MovieChat Forums > It's a Wonderful Life (1947) Discussion > He's making violent love to me mother!

He's making violent love to me mother!


...I somehow get the feeling this did not mean the same thing in 1947 that it does today.

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Ha ha... no, probably no more than necking, if even that, but that line always cracks me up. Also, the mother doesn't even gasp and come running down the stairs. She just tells Mary to send him home. Funny!

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I thought it was weird her mother hated George. He's not a bad guy and did a lot for the town. It's probably why she never appears again after they get married.

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She hated him because he wasn't rich.

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The love of money is the root of all evil.

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Yes, sir!

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This was always my favorite line, the delivery just makes it great.

Eh, I'm no hero. I just like to hit people on the head

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Ah, back in those days to make love to a woman meant to court her (basically wooing with words ONLY).

By the 1950s or 60s it meant a tiny bit more - so yes, wooing and kissing. In fact there's a Marilyn Monroe film called Let's Make Love. (And no, just because its MM dont think the phrase meant something more explicit, such as *bed creaking noises*. The French male lead, whose name I cant recall right, spoke several languages but still could not tell her how he felt....

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That whole scene on the phone afterwards always starts the waterworks for me.







"'Extremely High Voltage.' Well, I don't need safety gloves, because I'm Homer Simpsonnnnnzzzzz--" - Frank Grimes

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Yeah, it's pretty powerful.

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Gracie Allen on the Burns & Allen Show used to tell young people they should be making love all the time. She meant kissing/making out.

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To add to the other replies, another example is in *Rebecca*, when Maxim de Winter says to his new fiancée, "This isn't at all your idea of a proposal, is it? It should be in a conservatory, you in a white frock, with a red rose in your hand, and a violin playing in the distance, and I should be making violent love to you behind a palm tree."

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About 30 years ago we use to sing this song in my sorority:
https://youtu.be/Y0CoCTb2qKs

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