to the children. The situation escalates until finally both decide it would be better for her to give up her career and solely be a mother and wife. She seems pretty pleased with the decision. In fact, the ending implies that she is going to have another baby. (Because babies solve all major conflicts at home, right?)  

• Sex and the Single Girl  (1964) - This movie chronicles the fictional version of Dr. Helen Brown (Natalie Wood), a psychologist who has written a book about being single and living like man; i.e. sex with whomever and whenever you wish, and the rat, Bob Weston (Tony Curtis) who is trying to secretly publish an article documenting what kind of woman she is. (Remember, the message goes that there are two kinds of women--those who do and those who don't.) Bob is not the only one who desires this knowledge. Helen's co-worker Dr. Rudy DeMeyer (Mel Ferrer) also indicates that he is dying to know her type and essentially tells her that he hopes their elegant evening together pays off. So if a guy provides a nice date, you have to put out? Wowzers--this is a message for further exploration! (Not to mention how he keeps coming on to her after she has clearly expressed disinterest in his advances... Sexual harassment in the office, anyone?) Helen is full of contradictions.
  
  She declares, "Married! I don't want to be married! I've got work I care about much more." Yet she believes that men have the "opportunity, challenge, and responsibility" to marry as this is the only thing that sets humanity apart from animals. By the end of the flick, Helen rocks a stuffed animal as though it was a baby and realizes, "I don't want to be a single girl!" She gives up her practice to marry Bob. The sentiment of the movie can be summed up in two quotes: 

  A tongue-and-cheek statement by Gretchen (Fran Jefferies), Bob's girlfriend (if you can call her that--she is more of a booty-call), "I wouldn't give up my career for marriage, kids, and happiness." True happiness lies in marriage for women. 

  Acted with mock enthusiasm, Bob announces to a co-worker, "You may have power, money, and sex. But I've got love!" Bob's declaration is part of a joke. Love is not what men want. Marriage is a trap. Just ask his neighbor, Frank Broderick (Henry Fonda), who regularly dodges objects thrown at him by his ever jealous wife Sylvia (Lauren Bacall).

And with that, the series on Career Girls and Marriage is concluded--for now. Thank you for reading! Please feel free to comment or email me with titles of movies that deal with career and marriage. I would love to explore this topic further and welcome anomalies to the standard Hollywood message.

Escapism, Movies, and Lydia

It's summer, which means I finally have the opportunity to delve into books related to classic films; i.e., read for fun. Currently I am in the midst of Devin McKinney's The Man Who Saw a Ghost: The Life and Work of Henry Fonda. Although I am far from finished, I was particularly struck by the following reflection: 

It is a prevailing American wish in late 1934, as at nearly every other time: Give us the simple of it. Stage our national past in a diorama of period costume and antique activity; show us a day when there were still dreams undiscovered, vistas unseen. Take us back; take us away. (61)

The author was referring to the tendency to paint history in a shade we prefer versus the actual hue. McKinney speaks of Fonda's historical dramas, such as The Farmer Takes a Wife and Young Mr. Lincoln. However, I think this can also apply to the version of romance that has long been painted in the movies. The romance that our culture loves to love. The idea that if you love someone hard enough, they will change; the idea that unyielding devotion will result in love returned; the idea that life should be a continual stream of surprises, candy, and flowers (both in the literal and metaphorical sense - substitute as you wish); the idea that romantic hiccups can be neatly solved in ninety minutes; the idea of happily ever after. 

Movies that portray these messages are the ones to which society escapes after a relationship has failed or its thrill has subsided. These are the movies by which society judges itself, inevitably coming up short, with the oft result of destructive discontent. There are exceptions to the rule, more so in recent decades than in the glorious days of the silver screen. This is why silver screen exceptions are so, well, exceptional. Enter Lydia (1941).

Merle Oberon as Lydia - Source

Lydia is one of those exceptions. The film deals with illusions created by memory and fueled by poetry (the setting is pre-film, hence poetry). On the most basic level, the screenwriters want the audience to appreciate how memory is biased and flawed. Early in the movie, Lydia’s (Merle Oberon) recollection of a dance is juxtaposed with that of another character’s. The viewer realizes neither individual’s memory is entirely accurate—Lydia, wrapped up in the poetry and romance of the moment, believes the ball to be elaborate and beautiful while the other character, Michael (Joseph Cotten), who is smitten with Lydia and therefore jealous of her beau, remembers the ball as plain.

On a deeper level, though, the film is about how we delude ourselves by believing too strongly, too completely in the fantasy, and the effects of believing in that illusion. By the end of the film, an older Lydia recognizes her misplaced devotion to the memory of Richard (Alan Marshal), with whom she fell in love forty years prior. They are reunited, but it is not the grand reunion of two lovers secretly pining for each other as she may have fantasized. While he has been burned deep in her memory, preventing her from loving any other, she has hardly been a blip on his radar. He does not remember her despite their young idyllic winter weeks together [which begs the question - was it really idyllic, or was it only her memory that has washed it into something grand like the ballroom at the beginning of the movie?].

It would be very easy at this point for the movie to end happily with Michael professing once more his undying devotion to Lydia to which she would realize he is the one she has truly loved all these years and then they would kiss. The End. But that does not happen. There is no happily ever after for our characters. Lydia points out none of the men—this includes Michael—have truly known her. Just as Lydia has been in love with the illusion of Richard, Michael has been in love with the illusion of Lydia. There is no profession of love. The movie ends with the understanding that loving someone with all your might does not mean they will change or return your love; that not all romantic woes can be solved; that happily ever after does not always exist.

I suspect that the Breen Office, which was in charge of movie censorship, may have been behind the loveless ending. (During their weeks together, Lydia and Richard were living together unmarried and virtually unchaperoned. This would have been considered a sin, punishable by an unhappy ending.) Whatever the reason for the final cut, the film as it stands reminds the audience of the dangerous line between reality and illusion. In other words, enjoy being taken away, but don't mistake the image for truth. Or you might end up like Lydia.

[Side note - Lydia is not available on DVD, but you can catch it (or DVR it) on TCM on Friday, August 29th at 6 am EST.]