'50s Career Girls and Marriage

Not so easy to find is the 1950s career girl. But with a little research, I not only came across a great new book series that I can't wait to sink my teeth into, but also found an awesome example of a '50s career gal. It's an old favorite with a message I missed until I read Sumiko Higashi's essay in American Cinema of the 1950s: Themes and Variations. 
 

Froman's career & marriage don't mix.

• With a Song in My Heart (1952) - This musical biopic chronicles singer Jane Froman's (Susan Hayward) rise to stardom, troubled marriage, and debilitating injury. Author Sumiko Higashi points out that the movie is careful to portray her success as being spurred forward by her husband as opposed to her own ambitions as a career woman. She laments that "she wants 'a real home'" and pities her husband because "'it isn't easy for any man being married to a woman in the spotlight'" (78). She further declares, "If [her career is] going to spoil our marriage, it just isn't worth it'" (78). After she is injured, it is the medical bills--again not her ambition--that prompt her to go back to her singing career. The message is clear: married career women work as a result of external circumstances not internal desire.

Memory triggered, I was able to come up with another 1950s movie with a career gal:

Poor Fred is taken for granted...

• There's Always Tomorrow (1956) - Norma Miller Vale (Barbara Stanwyck) is a successful fashion designer. She meets up with a former co-worker, Cliff Groves (Fred MacMurray), who is married and has three teenage children. His marriage is in a bit of a rut, making the single and fancy free Norma very attractive. Cliff's wife Marion (Joan Bennett) is not concerned. Marion feels secure in her position, suspecting that Norma most likely envies her domestic life. Sure enough, nothing much comes from Cliff and Norma's brief dalliance, other than Norma's realization that her life is empty without a home, marriage, and children--just as Marion and we could have predicted. 

Join me next week as I complete the Career Girls and Marriage series with an analysis of '60s career girls in films.

Works Cited

Higashi, Sumiko. "With a Song in My Heart: Can This Star's Marriage Be Saved?"
         American Cinema of the 1950s: Themes and Variations. Ed. Murray 
        Pomerance. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005. 77-81. Print.

 

'40s Career Girls and Marriage

The 1940s were a unique time for the career girl. From 1942 to 1945, the boys were away at war which left a large gap in the workforce. Campaign posters, such as the one that came to be associated with Rosie the Riveter, encouraged women to take men's vacant spots. Whether or not this caused a switch in career girls and marriage on film is difficult to say. The first movie on my list was released prior to the war while the final film made its debut at the end of the decade. In any case, viewing a married career girl on screen would not have been as big of an anomaly as the decade prior. Although much more subtle, the message that career girls and marriage don't mix continued to be sprinkled throughout the '40s with some revolutionary gems popping up here and there.
 

• His Girl Friday (1940) - The decade kicks off with this wonderful exception to the career versus marriage rule. Typically, the woman forgoes a career for marriage. In this movie, quite the opposite occurs. Hilda Johnson (Rosalind Russell) attempts to give up her career as a newspaper reporter to marry the stable--and boring--Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy). However hard she tries, though, she cannot resist the thrill of chasing a good story. In the end, her career wins, and she skips marrying Bruce in favor of Walter Burns (Cary Grant), who would prefer his star reporter to retain that status. Their marriage will not interfere with breaking news stories. An interesting side note: Hildy was originally supposed to be a man. Howard Hawks changed the character's gender after his secretary read the lines, and he liked the way dialogue sounded (TCMDb). This unique union of career and marriage was accidental.

• Woman of the Year (1942) - Rival reporters Tess Harding (Katharine Hepburn) and Sam Craig (Spencer Tracy) fall in love and marry. Neither give up their career, and it isn't long before Sam feels neglected. Like last week's Ann Carver's Profession (1933), the wife is to blame. When Tess adopts a little refugee boy, Sam objects, explaining that they don't have "the kind of home he'd be happy in" quickly followed by the more direct jab, "Now if you could just spare about ten-percent of [your] heart from the world at large and apply it at home..." Tess may be named "Woman of the Year," but in his eyes she is not living up to the task. He tells her as much on the night of her awards banquet, which she is more concerned about attending than finding someone to stay with the boy. Before she leaves, he comments, "The Outstanding Woman of the Year isn't a woman at all." Ouch!
  
  Later her aunt Ellen, also a career woman, gets ready to tie the knot and shares with Tess that she would rather be "the prize" than continue to win prizes. That does it. Tess decides to change, to try to become a traditional wife. Unlike Ann Carver, there is no melodramatic final scene--this is a comedy after all. Tess fails miserably in her domestic endeavors. Her waffles overflow, her toast pops over zealously, and her coffee bubbles over. Sam decides to meet her halfway. He'll accept her as long his last name makes the title: Tess Harding Craig. The final gesture of "launching" her PR guy informs the audience that he wears the pants in the family now. Tradition has (somewhat) prevailed.
  

• Mildred Pierce (1945) - I would be remiss if I did not mention this well known celluloid career woman. Unlike the other ladies in this category, Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) works in order to provide for her daughter Veda's (Ann Blyth) every whim. At one point, she even marries so her daughter has the social connections she (Veda) so desires. The movie is more a portrait of a self-sacrificing mother than a career girl who loves the work she does. Once Veda no longer needs her mother; i.e., goes to the big house, Mildred reunites with her first husband, and there is a sense that she will not be returning to the business world.

• June Bride (1948) - When Linda Gilman (Bette Davis) crosses paths with her ex-beau Carey Jackson (Robert Montgomery), she tells him to forget she's a woman. She is now a career focused woman and wants no part in love. After all, he walked out on her three years prior. The message: a career woman is a bitter, scorned woman. How to cure it? (Because, the message reads, careers must be cured out of women.) True love, of course. The result is an enjoyable film filled with witty banter as Carey chases Linda, trying desperately to win her back. In the final minutes of the film, Linda has (surprise!) a change of heart and is determined to get Carey back. Up to this point, she has remained true to her career even while tinkering with love during moonlit moments. But then she offers to not only follow him wherever his stories take him, but also to do no more than carry his bags behind him. Somehow I can't image Bette Davis or her successful magazine editor character stooping so low. Message delivered nonetheless.

• Adam's Rib (1949) - Amanda (Katharine Hepburn) and Adam Bonner (Spencer Tracy) are wife and husband lawyers who are able to have both successful careers and a successful marriage. The film chronicles a difficult time in their relationship as they take on opposing sides of a court cases. They push through with some laughs and lots of love (including one very memorable love pat, which brought to light the issue of whether or not it is okay for a husband to hit his wife even in jest) to demonstrate that a career girl can have a successful marriage. 

Going through the list of films this week, there are a few examples of women who were able to have successful careers and be happily married. Hildy (we assume), Tess, and Amanda. (Shout out for Rosalind Russell's and Katharine Hepburn's strong women roles!) Being a mother--and a working one at that, I couldn't help but notice something, er, someone missing from the equation: children. I wonder, would all have ended well if these women had a brood to raise at home? Or would we see a shift in the message--career and marriage can occur from time to time, but never with children? Another message worth exploring later down the road.

Join me next week as I continue to explore Career Girls and Marriage during the 1950s.

'30s Career Girls and Marriage

Sometimes the occasional rogue woman will try to "live like a man," finding contentment in her career. This week I examine what happens in a pair of films from the 1930s.

• Female (1933) - What a dazzling display of girl power! Alison Drake (Ruth Chatterton) is the CEO of a large company and runs it with finesse and efficiency. She also treats men as they so often treat women. One by one, she invites her male employees home to "talk business." She sets the mood with music and Vodka and has her fun with them. The following morning, she dismisses them at the office. When they become "jealous, moody men," she transfers them out of state. Her career is her life, and she loves it.

  

  Chatterton in Female - LOVE this powerful dress!

  She meets her match in Jim Throne (George Brent), who is not so easily seduced. He chides her for thinking she's above "love and children, the things women were born for" (ah yes, the every girl should marry message in the movies). Alison is converted. She misses an important meeting to fetch her man and let him know she is his. Girl power? In the end she gives it all up, a gift to the man she wants to marry. Jim will run the business, and she'll run the home--complete with nine children. Now, I'm not advocating women use and abuse men, but the movie's ending was a bit of a let down. So much for the image of a powerful woman... 

• Ann Carver's Profession (1933) - Here is another woman who loves her career. Ann Carver (Fay Wray) is "aching to go to work" instead of hanging around the home all day. Her husband Bill (Gene Raymond) approves until she gets a $5000 bonus for a court win compared to his measly $10 raise. Bill's delicate male ego is further bruised when he gets no love from his workaholic wife while she entertains business associates. (Hmmm....interesting double standard here. If it was he who entertained, would she be allowed a complaint? I think not.) Ann tries to smooth things over with her unhappy hubby. And behold--a pleasant surprise--she actually admits that she would be lying if she said she wanted to give up her career. Poor guy (ha!) feels forced to take a job as a crooner to make more money and give up his architect job in the process. It is her boss's (Claude Gillingwater) turn to dole out the advice, "a man can't stand the burden of obligation. Especially to a wife." (Good golly--really?!)
  
  Long story short, Bill becomes linked to a murder, and his wife must come to the rescue. In her final plea to the jury she blames herself for her husband falling into bad company. She believes she deserves the jury's "contempt" rather than her husband "for her blindness and stupidity." She explains she was like a "machine" with her work and "drove him out." She asks the jury to "pity any woman who has the most precious thing in life and blindly sacrificed it." She announces that the conclusion of the case will also be the end of her career as it has brought her "nothing but heartache and despair." Bill is found not guilty, she gives up her career, and they live happily ever after. Message? Career girls and marriage don't mix.

Join me next week as I continue to explore Career Girls and Marriage during the 1940s.

Every Girl Should Be Married

Sinatra & Reynolds

For better or worse, movies have been telling us that matrimonial bliss is the key to true happiness. More specifically, it--along with children--are the only way for a woman to be truly fulfilled. Men, on the other hand, might be content to live out their bachelor lives, finding satisfaction in their careers and multiple visitors in their beds. Therefore, the message goes, it is up to the woman to resort to trickery to help her chosen mate realize domestic bliss. A few examples through the decades:

• Double Harness (1933) - Joan (Ann Harding), who is on verge of spinsterhood, declares, "Marriage is a woman's business," and goes about getting herself hitched. She arranges for her father to catch her with her boyfriend (William Powell) in a compromising situation, resulting in their "forced" marriage. Both find happiness when they discover they are also in love with each other. 

• Every Girl Should Be Married (1948) - When Anabel (Betsy Drake) sets her sights on Madison (Cary Grant), an unmarried doctor, she does not have the pre-code convenience of being found in a negligee in Madison's apartment. No worries--she has many other tricks up her sleeve, including inciting all the women attending one of Madison's lectures to admit they used trickery to trap their husbands. Speaking of which... 

• The Tender Trap (1955) - At this point in cinematic history, husband-trapping is a fact of life, so why not make a humorous romp of it? Like Powell's and Grant's characters, Charlie (Frank Sinatra) is a confirmed bachelor and there is a woman, Julie (Debbie Reynolds), with designs to snare him. Julie's plan doesn't succeed in the short run, but by the end of the movie--and a quick lapse of a year--Charlie proposes to her. All is well that ends well.

• Sunday in New York (1963) - Eileen (Jane Fonda) goes to her brother (Cliff Robertson) to find out "what the right procedure is in snaring a suitable man for the laudable purpose of making a home together and life with children and church-going and growing old together as is mentioned in both testaments and many other highly respected sources." Translation: she needs help attaining that highest womanly goal--holy matrimony. Unlike Joan of the early 30s, she is not willing to put out to get a proposal. And unfortunately the ploys of Anabel and Julie have not worked either. The trap is in question not whether to trap. Because what else would a single twenty-two year old American gal do?  

In 2003, the whimsical Down With Love paid homage to this favorite movie plot of yesteryear, that of the great lengths women go in order to snag a husband. At the same time, it is poking fun too. *spoiler alert* 

We find out the events that have unfolded throughout the movie are part of Barbara's (Renee Zellweger) elaborate scheme to entrap Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor). This updated version contends with another factor, though: her career, which is put on equal footing with--if not higher than--marriage. Well, almost... Come back next week for a look at Career Girls and Marriage.

Dance and Art in An American in Paris

Some love it. Some hate it. An American in Paris is ranked 68th on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list (1998) and 9th on AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals (2006), yet it also made Premiere magazine's 20 Most Overrated Movies list.

I understand people questioning the film's worthiness to belong to such illustrious lists as those put forth by AFI. The first times I watched the movie, I wanted to skip the big production at the end of the film and get to the final kiss. But then, I was in my early teens and impatient. I loved every musical I had ever seen, so it really bugged me that I didn't get the big deal about this one. So what did I do? What any classic-loving-girl would do: I watched it again. And again. And again. Maybe not repeatedly all in one sitting. Not even all in one month or year. But I persistently returned to the film at different points of my life. And you know what? Age helped me appreciate the musical in ways that I had missed during my first viewings. 

Over the years I have developed my own theory as to the significance of the film's last elaborate dance sequence--a theory that I tried unsuccessfully to back up with research, so maybe it's all in my head. But what I did discover during the research phase proved the artistic importance of the number nonetheless. Vincent Minnelli (the director) and Gene Kelly (the star and choreographer) intended the final ballet sequence to represent Paris as seen through a painter's eyes. Great care was taken in creating backdrops and costumes that reflected the various Parisian painting styles: 

first Raoul Dufy (1877-1953), 

then Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), 

followed by Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955), 

Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), 

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), 

and finally Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901).

In Cinema and Painting: How Art is Used in Film, Angela Dalle Vacche gives a convincing argument that the dance is symbolic of Jerry's inner turmoil over his identity as a painter. He is at a crossroads--does he accept the aid of a lady benefactress or continue to be a starving artist? The ballet, a dream-like sequence, gives us and him the answer. Lise represents Parisian art; she is Rousseau's gypsy girl in one part of the ballet and Toulouse-Lautrec's Jane Avril in another. By falling in love with her, Jerry chooses art over "the entrepreneurial aggressiveness of [the American] Milo" (27), which is represented by the women in red and white who chase him. (Even Milo's name suggests the statue, Venus de Milo, cold and without feeling.) Vacche reasons that this "suggests that an American male can be a painter in Paris as long as he marries a French girl" (27) although she admits the movie "does not completely resolve the rivalry between art and love, between unbound male creativity and the routine to which marriage leads" (17). Even in marrying a French girl, he is married.

According to Vacche, "Minnelli and his collaborators did not conceive the ballet as a story with a clear, logical development but as a series of psychic associations" (22). However, long before the convenience of the internet, I came to a different conclusion about the final dance production. Kelly typically tells a story with his dance routines, so it is certainly possible that his choreography had more of a plot than Vacche attributes to it. I saw the ballet as a retelling of the main characters' (Lise and Jerry) romance via dance. It begins with Jerry running through Paris finding and "dancing" with scarlet women (symbolically dressed in red) until he finds Lise, the rose among the flowers. She evaporates, leaving his arms full of a flowers. The dance transitions to innocent giddiness when he finds Lise again, Jerry in his straw hat with his fellow GIs and Lise with her schoolgirl friends. This is followed by a sensual dance, symbolizing the passionate side of romance. But I kept getting stuck on that white-clad version of Jerry with his silly hat. Then one year, I thought I finally figured it out...

This may get a little radical for some. Be forewarned. I realize now that Kelly is dressed as Chocolat and Caron as Jane Avril of Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings, but Kelly's choreography (we're talking all of the dancers' movements here) along with his and the women's costumes make it look like he may be representing a part of Lise and Jerry's relationship that could not have been shown under other circumstances. Watch it and see if you get what I mean.

Pay no attention to the title of the YouTube Video.

I am not alluding to Kelly's derriere.

The number says what the plot could not in those days of heavy censorship. As an added bonus, I discovered per IMDb, Leslie Caron mentioned that the censors had a problem with an earlier number in which Caron's character danced--in their eyes--a little too suggestively with a chair. A TCM article by Scott McGee also mentioned Kelly had trouble with censors in regards to her flapper outfit in the same sequence. With the last number, I believe he got the last laugh.

Frankly, My Dear: Gone with the Wind Revisited

ISBN 978-0-300-16437-4

The day Molly Haskell's Frankly, My Dear arrived, I was bursting with excitement. For one thing, it is written by Molly Haskell whom I admire for her candid analysis of movies while never losing sight of her love of films. Secondly, I have a very personal connection to Gone with the Wind (1939). My mom loved the movie--so much so that I am named after one of the characters. Watching Gone with the Wind was a momentous event in our household. To this day, I get shivers whenever I hear "Tara's Theme." In many ways, this emotional response is what Haskell's book is about: why the movie and corresponding novel have been embraced by the American public year after year and how the two have influenced society. 

Before purchasing the book, I researched the reviews. There were some complaints that this wasn't a book about the making of the film; however, knowing the author, I didn't expect it to be. That being said, Haskell does include interesting tidbits and anecdotes about the making of Gone with the Wind (hereafter referred to as GWTW) including the exhaustive search for the perfect Scarlett, Clark Gable and Leslie Howards's aversion to making the film (and what enticed them to do so), the amount of writers and directors the overzealous Selznick went through, and the final cost to produce the film ($4,250,000). I already knew most of these facts and suspect GWTW enthusiasts will as well. Point being that Frankly, My Dear is for someone who is looking for something beyond basic trivia.

After establishing the historical importance of GWTW--the first chapter is called "The American Bible"--Haskell discusses the similarity of the three principles: David Selznick (the producer), Vivien Leigh (the star), and Margaret Mitchell (the author of the novel). She describes their backgrounds, arguing that their ambition, internal conflicts, and intensity contribute to the success of the film.  Each had something to prove, to stoke the fire: Selznick to avenge a wrong against his father; Leigh to personify Scarlett in order to win the coveted role, then to complete the film and return to her beloved Olivier; and Mitchell to expose the hypocrisies of upper-crust Southern society. 

'20s flapper, '30s matron

Although Mitchell did not like the insincerity of high society, she was not willing to abandon her South for Hollywood. In the chapter, "Finding the Road to Ladyhood Hard," Haskell explores the conflicts which plagued the author and thereby shaped the novel and movie. Haskell describes Mitchell as an "outsider/insider" (123). She was both tomboy and Southern lady, a free-spirited flapper and settled society matron, a social butterfly and recluse. Mitchell resisted and then surrendered to the Southern ideal of womanhood. This tug-of-war on her identity is present in GWTW through the virtuous Melanie, who was Mitchell's intended herione, and the scandalous Scarlett, who is the embodiment of Mitchell's rebellious side, too strong to keep subdued on the sidelines. 

Under the guise of  demure Southern lady, Scarlett "gets away with [nonconformity] in a way that is rare, not to say unprecedented in movies, given a double standard that generally grants such immunity only to the male of the species" (98). New concepts of womanhood are allowed to emerge. Haskell points out that Scarlett lacks a maternal instinct (shown more completely in the book than on screen) and rebuffs the idealization of marriage: "'Marriage fun?' replies a disbelieving Scarlett. She's not buying" (102). Additionally, the backdrop of war and Reconstruction makes it possible for the genteel Southern woman to show strength and take on the 'masculine' qualities of leadership and self-preservation:

The woman who wanted nothing more than a shoulder to lean on has become, by default, the mainstay, the authority figure upon whom others must lean. (94)

Men's roles are also transformed in GWTW. Typically reserved for women, the categorization of virgin and whore can be applied to the leading men of GWTW. Female viewers are given the choice between Ashley, "the wan and perfect blonde" and Rhett, "the lustrous and passionate brunette" (185). Additionally, the idea of the handsome hero going off to war is called into question. Haskell argues that the manly heroes of D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915) become weaklings in GWTW. They go off to play a game of war while women face the true hardships of home. From the mouth of Scarlett:

"Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on the battle field when it's be brave or else be killed." (194)

Haskell contends GWTW "is genuinely antiwar"--once the battle field's "adrenaline rush of violence" is removed, the reality of war sets in (201).

An analysis of GWTW would be incomplete without considering the portrayal of the African American experience. Haskell acknowledges Mitchell's guilt of painting "slavery with a happy face" (209). At the same time, though, the film challenged the prevailing thought that African Americans were aggressive and dangerous as was portrayed in Griffith's Birth of a Nation. Haskell explains that,

With Mitchell, the taint of slavery was transmogrified into harmonious cohabitation, a hierarchy [...] in which the white trash Slatterys were far more lazy, noxious, and parasitic than Negroes, especially the house 'darkies,' who look down on the field hands [...] (209) 

Haskell brings her own experience of being both Southern (born and raised) and Northerner (her current home) to explain the inability for people outside of the South to understand the interdependent relationship between blacks and whites, which is shown in the book and film, where they "complement and complete each other in important ways, their intimacy a fact of life" (210). The thought reminds me of the recent novel The Help (2009) in which the young white children, particularly the main character, have a special relationship with the black women who care for them. The author of The Help, also a Southerner, and Haskell seem to share a special understanding elusive to those not from the South.

Hattie McDaniel

Haskell points out that current film scholars agree that despite the obvious racism, there is much to applaud in "the strength of the black presence at a time when there were few roles of color at all" (211). Unfortunately for Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, the NAACP did not see the film in this light. Although she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress--the first awarded to an African American, the head of the NAACP attacked McDaniel for betraying her race. She also faced racial discrimination when her invitation to the premiere in Atlanta was rescinded, and when she was not allowed to sit at the white cast members' table at the Oscars. Nonetheless, McDaniel's role was one of vital significance, and Haskell purports that GWTW "contains unusually finely drawn portraits of blacks who are given voices, humor, and importance" (209).

 ...

Frankly, My Dear was a light, quick read. Enjoyable. Definitely for those who love the film and/or the novel. Haskell explores the many messages put forth by the movie, but also provides insight into the effects of the various directors, writers, set designers, cinematographers, and actors.  She looks at why the American public is so enamored with the movie, and how the movie became the institution it currently is. I can't wait to read this book again.
 
 This is my final submission to the:

Hosted by Out of the Past

Just for fun, here is a video of screen tests:

 

A Tribute to Lauren Bacall

The movie that introduced me to Lauren Bacall was The Big Sleep (1946). I was twelve and didn't have an inkling as to what was going on. Since then, I've seen the movie over a dozen times. I still am not completely positive on what is occurring, but according to many film critics' analyses, I'm not in the minority. Regardless of my level of understanding, I fell in love with the film. More specifically, I fell in love with Lauren Bacall. 

I was drawn to her. Her throaty voice. The way she was tough, yet exuded sexiness at the same time (her wiggle dance at the end of To Have and Have Not (1944) is a fabulous example of this - see below). She had an edge. She was dangerous, a little bit bad but not unforgivingly so. Here was a woman who was flesh and blood, not categorized as virgin or victim. Here was a woman I wanted to grow up and become.

 

Bogart, Bacall, and Sinatra

She also had swagger--there was no doubt she could keep up with the boys (and growing up the only girl among boys, this was an extremely important characteristic in my young eyes). My later discovery that she--along with hubby Bogie--was one of the original members of the Rat Pack only confirmed my suspicion that she could hang with the boys. 

All this and she had style too. My college years introduced me to such classics as How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and Designing Woman (1957), in which fashion took center stage. I was often so engrossed in the fashion of these films that I forgot to follow the plot. Oh that gorgeous purple and white number with those incredibly impractical, yet breathtakingly beautiful puff sleeves! Yes, this was a woman I wished to emulate.

Visit GlamAmor for more on this film's fashion.

So when the news came that she had passed, I couldn't help but be filled with sorrow. And when TCM shows their tribute clip to her, my eyes water (should I be embarrassed by this?). I know she was 89, a good age with a full life. But there was something special about Lauren Bacall. She was my hero, my role model. The only consolation in her death is the knowledge that she is reunited with her Bogie at last. 

The legendary Bogie and Bacall - Source

Lauren Bacall's aforementioned "wiggle dance"

Double Standards in the Bedroom

A few months ago, I discovered Sunday in New York (1963), a gem of a film that questions society's dividing line between madonna and whore. In less than ten minutes, Sunday in New York cuts to the chase when Eileen (Jane Fonda) asks her older brother Adam (Cliff Robertson), 

"Is a girl that's been going around with a fella a reasonable length of time supposed to go to bed with him or not?"

Her brother gives an emphatic no, so she rephrases the question. "Is she expected to?"

Despite being the virtuous girl, the madonna, Eileen's long time beau has dropped her because she wouldn't--to use the lingo of the movie--loosen her morals. This isn't the first time she has lost a boy for this reason. So what will big brother say--big brother who has intimate flings unbeknownst to sister? I bet you can guess.

"Men marry decent girls."   

And how exactly did we know this would be his answer in spite of his own amorous activities? Because when it comes to the bedroom, Hollywood has taught us there is a double standard between men and women. While men are allowed, nay, expected to sow their oats, women concern themselves with maintaining their reputations and reforming their wayward men. 

Consider the worldly Rock Hudson characters to Doris Day's virginal ones, 

"You are my inspiration..."
 from Pillow Talk (1959) - Source

Fred MacMurray's bureau full of pictures in Millionaire for Christy (1951),

Frank Sinatra's parade of women in The Tender Trap (1955), 

and when Jean/Lady Eve (Barbara Stanwyck) wants to punish Charles (Henry Fonda), she knows the surest way is to marry him and then reveal an unholy history. 

Lady Eve lists her many (invented) paramours 
in The Lady Eve (1941).

It is through her virtue, that a woman wins the grand prize: marriage (granted the pursuit of marriage as an end goal is a bit dated--although if the wedding industry is any indictor, we remain a marriage-centric society). Eileen has found the message false; she has been virtuous and "lost quite a boy." She questions the black-and-whiteness of labels:

"The catch is in the word decent. It seems to have a comparative connotation. Like the girl who was a little bit pregnant."

Indeed, the decade prior saw plenty of girls arrive at the alter "a little bit pregnant" (National Vital Statistics), suggesting that sometimes "decent" girls give in.  

When Eileen discovers her brother's hypocrisy, she attempts a fling of her own with an unsuspecting stranger, Mike Mitchell (Rod Taylor). Mike--like her brother--has had experience with women, but when he finds out Eileen is a "beginner," he won't go through with the seduction. He explains that there are two kinds of girls, and she doesn't belong in the group who has "affairs." 

Ah yes, the dichotomy of the female race. A quick gander at Saved! (2004) or Easy A (2010) will illustrate that Sunday in New York retains its relevance. No matter how far we say we've come from the 1960s, the truth remains that women are still divided into two categories. And while Sunday in New York goes easy on the language, we know that one group of gals receives derogatory titles based on their sexual activities whereas men are not so classified. Or if they are, it is done by taking a female derogatory term and adding "male" to the front of it. Point being, there is no male-exclusive equivalent. The double standard. 

The movie attempts to break free from pigeon-holing women into two types. And in some ways, it does. On the sidelines,   Mona (Jo Morrow) is perfectly willing and eager to meet Adam for one of their romantic jaunts; it is evident she is not a beginner. A series of comical mishaps prevent their affair, and by the end of the evening, Mona gets what every girl wants (according to another message in the movies) from Adam: a proposal of marriage. It may seem to be a result of staying chaste this particular Sunday, but she is virtuous through no fault of her own. Remember Adam's words earlier in the film? 

"Men marry decent girls." 

In his proposal, the movie redefines "decent." 

Eileen also gets the boy. While the voiceover at the end of the movie would have the audience believe that "nice things [...] happen to a girl if she remains virtuous even on a rainy Sunday in New York," we know it was not through Eileen's own doing that she remains virtuous. There is a hint that she may not make it through the night. We last see her in a passionate embrace with her new fiancé. The room is dark and they are wearing only pajamas. 

In his February 1964 review of the film, Bosley Crowther comments that Sunday in New York, in the light of "the past 10 years, [where] the once-unmentionable has been discussed at almost tedious length in films," is "a wee bit old-hat." Old hat is the voiceover; however, if you look closely at the peripheral and peek around the corner, there is a new message trying to break through.