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Tonight I watched A LETTER TO THREE WIVES for the first time. It's an entertaining enough film on its own merits, but there were three scenes that particularly caught my interest.
In the intro, there's a female narrator (turns out she's Addie Ross, a pivotal person in the lives of all six of the film's primary characters, though she never appears on-screen) who describes the suburban town in which the story takes place:
"The name of the town isn't important. It's the one that's just 28 minutes from the big city -- 23 if you catch the morning express. It's on a river, and it's got houses and stores and churches -- and a Main Street. Nothing fancy like Broadway or Market -- just plain Main. Drug, dry goods, shoes, those horrible little chain stores that breed like rabbits...."
See, I'd never have guessed that, when the movie was released in 1949, there were many chain stores on most Main Streets. I wonder which chains existed back then.
Later in the film, a housekeeper is working in the kitchen when an ad comes on the radio.
We hear two horn honks, followed by a long, deranged laugh and a maniacal howl.
"Yow, he's crrrrr-azy!" a youthful voice exclaims. Then, one of those close-harmony vocal groups one associates with 1940s music begins to sing, in swinging style:
"Buy your car from Crazy Eddie
Pay when you get good and ready
Nothing down, drive as you pay
Buy your car (laughter, howl, metallic clank) the
Crazy Eddie waaaaaay-ay-ay-ay!""
It's all very Spike Jones-esque, which makes sense for the time, I guess, but I never imagined that such wacky commercials existed in the late '40s. And I certainly never knew the idea of a loony merchant named Crazy Eddie predated the zany stereo salesman who made such a splash in New York City (and nationally, too, via the Saturday Night Live take-off).
It's the kind of thing that makes you wonder. You can watch dozens of old movies from a particular era, but, really, can you know what life was actually like then, if you didn't live through it? I suspect not.
Finally, there's a great flare-up between the husband of one of the titular three wives (Kirk Douglas), an English teacher who's a bit of a snob when it comes to popular culture (he can't stand radio dramas, for one thing -- though, as it happens, his wife earns the larger part of their combined household income writing them) and his wife's boss, who, as the guest of honor at the wife's dinner party, has forced all in attendance to listen to the radio for three hours straight.
As she's taking her leave, the boss asks the husband which of the evening's radio programs he most enjoyed. He demurs, not wishing to anger his wife by offending her boss, but the boss persists in posing the question, and he finally can't help himself:
"The purpose of radio writing, as far as I can see, is to prove to the masses that a deodorant can bring happiness, a mouthwash guarantee success, and a laxative attract romance. 'Don't think,' says the radio, 'and we'll pay you for it. Can't spell 'cat'? Too bad, but a yacht and million dollars to the gentleman for being our audience tonight!'" 'Worry!' says the radio. 'Will your best friends not tell you? Will you lose your teeth? Will your cigarettes give you cancer? Will your body function after you're 35? If you don't use our product, you'll lose your husband, your job, and die! Use our product, and we'll make you rich! We'll make you famous!' "
In addition to the terrific writing of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, that speech caught my ear because of the cancer reference. Who knew that cancer was already being connected, at least theoretically, to cigarettes in the 1940s? Well, maybe you did, but I didn't.
It's amazing that the suspicion, at least, of a causal relationship between smoking and cancer already existed that long ago, but it took so much longer to be confirmed and acted upon.
So, that's my life in a nutshell -- watching old movies and listening for snippets that shed a little light on life as it was lived then.
Posted by brett at 01:07 AM | TrackBack