...and I'm a little shocked by the scene in which Debbie Reynolds--as a young, struggling dancer--offers her body to a telephone repairman (Norman Fell) in exchange for his not disconnecting her service. It's an edgy scene for a film made in 1960, and, with wholesome Debbie Reynolds prostituting herself, it's doubly edgy.
shareShe might have offered but I don't think she ever intended to 'give'.
shareYou're right. It was a tease.
shareOh, but what about the vile Don Rickles??? She DID give it up for him (for the money for the instruments) didn't she? I was a little surprised at that, and that there were no 'morality code' type repercussions. (She made such a point of telling Tony Curtis she would *never* do something like that, and then she did - for him. Maybe to show she really really was in love with him?) I guess this was made when things in movies and real life were beginning to change...
shareDid you actually WATCH the movie? She didn't "give it up" for the Don Rickles character, he was more into just humiliating her. In the scene where he makes her strip in his office, he simply does it to point out how he owns her and everything she has.
The deal they make at that point is for her to escort businessmen for him, making him money. No sex occurs, UNLESS you consider the scene where she exits a building in a black dress to be a symbol for her having boffed him. If so, you're correct, but it's EXTREMELY subtle if true.
But I think the point of Debbie's character is no so much that she's chaste and pure, but that she ALWAYS gets her way and NEVER puts out. She stalls, delays, cons, so she never has to actually come through with anything. I actually feel sorry for Tony's character - GOOD LUCK in a marriage with her!
Peggy never prostituted herself. After Nelly takes her shoes, dress, and nylons to make his point, she agrees to finally go along, but in the next scene, when she flees the dance hall in the black dress, she is running out on the deal again, as Nelly makes clear when he says he's going to disfigure her so bad that even Dracula wouldn't want her. That sets up the irony of the finale when Pete admits that he "mixed" with unescorted women passengers as part of his job on the cruise.
shareI wasn't very impressed with the print they showed a few months ago. Perhaps this new showing will look better. I still keep hoping Paramount will release a good DVD of this movie.
Bud
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