Yes, that’s the one where a bit of fooling around in the basement
by a teen-aged couple led to an unforeseen pregnancy. What was the impact on
the largely youthful audience that flocked to see it? Depends on who you ask.
The film evolved from the 1958 Broadway play by writer James
Leo Herlihy. The play told the story a bit differently from the film version. In
the play, the young protagonist obtained an abortion. Of course, movie censors
of that time wouldn’t hear of that. The film showed the chastened and frightened
couple boarding a bus to a secret location to face marriage, parenthood and the
future.
Again, what impact did the film have on young folks? I’ve
read where some young girls thought it was sexy. I don’t know. I know, from
memory, that it scared the hell out of some of the boys. “What, me pay a price?
I had nothing to do with it. Why screw up my life?” That male attitude probably
wasn’t as strong in 1959 as it is now, but we see that the idea of males having
no responsibility, no price to pay, no shame, and no retribution to face in the
case of unwanted pregnancies has been with us for a long while. The attitude
has gained a systemic and formidable position in American society. It will not,
“… go gentle into that good night.”
Funny thing is, I don’t remember the causal act to be that
sexy in the film. Bear in mind, though, that I last viewed it some years ago.
In the key scene, all of the boy’s buddies have left the basement and the (uninvited)
young girl remains to joke around a bit. In the next scene, he finds her in the
library with a medical book turned to the pregnancy section. That leads to the
most memorable line in the film.
“It doesn’t say how to stop it,” she says, with tears in eyes
that stare into a bewildered face.
For a bit of bad-taste trivia, I’ve read that In Cold
Blood murder victim Nancy Clutter wanted to see the film but never got to.
Why bring it up? I don’t know. It did represent a morality
play of sorts. The young couple suffered from a life interrupted. We don’t know
though, what might have happened. The marriage might have flourished and the
boy might have grown to be a stock fund manager. On the other hand, he might
have earned a spot on the black granite wall in Washington, “leaving a wife and
child behind,” as they say. Or, it may have dawned on him that he could walk
away scot-free and he did.
I heard a comedian say something yesterday to the tune of “shame
is the first step to restoration.” I don’t know why so much truth about our
national salvation is coming from comedians these days, but it is.
Shame. If that film generated a dread of shame in a few
young children, I suppose it served a good purpose. I’m not sure that was endemic,
though. There still remains the legend of a slightly older contemporary “rich
kid” in my home town. After impregnating his girlfriend, he dutifully showed up
at the wedding, played his role, and then drove the bride to her parents’ house
and deposited her like a prom-night date, never to be bothered with “husband-hood,”
or fatherhood, again.
Then there was a closer acquaintance who, at last count, had
fathered two children from separate girls, never paying a price, due to the
blessings of his parents’ money. Ironically, he became one of our
strongest opponents of a girl’s making the “wrong choice” in such dilemmas.
Yes. We live in a strange world.
Oh, and Miss Lynely? A short while after setting the young
men of America mentally aflame with her role in The Poseidon Adventure,
she did a nude gig in Playboy Magazine. We have no record of the counterbalancing
number of “Honey, guess what?” surprises that act may have generated.
Life goes on. Maybe Brother Hunter S. Thompson was right. “Buy the ticket. Take the ride.”
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