some ideas... (and some spoilers)

... I remember watching this, thinking 'but-but-but' - I think it was because what I felt I saw didn't seem to match the blurb of Mary falling into the clutches of a wicked aristo. Before I start, I have to warn everyone I don't have the dvd, and I only had an imperfect recording that started just after the 'big revelation' in the cellar scene, so apologies if I missed some stonkingly obvious clues.

Basically, I didn't think Greville was actually that bad. True, he sees Mary as a challenge, but its more that she's too innocent, too ill-equipped to deal with anyone seeing her as a challenge. Also, as this was the 50s, anyone seen disappearing into a cellar with a man like that could easily have got blacklisted as a journalist, it depends what you sold yourself as - if she sold herself as Blue Peter squeaky clean, it could have finished her. Besides, we only have her word that it was Greville's phone calls etc that did it.

Plus, isnt it interesting that this all happens in a wine cellar, and after that she becomes an alcoholic? I thought it might be symbolic; its like that classical story of the man who is condemned to eternal thirst. He can drink as much as he likes, but he'll never be satisfied. Mary can drink as much as she likes, but she'll never be happy because she's rejected her closest match.

Afer all, Greville is actually concerned about her as a writer - she might resent it, but he's actually feeding her the secrets of her society. He's playing Deep Throat, the Devil's Advocate rather than the Devil imo. Maybe he's symbolic of Mary's real impressions vs the impression she wants to give/write, and she's drinking to avoid it? He's also concerned about giving her space - instead of marriage, he gives her his key, a bit of a room of one's own, in contrast to the bf she chooses herself, who throws her out and grumbles about her drinking but never seems to comment or talk about her or her writing.

Mary is an old-fashioned name. She seems to want to be modern with her clothes etc, but she's frightened of the modernist project, which is to 'expose' society and create a new, clearer one. Her bf shows her what that would mean - misogyny, as bad as Greville's, if not worse because it ignores the space and support G can give her, whilst her hallucinations etc suggests she is uncomfortable with what modernism is denying.

Which leads us to the 60s party scene. Mary thinks she's in control, that she can patronise G as an old fuddy-duddy, but they're in the same boat. She realises she's an alcoholic, and the "help me" is a hallucination as much for her as for him. I really wish this was twinned with a Greville film as well as if not instead of the other film - not to give definite answers, just even more complexity. What did he think of her?