IdleRich
IdleRich
Watched this trial drama the other day. In many ways it's a good film but the thing that struck me the most was the incredibly weird (or let's say old fashioned) attitude that everyone has. If you haven't seen the film it stars James Stewart as a small town lawyer called Biegler asked to defend Ben Gazzara playing a military officer who has just shot and killed the man who may have raped his wife. The thing that's bizarre is the way this rape is treated. Firstly, Lee Remick playing the victim seems completely unfazed. There is a bit when she shows the lawyer where the attack occurred, then walks about ten yards down the road, sits on a bench and says dreamily "this is my favourite spot". Seems a bit of a stretch to me that you would want to go and sit down to forget the cares of the world in sight of the place you were brutally beaten and sexually assaulted two days ago.
Remick also spends most of the film going out on the piss, flirting with Biegler and generally looking as though it has had no effect on her whatsoever - which is probably for the best because no-one else treats her as though she has experienced anything more than a minor inconvenience. I found this particularly hard to dismiss as "due to the time" because in most films of that period people seem to be a lot more "gentlemanly" than they are these days (eg watched Sabrina the other day and one of the main characters apologies profusely to Audrey Hepburn because he happens to mention that the part of him cut with broken glass was his bum) so I would have expected her to get very special treatment. More sympathy seems directed at her husband Manion (Gazzara) who has had his honour damaged by the rape of his wife. When Biegler interviews friends of the dead man they all say what a nice guy he was but Biegler interjects "if you overlook his habit of raping other men's wives" as though the main problem is that the women he rapes tend to "belong" to someone else.
Similarly in court when Remick's panties are produced as evidence and everyone in court laughs the judge quells it by saying "this is deadly serious, these represent evidence that could decide a man's fate" there is no mention of the fact that they also represent evidence that relates to the sexual attack on a young woman. Also of course there is the standard attempt to blame her for what happened based on her clothing but after everything else that has been said this just seems par for the course.
Strangest for me is that this must have been the attitude of the time because none of the reviews I can find from the time (and hardly any more recent ones) seem to touch on this at all. Things that stick out as totally weird to me and spoil the film to some extent obviously weren't noticed by the general audience of the fifties. I suppose I'm just being naive really but there was something really quite shocking about the film.
Remick also spends most of the film going out on the piss, flirting with Biegler and generally looking as though it has had no effect on her whatsoever - which is probably for the best because no-one else treats her as though she has experienced anything more than a minor inconvenience. I found this particularly hard to dismiss as "due to the time" because in most films of that period people seem to be a lot more "gentlemanly" than they are these days (eg watched Sabrina the other day and one of the main characters apologies profusely to Audrey Hepburn because he happens to mention that the part of him cut with broken glass was his bum) so I would have expected her to get very special treatment. More sympathy seems directed at her husband Manion (Gazzara) who has had his honour damaged by the rape of his wife. When Biegler interviews friends of the dead man they all say what a nice guy he was but Biegler interjects "if you overlook his habit of raping other men's wives" as though the main problem is that the women he rapes tend to "belong" to someone else.
Similarly in court when Remick's panties are produced as evidence and everyone in court laughs the judge quells it by saying "this is deadly serious, these represent evidence that could decide a man's fate" there is no mention of the fact that they also represent evidence that relates to the sexual attack on a young woman. Also of course there is the standard attempt to blame her for what happened based on her clothing but after everything else that has been said this just seems par for the course.
Strangest for me is that this must have been the attitude of the time because none of the reviews I can find from the time (and hardly any more recent ones) seem to touch on this at all. Things that stick out as totally weird to me and spoil the film to some extent obviously weren't noticed by the general audience of the fifties. I suppose I'm just being naive really but there was something really quite shocking about the film.
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