I just got done watching The Blue Gardenia and in reading about it I was surprised to see explicit references to the Burr character's "pregnant girlfriend." Don't get me wrong, I got the idea she was pregnant as well, but I'm wondering if there are any other hints as to this other than just the general idea of her wanting to get married. Are there?
What's the Spanish for drunken bum?
Very good post, and I wondered too. I guess I suspected she was pregnant, and the reviews that I read said she was, so I accepted it as fact. I don't think it was ever mentioned in the movie though!
Note: if she kept quiet, the cops wouldn't even suspect her. I don't know why they questioned her in the first place. See my post on the matter:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045564/board/nest/137436808
It was very much implied in her first phone call, where she's crying and telling Harry that "we have to talk."
shareThe pregnancy was more specifically referred to in the original script, but the censors of the day had it "toned down", thereby leaving the audiennce the possibility of assumming that Rose was just another hysterical woman, rather than someone with a real and major reason to be frantic...
This info is from a collection of essays on film noir which was edited by a woman or women. I wish I could remember the name of the book..?
[deleted]
It's very strongly implied by her hysterical phone call, and rush to get Prebble to marry her. She's not seeking reassurances that he loves her: she's seeking cover and support for an illegitimate baby. I assumed the censors edited out anything more explicit.
shareShe tells him "I'm in trouble", female speak for pregnant. That was the jargon of the time, 1950's, 1960's. Before LBJ's great society killed the taboo. Out of wedlock births 1960, 17%, now 45%!?
sharePeople have always had pre- and extramarital sex, though. I think shotgun marriages, baby brokers and "re-assigned births" (married sister raises unmarried sister's as hers, for example) contributed to the low rate of out of wedlock births.
You may cross-examine.
You may be right about that, but I do think the rate has exploded. Statistics I have seen state that the destruction of black families (husband and wife) have caused out of wedlock births to sky rocket, 25% in 1964, 67% fifty years later. I blame the men too, no responsibility.
"Irwin, we're gonna' have to kill him"!
She says it as explicitly as they could for 1953 when she tells him early on that "we have to talk" because "I'm in trouble" and then later that "I can't go through this alone" and insists that she has to get married.
Even today, saying that a girl is "in trouble" is immediate verbal shorthand for pregnancy.
"If you don't know the answer -change the question."
the word wasn't mentioned.
share