i rewound this and i think that on the train, when they're kissing and she says the train has started to move, he says 'i'll get you off,' which seemed incredibly sexual for the time, although the phrase was in use in 1941. did i hear it wrong?
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He sure did say it. My guess is the line wasn't in the script because Grant loved to adlib. Remember his "I've gone gay" from Bringing Up Baby?
shareI hear Irene Dunne "the trains moving" Cary Grant "I'll get you off at the next station". It's very faint due to the sound of the train moving.
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He might have. Just because the times were different doesn't mean people were prudes :-). Watch Clark Gable's no-undershirt scene in It Happened One Night sometime. It's not just that he's bare-chested, it's what he's saying while he's, um, taking his shoes off that still makes that scene today.
shareIt Happened One Night is pre-Code; Penny Serenade is very firmly post-Code. The pre- and post-Code movies are night and day with regard to the language, story lines and images that were allowed.
And for the record: NO ONE IN THIS THREAD IS ARGUING THAT PEOPLE WERE PRUDES WAY BACK WHEN. It's pretty clear that humans have been thinking about sex forever, and talking-joking about it ever since they had language to do so.
What we ARE saying is that in 1941, no one was going to slip in some slang for "have an orgasm" for at least two reasons:
[1] public standards regarding acceptable discourse were extremely different in the 1940s than they are now; and
[2] the Production Code of America board was powerful.
If a movie didn't pass the PCA board, it couldn't be released to theaters -- and no studio was going to invest a few hundred thou (which would be a few million today) in a movie just to let it languish in some vault. From mid-1934 through the late 1960s, studios were vigilant about complying with the Code.
He says, "I'll get you off at the next station", as hunterjlc has already mentioned.
Why don't people see things in historical context? "Get off" was not a phrase associated with sex in 1941. Like Bette Davis saying, "Be gay! Be very gay!" in "Dark Victory" in '39 - it has nothing to do with sexuality.
Our present day slang, morals, and ethics should not be used to judge those of the early 20th century - they are quite different.
Why don't people see things in historical context? "Get off" was not a phrase associated with sex in 1941. Like Bette Davis saying, "Be gay! Be very gay!" in "Dark Victory" in '39 - it has nothing to do with sexuality.
Our present day slang, morals, and ethics should not be used to judge those of the early 20th century - they are quite different.
"'Get off' was not a phrase associated with sex in 1941."
Tell that to my mother. It's what she called it.
Let's just say that God doesn't believe in me.
Why don't people see things in historical context? "Get off" was not a phrase associated with sex in 1941.
1.
How about you back up your assertions? Cite a reputable reference (i.e., not something that every Tom, Dick, and Idiot can contribute to) that states when and why "get off" became slang for "have an orgasm." (I'm guessing that that meaning emerged in the 1960s.)
Language changes over time! And in 1941, "get off" was not slang for "have an orgasm." I'm reading the Sept. 1, 1951, issue of The New Yorker right now (via digital archives), and a review of the film People Will Talk reads, in part,
At times, Mr. Mankiewicz seems more interested in getting off a strong plea for a more human approach on the part of doctors toward their patients.
I've been a copy editor at two national magazines for the past 8 years, and I can tell you authoritatively that if "get off" had been commonly understood to mean "have an orgasm" in 1951, it wouldn't have appeared in a national magazine of that stature. Period. Similarly, major studios that saw themselves as guardians of public morality would not have allowed such slang to slip through.
2.
NO ONE IS SAYING the 1940s were a Disney-ish time in which people were prudes and/or didn't think-talk-joke about sex. However, public discourse then was very different from public discourse now. Plus -- the bigger issue -- there is no QUESTION about a major movie studio's permitting a vulgar euphemism in a major mainstream movie. You seem to be forgetting that a movie without a Production Code of America certificate wasn't released to theaters. So the studios were tremendously motivated to ensure compliance with the Code, inane though it was. No one in any studio would have risked losing the equivalent of a few million dollars just to secretly triumph over the PCA board.
On a related note: "Make love" and "lovemaking" had a very different meaning at least thru the early 1960s. In Now, Voyager (1942), when Charlotte Vale -- daughter of the very proper Boston Vales -- tells a doctor that her long-ago beau "said that the others were like silly schoolgirls compared to my lovemaking," she's referring to what we now call "making out" or "fooling around" -- there is absolutely, positively no way that the strictly-brought-up young Charlotte had pre-marital sex in 1928.
Not to mention that certain contemporary vulgar British slang is perfectly innocuous in the U.S. (e.g., bloody, shag, roger). Language is fluid, not just from nation to nation but from era to era.
So simmer down, those of you who like to titter at such sophomoric stuff, and do a little research before you jump to conclusions about how certain words/phrases were used 70 years ago.
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People do seem to forget that obvious fact all the time esaDavenport. the film is seventy years old for goodness sake.
shareAll he meant was get her off the train at the next station. Sheesh.
shareAdler-99 says > All he meant was get her off the train at the next station. Sheesh.I heard it very clearly. Roger said, "I'll get you off at the next stop." However, given the fact that they were about to consummate their marriage, isn't it possible what he said was meant as a double entendre?
couldn't he have meant 'get you off the train?"
shareNot only did he mean it, that's exactly what he said.
Never mind, the adolescent sniggering oh-so-terribly-clever posters who heard what they wanted to hear, even though Grant never said it, will continue to snigger about it behind the bike shed as they make themselves sick from smoking illicit cigarettes instead of doing their homework.