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Post by galacticgirrrl on Apr 9, 2023 20:02:27 GMT
Lulu the pig stole the movie in the last few scenes. ROFL! I could have used another 30 minutes at least of these two together trying to sort out control.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 9, 2023 20:02:29 GMT
Okay, I actually like the film better this time around.
It gives us a lot to think about in terms of the relationship between the sexes, and how businesses are run (then and now).
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Post by galacticgirrrl on Apr 9, 2023 20:03:52 GMT
I know I was super-shocked at her the first time around.
Now I kind of liked the turn about is fair play scenario.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 9, 2023 20:04:01 GMT
Thank you Fading Fast. This was a lot of fun.
Looks like Rosumand John and Ruth Chatterton have become our favorites!
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Post by galacticgirrrl on Apr 9, 2023 20:05:20 GMT
Thank you FF. That was a great one.
It is strange having so much fun talking all through a movie.
The last time this happed to me in person someone might have actually thrown her pizza crust at an offender. Maybe. My memory is going....
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 9, 2023 20:07:50 GMT
Thank you FF. That was a great one.
It is strange having so much fun talking all through a movie.
The last time this happed to me in person someone might have actually thrown her pizza crust at an offender. Maybe. My memory is going.... It does make the movie fly by as I'm busy watching, reading and typing the entire time. It's fun in a crazy way.
Glad you enjoyed it.
I hadn't seen it in a long time and forgot that she was so aggressive - that's basically the entire movie until the stupid ending.
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Post by Andrea Doria on Apr 9, 2023 20:08:34 GMT
I liked Pettigrew, the typist, her maid, the pig, the clothes, and the furniture.
I liked most of the story, too.
It was a fun half hour! Thanks Fading Fast!
I shall now eat my chocolate snake.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 9, 2023 20:10:07 GMT
I liked Pettigrew, the typist, her maid, the pig, the clothes, and the furniture.
I liked most of the story, too.
It was a fun half hour! Thanks Fading Fast!
I shall now eat my chocolate snake. The Chauffeur wasn't loving the pig.
I did manage, amidst the watching, typing and reading to eat my chocolate bunny - I have my priorities straight.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 10, 2023 1:15:42 GMT
I liked Pettigrew, the typist, her maid, the pig, the clothes, and the furniture.
I liked most of the story, too.
It was a fun half hour! Thanks Fading Fast!
I shall now eat my chocolate snake. Hey Andrea,
I sent a message to you a few days ago, asking if you'd like to host our selections in June. I had an idea for a theme that might be fun. Let me know if you're interested!
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Post by Andrea Doria on Apr 10, 2023 12:17:02 GMT
We have messages?! I guess I should look at the top left once in a while!
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 10, 2023 22:26:05 GMT
Female from 1933 with Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Ruth Donnelly and Ferdinand Gottschalk
Female is one type of movie for fifty-six of its sixty-minute runtime and then jarringly shifts into being another type of movie for its last four minutes.
For those first fifty-six minutes, though, Female is an amped-up precode that takes girl power to a level equal to - and just as wrong as - the behavior that sparked the recent MeToo movement.
Ruth Chatterton plays the domineering head of a major automobile company. We see that she's smart, focused and ruthless in business as she pushes her management team of all men around with the confidence and force of will of any strong business leader.
It's impressive and enjoyable to see, but there is also a downside as she uses her younger staff of male secretaries, designers, etc., as sexual playthings. She walks around the complex, literally, choosing her next carnal snack.
Chatterton then invites that employee over to her house under the pretext of having a "business" meeting at night. Once he's there, she turns on the charm and pours the vodka, making it clear what is expected. It's stunning to see how predatory she is with these handsome young men.
Back at the office the next day, if any of these men express a romantic feeling toward her, she ships them off to the Montreal office with a bonus and a brusque goodbye.
A woman in a position of power invites her handsome young male employees to her house on the guise of doing business only, to then ply them with liquor and push herself on them sexually. If they squawk later, some hush money and a transfer solves that problem.
It's MeToo as SheToo 1933 style and, yes, it's fun to see the tables turned, but it is a bit disturbing too.
There's more, though, as Chatterton doesn't only use the company as her personal sexual stud farm, she also, bored one night at a "society" party, skips out to go trolling for men at a nearby amusement park.
It's 1933 and this successful, upper-class woman likes one-night stands so much she's cruising honkytonk amusement parks for pickups.
That night, she meets a handsome young man, played by George Brent, who is a bit charmed by her, but flat out rejects her come-on for a quick tumble, which leaves her frustrated and angry.
The rest of the movie is Chatterton thrown off her game when she discovers Brent is the new genius engineer she just hired sight unseen. She keeps pitching for a quicky in the sheets, but he wants to keep it strictly business.
All of this stunning - and this is the only phrase for it - female sexual harassment takes place in a beautiful world of 1930s Art Deco offices, cars and homes. Exterior shots of Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis house are used for Chatterton's sex palace, umm, residence.
Chatterton, herself, delivers an understated performance here. She seemed to understand that the character as written was shocking enough so that any exaggeration on her part would have slipped into camp.
Brent is fine as her foil and there are fun supporting performances by Ruth Donnelly and Ferdinand Gottschalk as secretaries of Chatterton, but Female is really a one-woman show with Chatterton carrying the movie on her confident and lustful shoulders.
Precode movies, though, didn't operate in a censorship-free world as state censorship boards and church leaders had legal and moral influence, respectively, that could hurt a picture's box office.
Hollywood bowed a bit to those forces even before the Motion Picture Production Code was, usually, fully enforced after 1934.
In Female, as in many precodes, that "bowing" plays out awkwardly in the final minutes of the movie, but audiences, then and now, were smart enough to see that last-minute change for the obvious pandering that it was.
At sixty minutes, Female is mainly a fun and shocking roll-reversal romp through an Art Deco world of business and bedrooms with Ruth Chatterton as your guide. It's also a reminder that life was as complex, morally muddled and varied back then as it is today.
N.B. A hat tip to Galacticgirrrl for knowing the exterior house shots used in the movie were of Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis house.
"Hey! Eyes up here, Boss."
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Post by topbilled on Apr 11, 2023 2:24:22 GMT
Strong write-up, Fading Fast.
I think some audience members (and contemporary film critics writing reviews for newspapers) were wise to how Hollywood used stories like this to shock. They knew movie execs liked to green light stories with built-in shock value, as is the case with FEMALE, to generate ticket sales at the box office.
This wasn't always about depicting an ambiguous, complex society on screen.
Also, we should mention that there were plenty of moviegoers who wanted Hollywood to clean up its act and provide more wholesome morally correct entertainment...if not, then the production code office would never have succeeded.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 11, 2023 6:11:41 GMT
Thank you. I struggled all day to find time to write those comments as my job kept interfering with my classic movie hobby.
Those are good points you made as, as always, movies often exaggerate for effect. Yet it's also true, as contemporaneous newspapers, books and history itself show, that there were women running large businesses and, as depicted in "Female," many were often the daughters of the founders.
History, newspapers, etc., also shows there were sexually aggressive women known to the public back then. "Page Four" of the Daily News, which often had the largest circulation of any paper in the country in the '30s and '40s, was full of stories of sexually aggressive women. Author Ursula Parrott, whose racy novels were turned into several precode movies was involved in a scandal, in the early '40s, in which she was the aggressor with a man twenty years her junior.
It's also a good point that many in the country supported censorship of movies, but just like today, a vocal and active minority (albeit a large minority) can drive an outcome that a more-passive majority doesn't support, which is what I think happened with the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 11, 2023 13:48:01 GMT
Thank you. I struggled all day to find time to write those comments as my job kept interfering with my classic movie hobby.
Those are good points you made as, as always, movies often exaggerate for effect. Yet it's also true, as contemporaneous newspapers, books and history itself show, that there were women running large businesses and, as depicted in "Female," many were often the daughters of the founders.
History, newspapers, etc., also shows there were sexually aggressive women known to the public back then. "Page Four" of the Daily News, which often had the largest circulation of any paper in the country in the '30s and '40s, was full of stories of sexually aggressive women. Author Ursula Parrott, whose racy novels were turned into several precode movies was involved in a scandal, in the early '40s, in which she was the aggressor with a man twenty years her junior.
It's also a good point that many in the country supported censorship of movies, but just like today, a vocal and active minority (albeit a large minority) can drive an outcome that a more-passive majority doesn't support, which is what I think happened with the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code. We must not overlook the fact that some of these stories were using reverse psychology to oppress and marginalize women. For instance, in FEMALE, if we heighten her ruthlessness and aggression and her predatory nature, the audience will root against her and want her to be put in her place.
Thus, Chatterton's character is used as a lesson for the audience. And these were often stories written by men who were threatened by the power of women, or cowritten by women who were conservative in their viewpoints and abhorred the actions of women like that who did not represent their gender in a morally correct fashion.
I know you focused on the last four minutes of the film, but I don't think it's a given that the ending of FEMALE was done to appease the censors...I believe it was what the writers' original thesis had in mind...take her too far in one direction and show how she shouldn't have this type of power, then give her a change of heart and a comeuppance in the final scenes. The thesis of the film is constructed to restore order and ensure that men come out ahead and that women are resigned to the home where they supposedly belong.
I believe this is why the film gained approval for re-release after the production code came into effect, because ultimately the whole thing upholds conservative values. If it did not, then Warner Brothers would have been pressured to destroy the negative, which is what happened to CONVENTION CITY, made the same year.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 11, 2023 14:40:25 GMT
Thank you. I struggled all day to find time to write those comments as my job kept interfering with my classic movie hobby.
Those are good points you made as, as always, movies often exaggerate for effect. Yet it's also true, as contemporaneous newspapers, books and history itself show, that there were women running large businesses and, as depicted in "Female," many were often the daughters of the founders.
History, newspapers, etc., also shows there were sexually aggressive women known to the public back then. "Page Four" of the Daily News, which often had the largest circulation of any paper in the country in the '30s and '40s, was full of stories of sexually aggressive women. Author Ursula Parrott, whose racy novels were turned into several precode movies was involved in a scandal, in the early '40s, in which she was the aggressor with a man twenty years her junior.
It's also a good point that many in the country supported censorship of movies, but just like today, a vocal and active minority (albeit a large minority) can drive an outcome that a more-passive majority doesn't support, which is what I think happened with the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code. We must not overlook the fact that some of these stories were using reverse psychology to oppress and marginalize women. For instance, in FEMALE, if we heighten her ruthlessness and aggression and her predatory nature, the audience will root against her and want her to be put in her place.
Thus, Chatterton's character is used as a lesson for the audience. And these were often stories written by men who were threatened by the power of women, or cowritten by women who were conservative in their viewpoints and abhorred the actions of women like that who did not represent their gender in a morally correct fashion.
I know you focused on the last four minutes of the film, but I don't think it's a given that the ending of FEMALE was done to appease the censors...I believe it was what the writers' original thesis had in mind...take her too far in one direction and show how she shouldn't have this type of power, then give her a change of heart and a comeuppance in the final scenes. The thesis of the film is constructed to restore order and ensure that men come out ahead and that women are resigned to the home where they supposedly belong.
I believe this is why the film gained approval for re-release after the production code came into effect, because ultimately the whole thing upholds conservative values. If it did not, then Warner Brothers would have been pressured to destroy the negative, which is what happened to CONVENTION CITY, made the same year. I just don't see it that way. I understand your thesis, but I see the movie another way. As we noted, it is all exaggerated, but the ending feels so obviously slapped on and silly, as if we are to believe this smart business woman and sexual adventuress has seen the "evil" of her ways and reformed on the spot. My take is still that was just a way to get the movie by the censors.
Chatterton's character was an exaggeration throughout, so I'm not arguing that was "the real her," but I believe the writers had fun putting her out there that way as an "affront" to the "conservative" view and they simply "paid the fare" by "reforming" her in the end. A reform that, again, felt silly. I don't think they set her up to fail from the beginning to "teach" a lesson, but of course, at the surface level they had to teach a lesson to be allowed to tell the story.
My view remains the intent was the subversive message not the reform message. But does it really matter as "art" is subject to interpretations that go past the artist's intent. You see it one way; I see it another way; regardless of what the artist wanted, both ways are out there.
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