I couldn't understand why she married him. She never seemed like she loved him at all. Did I miss something? I didn't even see a romantic moment leading to marriage. All of a sudden they were calling her Mrs Stevens.
How accurate is this film? Ruth Etting's biography shows only one husband, a piano player she married long after her film career started. In real life was she involved with a ganster that she didn't marry?
I was wondering the exact same thing when I watched it on TCM today - all I can think of is that she was forced to marry him after he tried to kiss her and threw her on the bed - I don't know but I wish she hadn't married him!
shareI think that Ruth felt obligated to Marty for furthering her career, and had finally come to terms with what Marty expected of her, whether she liked it or not. It's not portrayed as a happy marriage because she agreed to it for all the wrong reasons.
My 2 cents worth.
This is from my brain, so no guarantees.
She was married to the Cagney character in real life. She had divorced him back in 1937 when she fell in love with her piano player. In 1938 he shot the guy and ended up in jail. He got out after a year. Etting and the Piano player got married soon after(he survived the shooting) I believe he died sometime in the 60's. But the shooting incident is what basically destroyed her career.
shareI thought the same thing, it ruined the film for me i got the impression she did it as she felt bullied into being with him and had no choice i found it quite a sexist film although i know it was like that back then i was quite dissapointed by this one
shareHe obviously raped her that night. Then she was probably, for herself for that era, shamed into marrying him: for herself since no one would have known what happened.
Or she was afraid that he'd kill her if she went on to do the follies and to get famous without him. Like he shot the piano player, he might have shot HER had their been only that reason: her leaving after all he did.
To me, for this movie having no idea of the woman's real bio... she did it out of fear.
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>>I couldn't understand why she married him. She never seemed like she loved him at all. Did I miss something? I didn't even see a romantic moment leading to marriage. All of a sudden they were calling her Mrs Stevens.<<
(SPOILER, SORT OF)
She *doesn't* love him- at all. She spends most of the first half of the film using his influence to further her career, while rejecting his advances all along. She finally acknowledges in the hotel room that she *knows* she owes him, but doesn't know how or what she can do to pay him back. He takes that opportunity to throw her down on the bed and rape her, which I think symbolically signaled the end of her fight and independence. In the next scene, the marriage is in the papers, but if you notice, she's broken, weary, and completely indifferent about Cagney from that moment on. It was never a happy union.
'He takes that opportunity to throw her down on the bed and rape her'
He didn't rape her, he threw her on the bed and kissed her but that was it, she ran away.
No, the rape comes next--after she runs away. The look on Cagney's face and the menacing way he moves after her before the fadeout--they're definitely implying that he rapes her. That breaks her spirit but she's not ready to get away yet--she's just too tangled up with the guy.
shareIt doesn't imply anything. He looks menacing all the time. Why would she stay with him if he raped her? She wasn't that weak. I mean she wanted him in a way to further her career but she wouldn't just let him get away with something like that and then next morning everything is fine and happy. What your suggesting doesn't make sense. I don't even think they would put something like rape in a film from back then anyway.
share"I don't even think they would put something like rape in a film from back then anyway."
Not true. That was around the same time as (actually, a few years after) Streetcar Named Desire....and yes, Stanley raped Blanche. Again, you have to use a little imagination - but I always had the same impression that the other two posters had....that Ruth was indeed taken by force. JMO.
And she was no Rebecca of Sunnybrook farm either - she used him, knowing full well he had the power to make - and break - her. We makes our choices in life and then we pays da consequences.
If you view the movie in context with the periods in which it was set ('30s) and made (mid-'50s) it is clear that he raped her. Again in that context, since he had taken her virginity she had no choice but to marry him, to make an "honest woman" of her.
shareI agree that in the film it's pretty clear that Snyder rapes Etting just before the shot of the following(?) morning's paper with an article anouncing their marriage, but I doubt that Snyder "took" Etting's virginity away. She's portrayed throughout the film as a very hardboiled, experienced and callous "dame" who openly uses Snyder to further her own career while ignoring the fact that he's obsessed with her.
I don't think the conversations Etting has with Johnny Alderman, in which Johnny points out to her the inappropriateness of what she's doing and advises her to get away from Snyder while she can are intended to point up Etting's naivete. I think they're meant to point up her own ruthless singleminded ambition to become a star. As Johnny says to her: "I just seem to have this effect on you. Every time I'm with you, you tend to take a good hard look at yourself. Don't blame me if it frightens even you."
As for Snyder's shootinng of Alderman, it actually occurred after Etting and Alderman were married. According to a contemporary newspaper article I read a while back, Etting and Alderman were married three months prior to the shooting, but kept the marriage a secret because of Snyder, who had reportedly already threatened to kill Etting for divorcing him.
The evening of the shooting, Snyder confronted Alderman as Alderman was leaving a rehearsal for Etting's NBC radio show and demanded to speak to him about Etting, and inquiring whether it was true that Alderman and Etting were married. Alderman denied the marriage rumors and tried to beg off speaking to Snyder further. Snyder then pulled a gun on Alderman and ordered him to drive to Alderman's home where Snyder apparently had the inenttion of killing Alderman, Etting, and Snyder's 21 year-old daughter who was then working as Etting's secretary.
Alderman tried to calm Snyder down and Snyder shot him in response. Whle the men were talking, Etting got her own pistol and (I think) took a shot at Snyder, who shot back. The bullet hit the floor, just missing Etting's foot. Snyder's daughter also grabbed one of the guns and threatened to shoot Snyder if he didn't stop.
Virginity? I don't think Ruth Etting had the same lifestyle or image as Doris Day. I don't think she was as innocent as she was portrayed in the film.
shareThe film pretty much demands that we suppose Day/Etting used a lot of excuses and trickery to keep her virginity up to this point - the defeated, dispirited look we see in her afterwards tell us something has fundamentally changed.
The real Ruth Etting was probably quite different - this thing doesn't pretend to historical accuracy.
You don't suppose that she would look defeated and dispirited after being raped?
"Why do you find it so hard to believe?"
"Why do you find it so easy?"
"It's never BEEN easy!"
If you read the trivia, a graphic and literal rape *was* filmed (according to Doris Day's own autobiography), but cut from the film by the censors before its release. Day further mentions in her book (which I have read) that she fought to keep the scene in the film, but the Hays code of decency ruled the movies back then. So the forceful kiss and Cagney glare is the final reference to what comes next- albeit off screen.
shareI guess I stand corrected. Oh well... But I just didn't think that seemed to be the case. I wouldn't of imagined the Ruth character of the movie letting that happen or at least not let him get away with it. I suppose it is only a movie though.
shareYou believe the fallacy that women could prevent a rape if they really wished to do so?
sharei agree. it makes sense that she lost all her feistyness after he raped her and made her believe that he did own her and she couldn't do anything about it.
also i saw on a ruth etting website by a family member of hers that she said she married marty "nine-tenths out of fear, and one-tenth out of pity."
my question is, if they filmed the rape scene, does it still exist? someone could put together a director's cut, or an actor's cut, and put it back into the film as it should've been made.
not to be a perv or anything but i do like to see things the way they were, or were meant to be, originally.
anyone know if the scene still exists or would the studio have destroyed it?
also if you think about it, once he had raped her, she couldn't use her feminine wiles to manipulate him so it sounds and looks like she just gave up.
shareThank you for pointing this out. I read her autobiography as well and she's very detailed about the fact that there was indeed a rape scene filmed. As you mentioned, she lobbied to keep it in the film, but not only was it not permitted, it didn't fare well with her fans who could stretch only so far with Day's image.
I think it's also perfectly clear, the loveless marriage, getting married after being raped to legitimize any potential 'mishaps' that may have occurred. She's roped into this marriage for her career.
She mentioned how traumatic the rape scene was for her to film because it was so reminiscent of her marriage to Marty Melcher. Her book was so beautifully written and poignant, very telling, and it gives such an insider view to her experiences with all her films.
This was a drastic departure for her and it met with significant problems.
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Sic vis pacem para bellum.
I agree with blockt-1. He did rape her, it wasn't hard to figure out! Films weren't so graphic not like they are today!
shareThink Hayes Code. According to the Trivia, Doris Day said "most" of what was filmed was cut. Like you, I could make no sense of that scene--he throws her down, kisses her, she gets up and stomps out, and the next we see they are married. They may hate each other like that later, but people with that kind of anger and disgust don't marry in the midst of it. They at least tolerate each other at the time. I was so confused I had to look up IMDB to verify Cagney was the groom!
Picture him ripping her dress off, THEN throwing her on the bed, raping her, and then she stomps out. Later, they discuss it, and they decide marriage makes her an honest woman (she could have been fearing pregnancy at the time, which would ruin her career, finally starting to take off). Still improbable but not the disconnected senseless scene we saw.
I'm throwing in here to back up movibuf1962, blockt-1 and fonte-2. The rape is very definitely implied; in fact, all but stated.
The morning-after-the-wedding scene in the hotel, with its surface trappings of domesticity, is presented as a rather bleak counterpoint to the ugliness of the previous scene and its implications. The closeup of the newspaper on the breakfast cart merely confirms that Marty - having decided to collect the debt she "owes" him - has now taken full possession of Ruth. His sudden - and almost apologetic - solicitude puts a spotlight on the pitiable nature of the character. Though he may not be a sympathetic one in the dramatic sense, we can actually feel sorry for Marty; he now "owns" Ruth (as she says, "I'm sold"), but she'll never really belong to him, and he knows fully that his actions have guaranteed this. The multi-layered nature of both the character and Cagney's portrayal of him generates an emotional response that is ultimately stronger than the one we have to Ruth.
As much regard as I have for Doris Day as an actress - and for her work in this film - I think the one flaw in her performance is her relentless playing of Ruth as a rather clueless "good girl." The screenplay gives us more than one opportunity to see her as the "operator" she really is (Johnny's observation of the way she handles Marty when she explains that she "forgot" their dinner date; his subsequent accusation that it's only when they're alone together that she really faces who she is and what she's doing), but Day plays her as an innocent who is, at best, self-deluded about the way she uses Marty. I believe her portrayal would have had more depth if she had played it as though she really knew she was being called out by Johnny, rather than interpreting the lines literally and communicating pure denial. But don't get me wrong: this is still some of her best dramatic work.
Poe! You are...avenged!
Doris was OK but, for me it was the great MR.CAGNEY who ruled as usual!
shareThis is a very good analysis, Doghouse, and I couldn't have stated the reasoning any better. Nice to see that movie viewers are still paying attention!
Please click on 'reply' at the post you're responding to. Thanks.share
Very nice of you to say, jacowium. Between you and me, when I re-read one of my comments years after the fact (or even days, sometimes), I find myself wishing I could master brevity, so your generosity is especially appreciated in this case, and I thank you for it.
Poe! You are...avenged!
Great post. I see 3 flaws: 1. the clothing seems to be a 50s era compromise between what Etting really would have worn back in the 30s as a lounge singer and Doris' prudishness....the dresses should have had some slink to them! Corsets don't convey any sexuality--instead the opposite--they squeeze everything in, as do those bullet bras! Everything was sewn with stays, bones, girdles....instead of the stunning slinky flowing translucent silk of the 1930s. But those gowns let body lines show through, and often actual skin. Apparently Day was answering to Christian Scientists who would never have approved Ruth Etting or the 1930s!
2. The 2d flaw is Doris Day's voice. She didn't even drop her trademark squeak to play this role! Over and over when she is very disturbed by the disrespectful then abusive and criminal treatment she receives from Cagney's character, she cries, but not without squeaking when tears begin! Her singing is the same....it's trademark Doris Day the forever virgin singing. It'as more suited to On Moonlight Pond than to a sultry lounge singer just after Prohibition is defeated and clubs are commonplace again. Like the clothing that looks like Esther Williams more than a nightclub songstress, and the squeaking that was so cute in Doris' portrayal of Calamity Jane but inappropriate for a woman who had been raped, the singing was just too strong and positive, not pained, beaten, hurting, and looking for strength to survive.
3. Doris Day never shows a drop of even sexual attraction for the naughty boy, much less appreciation or maybe affection for Martin. She despises him in every scene. She tries to pretend she is above even dancing too close to a customer, then carries her prudishness to her scenes with Cagney, but then she accepts his help, even marries him after he rapes her, but she refused in every scene to look as tho she held him in anything but contempt! How does a woman go to bed with a man every night when her feeling toward him are THAT full of disdain? She never ever has a physical gesture of affection toward him. She hates him! Then she marries him. Bizarre. I suppose the director deserves most of the criticism because he could see the picture they were creating....the stomp-her-feet virgin and the violent abusive hood who really did rape her because he thought she owed him for helping her career. But these were the facts, not a crazy screenplay from someone's imagination, not reality. They should have researched the people, found out what Ruth saw in Martin, how she treated him when they were in private, and when they married. There must have been something there even if only for a very short time, under the influence, etc.
Your points would have dramatically changed the portrayal of Ruth--it could have been fascinating. We don't even know from the film if she ever knew she used him--or if she ever had a moment of guilt, a feeling of gratitude or affection, or if she was capable of love.
Cyninbend: Boy, have you got it wrong on all counts!
Most women go for controlling, domineering men. Some go for violent, almost psychotic men like Cagney is in this film.
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