Gussie got jipped.
She comes up with the slogan "If it ain't Wham, it ain't ham". That saved the farm basically, and she gets a $10 raise. Wtf?
Maybe it's $10 per week?
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MovieChat Forums > Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) Discussion > Gussie got jipped.
I thought so too, at first; then I reconsidered. It's obvious Gussie's aware that Jim used her idea for his ad campaign. We'll assume he asked her permission. She would have agreed. She works for the family so whatever is in their best interest also is a benefit to her.
Her random comment would have been just that; a comment she made about a product she likes. Instead, thanks to Jim, a lot came out of that random comment. She gets to appear on the ad; for which she must have been paid, and she gets a ten dollar raise from the family; not bad for a live-in maid.
And, Gussie seems to have a lot of these sayings and opinions about the products she uses. We can imagine from that moment on Jim would seek her out for more ideas. During that time there's no way she could have done as well with her ideas on her own.
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate]
Yeah, ok. Well answered.
shareDitto.
shareIn the 1940s, she couldn't expect to get much more than that. Unfortunately, that's just how it was back then.
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Jim Hutton (1934-79) and Ellery Queen =
You have to remember that was 1940's money. $10 then is probably about $150-$200 today.
shareYeah you gotta think about how inflation makes ten bucks seem so little to us today.
shareI hope it was at least $10 a day extra. Assuming she works 8/10 hours a day.
shareI hope it was at least $10 a day extra. Assuming she works 8/10 hours a day.
It was meant to be $10/week. Domestic servants were and are usually paid weekly.
$10 in 1948 is about $97 in today's money. So, almost a $100/week raise. That's a pretty nice raise. In fact, I think it was probably a joke:
The average hourly wage for service workers in 1950 was $1.05.* This was for all such workers, not just domestic servants, who probably earned less. Thus, consider that Jim Blandings' suggested raise was the equivalent of being paid for about 10 extra hours of work per week. That's a huge increase for anyone, in 1948 or today. I doubt that the writers meant us to take him seriously.
*http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/1950.pdf
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Let's also remember the other thing she got: she got to keep her job! Without her slogan saving the day, Jim is out of work, and is going to be forced to economize. And at some point, he's going to notice what I noticed: A family of four where the mother doesn't work doesn't really need a full-time live-in maid.
shareif she lost her job with them, i daresay plenty of other people would be willing to employ her. Good domestic staff were beginning to get scarce post WW2.
sharei hope it was serious. She definitely should have got that much more considering she provided him with a highly succesful slogan which was probably worth a lot more money to him. And i would hope a reasonably well off family like they seem to be would be paying their servants more than the average anyway.
sharedon't forget they said mr. blandings salary was $15,000 a year. that woild be below poverty level today.
so $10 raise would be good!
That $10./00 wk raise was huge when you consider that a 5 lb bag of flour in 1948 cost 25 cents.
Donuts were about 15 cents a dozen; campbell's tomato soup was 3 cans for 25 cents. bacon was about 59 cents/lb; hot dogs were 55 cents/lb; and you could buy a new raincoat for about $4.95.
Why do you pronounce it of-Ten when you don't say lisTen or sofTen or fasTen?
It's just "offen"
i agree. But i seem to remember at the end of the film they show her picture being used in the ad - i imagine they would have paid her for using her picture. i hope so anyway.
share$15,000.00 in 1948 is the equivalent of more than $150,000.00 in 2018. So a raise of $10.00 per week would be like about $100.00 to us, a pretty decent raise for anybody.
sharei also think there's some kind of royalty involved from the actual company WHAM for using her photo
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