The Love Goddesses (1965) Movie Script
In a changing world...
one thing remains constant.
But sometimes the manner
in which it is presented differs...
and the treatment of sex
on the screen...
has been a reflection of the customs,
manners and morals of the times.
The story of The Love Goddesses...
is itself a history
of sex in the movies.
We begin with America still in
the shadow of the Victorian era...
and a movie heroine bound
by the same conventions...
as any young lady of society.
In a film with the delightful title
True Heart Susie...
Lillian Gish expressed
this Victorian innocence-
a heroine who did not smoke,
would not drink...
and couldn't even admit
she had ever heard about sex.
But someone had to do
what a good girl could not...
and the vamp was created.
She could smoke...
she could drink...
and she had heard about sex.
The word "vamp"
came from a poem by Kipling-
'A Fool There Was. "
In it, he portrayed the predatory,
bloodsucking vampire as a woman...
and the vamp of them all
was Theda Bara...
the first of a long
line of champions...
in the battle of the sexes.
Invariably, the vamp's costumes
were distinctive...
suggesting creatures in whose grasp,
or web, the victim was rendered helpless.
Actually, sex in the movies had begun
long before there were stars or plots...
and the peep-show nature
of the nickelodeon machines...
added to the forbidden fruit flavor.
The sensational Little Egypt.
To us, perhaps, Little Egypt
may not look so sexy...
but in 1898...
Mark Twain had a heart attack
watching her.
In 1916, David Wark Griffith...
master of the motion picture
during its formative years...
produced Intolerance,
one of the great spectacles of all time.
Mr. Griffith's heroines
were as pure as any...
but he managed to get away with
a remarkable amount of nudity...
by using a number of titles...
telling just what particular historical
rites the girls were performing...
and in which learned volumes the
audience could further research the subject.
In 1916, the public paid
the astronomical price of two dollars...
to see Intolerance.
The other director who was to dominate
the American screen for decades...
was Cecil B. DeMille.
DeMille made this picture,
The Cheat, in 1915.
It starred the screen's first
Oriental villain, Sessue Hayakawa...
who plays an enormously wealthy
Burmese merchant...
a collector of ivory.
The heroine is Miss Fannie Ward.
Miss Ward is a lady
in desperate need of money...
and, unwisely, she has borrowed
from Mr. Hayakawa.
When sex was encountered
by a Victorian heroine...
it was always the villain
who threatened her.
The use of violence
in conjunction with sex...
was rare in 1915.
But this theme is to appear again and again
throughout the history of the movies...
for motion picture audiences
all over the world...
were to get sexual excitement
out of watching violence on the screen.
Another major recurring theme
in the history of sex is comedy...
for audiences often choose to laugh
at a satire of the same violence...
that excites them.
This film, an early contemporary
of the Keystone Kops...
is Bertha, the Buttonhole-Maker.
World War I
shattered the Victorian age.
Overnight,
women's role in society changed.
They got the vote,
their clothing changed...
their point of view changed.
The result was an amazingly different
American woman.
But it was not until two years
after the war...
that the movies
completely reflected this change.
The catalyst was Valentino.
The picture- The Sheik.
It was a book every teenage girl
in America was reading...
behind closed doors...
each secretly sharing
the heroine's fascination...
with the handsome hero.
And that was the difference.
The man who had kidnapped our heroine
was not the villain...
but, for the first time, the hero.
And Valentino's answer
to Agnes Ayres's question...
"Why have you brought me here?"
Would change
the American love goddess.
For now, for the first time,
the heroine did know.
The result was to be Clara Bow...
the culmination
of the flapper heroine-
a sexy little girl, a tease.
Miss Bow's most famous picture was It.
She plays a young girl
working in a department store...
who has a chance to go out
with her handsome boss.
At a time when the word "sex"
was still considered racy...
the word "it"was accepted
as a substitute for sex appeal.
"It"became a byword of the '20s...
and Miss Bow, forever afterward,
the "It Girl. "
Clara Bow was flaming youth
in rebellion.
She paraded a new worldly wisdom
that sex somehow meant a good time.
However, don't be misled.
Miss Bow was but a first cousin
to True Heart Susie.
She too is a good girl.
When they come home at night...
although the boss is handsome, eligible,
and they are thoroughly in love-
There are only a few years between
the end of World War I and Clara Bow...
and yet what a wealth
of sexual and moral changes...
were compressed into those years.
The vamp was to disappear.
Nita Naldi in Blood and Sand...
played one of the last
of the great vamp roles.
For now that the heroine
had become aware of sex...
the vamp was no longer needed...
and shortly,
though still in magnificent style...
was to make her exit.
More and more,
European attitudes to sex...
were reaching and reshaping America.
In a small American town...
a crusading district attorney
zealously guards the public's morality.
To him, any woman
smoking a cigarette is sinful.
The film is Woman of the World...
and this is the Polish star
Pola Negri...
playing a countess
who has come to America-
a woman who knows
about life and love...
and is not afraid of either.
But she is hounded
by the puritans of the town...
until finally, unable to stand
the hypocrisy any longer...
she defends herself.
What Miss Negri does not know is that
she has already changed the town.
Of course, in reality
it was America that was changing...
and Miss Negri
but a reflection of that change.
The year is 1925.
The '20s have started to roar.
Inhibitions were cast aside.
The demand was for something unusual...
something exotic...
something like the heroine
of Sorrows of Satan...
a legend of Faust and the devil.
Faust is played by Ricardo Cortez...
and Satan by Adolphe Menjou.
The devil offers Faust the opportunity of getting
whatever he desires in the world-
wealth, power, prestige...
and even a Marguerite.
This is Lya De Putti...
a Marguerite who is just a little different
from the Marguerites we have known.
Faust is smitten
and gets his Marguerite...
but her ambitions
reach far beyond Faust.
D. W. Griffith...
had his own personal view
of the battle of the sexes.
He had fought it many times
and lost.
By matching Marguerite
against the devil...
he evened up the score.
It was the only sure way Griffith knew
of having the woman lose.
The change that had taken place...
can be seen by comparing
Miss Gloria Swanson-
just about the period of World War I-
with Miss Gloria Swanson
eight years after the war.
The same Miss Swanson,
but quite a different love goddess.
The scene is from
The Loves of Sunya...
a Swanson production of 1926.
Cecil B. DeMille
compared the excesses of the '20s...
with the orgies of ancient Rome...
as the subject of his film
Manslaughter.
He solemnly warned of the consequences
of this generation's behavior.
Notice the two women on the right.
But moralist or not,
DeMille was a showman...
and never one to keep an audience in the dark
about the evils he was lamenting.
He introduced the bathtub scene to movies
with Gloria Swanson...
in Male and Female...
and the nude bathing scene
became a trademark of the '20s.
Clara Bow.
Every heroine
very much in her own style.
Esther Ralston.
In his epic of the French Revolution,
Orphans of the Storm...
D. W. Griffith
filled the bathtub with wine...
as well as some leftover young ladies
from Intolerance.
The most famous movie bath of them all
was to be Claudette Colbert's...
in The Sign of the Cross.
Even in the late '20s...
standards in Europe continued to be
different from those in the United States...
with its basically puritan background.
This is Fritz Lang's Spies...
produced in Germany in 1927.
These charming ladies appeared
in the American film Ben-Hur...
but an export version
that was never shown in the United States.
The same scene
was even shot two different ways.
This is from the Faust legend
you have just seen.
Lya De Putti played the
European version like this...
and America
saw her like this.
In Europe itself...
they were going a little further...
making pictures like Casanova...
and Small Town Sinner.
And this is from Abel Gance's
End of the World.
European films differed not only
in the extent of nudity they permitted...
but in their portrayal
of human behavior.
In Diary of a Lost Girl,
made in Germany in 1929...
a young girl with no money
and no place to turn...
goes to the address
of the only friend she has.
Unknown to her,
it is a bordello.
Its madam could have played Grandma
in any American film.
But no American-made film
could or would have presented a brothel...
in such a sympathetic manner.
The girl is Louise Brooks...
a young American actress who made
her most famous pictures in Europe.
And the question is,
will she accept the bordello or not?
One European film, made at the end of this period,
caused a sensation in the United States.
It was Ecstasy, famed for
its numerous encounters with the censors.
It starred one of the most
beautiful women in the world-
Hedy Lamarr.
Afterwards, Miss Lamarr married
industrialist Fritz Mandl.
He spent a fortune attempting to buy up and destroy
all the prints of Ecstasy, but he failed.
Even Benito Mussolini
had a personal print...
and would not surrender it.
In 1938 Miss Lamarr
was to create another sensation...
this time for an outstanding performance
opposite Charles Boyer in Algiers.
It was to make her an American star.
The cancan
from G. W. Pabst's L'Atlantide.
With the coming of sound in 1929...
dancing brought to the movies
new erotic possibilities.
However, this film, L'Atlantide,
has another significance.
Its star illustrates almost perfectly
the type of love goddess...
who was next to dominate the movies.
A public caught up in the booming,
wondrous, unbelievable '20s...
was now demanding the unattainable.
The result was the creation
of an exotic image...
a woman not to be loved
but worshipped, even feared.
Antinea.
Brigitte Helm was the first example
of this new, queen like goddess-
beautiful, cold and deadly.
She toys with her male captives...
and offers each his freedom
if he can win at chess.
Those who lose belong to her.
Check.
Check.
Check.
Check.
Check.
Check.
Checkmate.
It was this queen like image...
that was next to rule
the American film.
The goddesses appearance
and their manner were royal...
but they were not always godlike
to start with.
Even Greta Garbo did not start out
projecting this quality at all.
In fact, here is the raw material-
Great Garbo in her very first film...
a simple Swedish comedy
entitled Peter the Tramp...
produced in 1922.
Who then could have foretold
that within a few years...
Miss Garbo would be shaped
into a legend?
On the other hand...
it might just have been possible
to recognize another queen like goddess...
from this early film.
It was The Blue Angel that was to
turn Marlene Dietrich into a star.
Opposite her was
the great Emil Jannings.
He played a respectable,
aging schoolteacher...
obsessed with a nightclub singer
and destined to be destroyed by her.
Marlene Dietrich was royalty,
no matter what role she played.
The Blue Angel was the first of her seven films
to be directed by Josef von Sternberg...
and it was he who brought her to America.
I'm sorry, miss,
but I don't understand a word.
Will you please go away.
It's a shame, allowing such women
on a first-class train.
What's the matter with 'em,
Parson?
I imagine the honorable divine
objects to their morals.
Well, I thought they were pretty good-looking -
at least Shanghai Lily is.
Do you mean to say that Shanghai Lily
is on this train?
Hot water, sir?
Confound it, sir,
that's Shanghai Lily!
For the last fortnight I've been attending
a man who went out of his mind...
after spending every penny on her.
- How have I changed?
- You know, I wish I could describe it.
Well, Doc, I've changed my name.
- Married?
- No.
It took more than one man
to change my name to Shanghai Lily.
1931.
The film- Morocco.
May I offer you
this glass of champagne, mademoiselle?
Thank you.
votre sant.
- May I have this?
- Of course.
Bravo!
The real period
of wide-open sex in America had arrived.
It was not the '20s,
as generally believed...
but actually the four years
from 1930 to 1933.
The new love goddesses
were homegrown...
and no love goddess was more American
than the blonde bombshell Jean Harlow.
Let's not talk about things
like that now.
Now, wait a minute. I'll do anything
you ask me to, but I will not lift -
I love that nose.
Oh, it's such a sweet nose.
Nevertheless, whether the nose is sweet or not,
I'm not gonna live in your house.
You might as well get that...
straight.
- You want me to be happy, don't you?
- Mm-hmm.
- Then I'm not gonna live here.
- Mm-hmm.
- You're not hungry, are you?
- No.
I'm not either.
Don't you just love Sunday afternoons?
Everything quiet.
Nobody at home to disturb you.
Madge, there's somethin'
I got to tell you -
You were goin' away, weren't you?
Packin' to leave.
Oh, honey lamb,
you mustn't do that.
What would Father say
if he came back and found you gone?
And I would cry.
Cry!
The owner of the lazy
Southern accent is Miss Bette Davis.
The film- Cabin in the Cotton.
Her costar- Richard Barthelmess.
I don't know.
Come up to my room for a minute.
I wanna talk to you about somethin'.
Turn your back and look at
those snapshots for a minute...
while I get into
somethin' more restful.
Turn your back.
Marvin?
Madge.
Busby Berkeley, a genius of design...
created these monumental
and mathematically precise production numbers.
He dreamt up images
that would have shocked Sigmund Freud himself.
The production number always seemed to start
with a duet between Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell.
Then Miss Keeler danced.
It turned into a fantasy of eroticism.
The four years
were full of irreverent comedies...
and one of the most charming
of the comediennes was Carole Lombard.
By now, Clara Bow's bloomers
were out of style.
It was a new era in fashion-
the lingerie era-
and just as bathing scenes
had been part of the '20s...
so, in the early '30s,
the filmmakers usually found an excuse...
to get the heroine
down to her step-ins.
The film is No Man of Her Own -
Hello?
And brought Carole Lombard and Clark Gable
together for the first and only time in the movies.
Who is it?
Is, uh, this Miss Randall's cabin?
Yes!
- Can I come in?
- Well -
Just a minute!
Just a minute!
Now you can come in!
The plot itself is an example...
of society's changing standards.
Gable has come to spend the weekend...
but thus far Miss Lombard
has not succumbed to his charm.
Why keep kidding around like this?
I'm not kidding.
Only, well, you just walk in
and pick up a girl...
and walk out.
Is that fair?
No. No, you're right.
Ah, well, forget it.
Anyway, we've had a little fun.
I've seen Glendale,
had a couple of laughs.
I'll be seeing you around sometime.
So long, honey.
Why don't you be a sport?
Why don't you give a girl a break?
Why don't you take a chance?
I don't get you.
Have you ever gambled?
Hey, I'll gamble on anything.
Why don't you gamble with me?
All right.
- Heads we do, tails we -
- Get married!
Right.
I never go back on a coin.
Comedies got earthier.
The public wanted to know more,
to hear more...
and to see more.
The picture- Professional Sweetheart.
Ginger Rogers is the Purity Girl,
America's radio sweetheart...
married for publicity
through a nationwide contest.
But the groom has caught on
that he has been duped...
and takes matters into his own hands.
Gonna make you into the kind of woman
I thought you was - a good woman.
- A woman that -
- Got a cigarette? I'm simply dying -
No!
Any liquor?
Oh, dear.
- Smokin' and drinkin' and -
- Mmm, smokin' and drinkin' and men.
And men?
How - H-How many?
Mmm, I don't remember.
Hundreds.
Stop that!
Ain't ya got no decency at all?
After all, you're my husband,
aren't you?
Here.
- Give me that.
- Give those to me. Give them to me.
Give them to me.
Comedy roles like these
were Miss Rogers's first success.
And though this type of movie
was soon to disappear...
she went on to the top,
dancing with Fred Astaire...
and winning an Oscar
for a dramatic role as Kitty Foyle.
- Stop it! - Make me. Make me, you
great big - I'll dance if I like.
I want to get -
Let go of me! Stop it! Stop it!
- Ouch!
- You great, big - Oh! Oh!
If I ever lose my temper, I'll just -
One of these days,
I'll show you just how -
Glory, baby. Glory.
Oh, God, please don't let her die.
She's wicked, but I love her.
Jeanette MacDonald's name
usually brings to mind Nelson Eddy...
and memories of sentimental
and not particularly sexy operettas.
But that was to come later.
During these years, Miss MacDonald's
comedies blended sex and sophistication.
Among them, Rouben Mamoulian's
Love Me Tonight.
Princess! Help! Help!
Oh, my goodness. She - She's fainted again.
You know, I had an elder brother
who used to faint quite often.
- He was a "nip-omaniac. "
- A what?
A "nip-omaniac. "
He used to go around pinching things.
Oh, I had a friend like that.
He used to pinch business girls in elevators.
- They had to send him to a cooler climate.
- No.
- I knew a girl -
- This is no time for reminiscences.
Go and get a couple of footmen
to carry her upstairs.
But you gave the servants
the afternoon off.
Our footmen are playing football
against the old soldier's home.
Well, you two carry her upstairs!
Someone fetch a doctor.
You carry her. I'll get the doctor.
Valentine, can you go for a doctor?
- Certainly. Bring him right in.
- Ye - No, no.
No, it's for Jeanette.
She's fainted again.
Oh.
Princess, permit me to introduce
Dr. Armand de Fontinac.
- Your Highness.
- Doctor.
And now, my dear,
remove your dress.
- My what?
- Your dress.
- Huh?
- There's no occasion for distress.
- Is that necessary?
- Very. Yes.
As long as professional ethics apply,
I'll see you with only a doctor's eye.
Oh, dear.
The doctor's eye is satisfied.
Now I'll hear your heart.
Don't sigh.
Very good. Nothing wrong here.
Now I'll take your pulse, my dear.
Perfectly regular.
Right on the tick.
Madam, oh, madam,
you cannot be sick.
Then why do I lie awake in bed,
and why does blood rush to my head?
- At night?
- Quite right. At night.
And why does music make me sad,
and why do love songs drive me mad?
- At night.
- Quite right. At night.
- And frequently I faint.
- That's quaint.
At 22.
Oh, this won't do.
- Are you married?
- My husband died three years ago.
- At 16 I was wed.
- You've been a widow for three years?
- Three years the prince is dead.
- You were very happy with your spouse?
- He was the son of a noble house.
- Hmm.
It was the happiness of great peace.
Rochambeau.
My better half.
And here you have his photograph.
Of all the love goddesses
of comedy, one was to dominate.
With the right kind of encouragement,
she'll throw discretion to the winds.
And her hips to the north,
east, south and west!
It's the only show on earth
where the tickets are made of asbestos.
She was a goddess
molded by two opposing forces-
one, the demand for
an ever-increasing frankness about sex...
the other,
a traditional reluctance to face it openly.
The result had to be satire.
Even today, Mae West is remembered
by people who never saw her...
as the sexiest of the love goddesses.
In actual fact, it was not so much
that she was sexy...
but that she was funny about sex.
If I wasn't a married man,
I could go for you, baby.
No wisecracks now.
Penny for your thoughts.
Sit back, watch...
and you'll see why Mae West
completely dominated the early '30s.
Ooh, mama!
I know just how you feel, honey.
Am I making myself clear, boys?
Suckers.
Never met anybody
just like you before. You're different.
Anything different
always costs more, but it's worth it.
Oh, uh, by the way, honey,
you married or single?
- Married five times.
- Five times?
- Wedding bells must sound like an alarm clock to ya.
- Oh!
I don't suppose you believe
in marriage, do ya?
Only as a last resort.
Uh, what do you do for a living?
Oh, uh, sort of a politician.
- Oh, I don't like work either.
- Oh.
Oh, uh, you know,
I like to get around and travel...
and believe me, I've been places
and seen things.
Mm-hmm?
I've been things and seen places.
That sort of evens us up, huh?
Mmm.
Sit down.
I didn't get your name.
Then what about tomorrow?
For breakfast, lunch and dinner. Anything.
Oh, let me see.
Breakfast I have in bed,
so that's out.
I don't eat lunch,
and dinner I -
Well, make it supper tomorrow night.
That's a date.
And we'll go out.
I like sophisticated men
to take me out.
Well, I'm not really sophisticated.
Well, you're not really out yet either.
- You're a liar!
- Say, listen, you.
A better dame than you
once called me a liar...
and they had to sew her up
in 12 different places.
You're lucky I'm a little more refined
than I used to be.
And if you was as much a lady as I am...
you'd get out of here
before I get real sore.
- You haven't a streak of decency in you.
- I don't show my good points to strangers.
I'll trouble you to scram.
Just a minute.
I realize there's only one thing
that will influence you to leave Kirk alone.
How much?
- Oh, Beulah.
- Yes, ma'am.
Peel me a grape.
- Hello?
- Miss Tira calling.
Good. Put her on.
Oh, uh, Mr. Clayton?
I've been thinking over everything you said,
and, uh, I made my decision.
Good. I'm glad you made up
your mind so quickly.
Oh, I'm very quick in a slow way.
You see, I can't discuss it over the phone.
It's, uh - It's got a lot of angles to it.
Uh, you better come up and see me.
Well, I'll be glad to. In fact, I'll come over
right away if it's convenient for you.
Most convenient.
I'll tell you this much.
You're -You're gonna like what I got in mind.
Mm-hmm.
I'll be ready. Good-bye.
Mmm.
By 1933,
the four-year period was coming to an end.
Although this film, Baby Face, was set
against a background of the Depression...
its treatment of sex...
represents the culmination of the wide-open
attitudes that had begun in the '20s.
I have good references.
If I could only see him.
You can wait if you want to,
but he's out to lunch.
What part of the South
are you from, Mr. Pratt?
Tallapoosa, Georgia.
I know some Pratts where I come from.
Where was that?
Oh, maybe I'll tell you someday
when I know you better.
- Say, I like it here. How about a job?
- Oh, we don't -
Oh, now, don't tell me in this great big
building there ain't someplace for me.
Have you had any experience?
Plenty.
I'd rather wait in there.
I hate crowds.
Don't you?
The boss won't be back for an hour.
Well, then why don't we
go in and talk this over?
Miss Stanwyck is to proceed floor by floor...
using the same technique
until she reaches the top.
We haven't time for every flight,
but we have chosen a few of the best.
This is the Benson mortgage.
Will you look it over now?
Is the insurance clause here?
Everything's incorporated in it.
Stick around after 5:00.
Oh, not here.
Somebody might -
- Has Mr. Brody left yet?
- No, Mr. Stevens. I believe he's still here.
Brody.
Brody.
This is an outrage.
A man in your position.
Get your check at once.
Young woman.
We've no place here
for a girl of your sort.
Ann.
Oh, how could I?
Was he... your first sweetheart?
This is very distressing.
I'm sure you must see how impossible
it would be for you to remain at the bank.
But what will I do?
- Have you no family in New York?
- No. I'm all alone here.
I haven't any friends,
and I haven't any money.
I shall have to think this over.
Will you tell me where you live?
My telephone number
is Schuyler 3-2215.
The Depression reshaped America's attitudes.
The consequences of a people
having to face breadlines and starvation...
were to be a tightening up
of their values.
The American audience no longer
would accept a freewheeling approach to sex.
This attitude brought about
the Production Code...
an age of innocence...
and a brand-new love goddess.
Oh.
Oh, he's elegant.
Are -Are you sure you like him?
I'm just crazy about him.
I'm awful crazy about you too, Daddy.
I've had such a good time.
Well, now - now you go to sleep.
And I'll be in the next room if you want me.
Night, Daddy.
It was the period of Shirley Temple...
Judy Garland and Andy Hardy...
Deanna Durbin...
and the top love goddess of 1937...
Snow White.
From True Heart Susie we had come
full circle to True Heart Susie.
The love goddess
was now the girl next door.
It was just a bit part
in a movie called They Won't Forget.
The entire role lasted only a few minutes.
But it was to make Lana Turner a star.
The love goddess had become a normal,
well-shaped, well-rounded girl...
and her name was Betty Grable.
So let's give 'em three big ones.
Crew! Rah, rah, rah! Crew, crew, crew!
The girl next door was a heroine...
with whom you flirted
and whom you married.
But because she could not say or do what
the love goddess of the early '30s could do...
her sex appeal could only come about
by emphasizing her physical beauty.
There were sweaters...
and there were sarongs...
and never-never lands
where a girl could be startled...
by so little as a kiss.
- Kiss?
- A kiss is something that -
Well, you just don't see it around.
It's something that - something you do.
Kiss?
That's a kiss.
Then, for a second time...
a world war crushed
an age of innocence.
It was time for the love goddesses
to return to the great tradition.
Me?
Miss Rita Hayworth.
Sure, I'm decent.
A second cycle was beginning.
Once again the brakes were off.
And with gathering momentum
into the '60s...
moral restrictions were to be loosened.
Only one love goddess was to span the period...
from the age of innocence to the '60s-
from National Velvet to Cleopatra -
Elizabeth Taylor, probably the most beautiful
love goddess of them all.
We have chosen this film-
A Place in the Sun -
to show the beginning of that change.
Wow.
- Hello.
- Hello.
I see you had a misspent youth.
I guess it was.
Why all alone? Being exclusive?
Being dramatic?
Being blue?
I'm just fooling around.
- Maybe you'd like to play.
- Oh, no. I'll just watch you. Go ahead.
Oh, Angela, if I could only tell you
how much I love you.
If I could only tell you all.
Tell mama.
Tell mama all.
No one can create
an illusion better than Hollywood.
And the greatest illusions have been
the love goddesses themselves-
images formed out of the clay
of ordinary mortals.
A girl shaped into a symbol of sex.
First the makeup department.
Then the publicity boys take over.
Neither is particularly
concerned with the girl inside.
They shoot a lot of cheesecake.
Anything to catch the eye,
to show off the figure.
Any prop will do,
preferably phallic.
Miss Fourth of July.
Miss Thanksgiving.
Even Miss Idaho Potato.
But acting- That's not so easy.
That's work and patience...
a willingness to learn.
The girl inside is a little scared...
but if there's talent,
it begins to show.
- I got water in my ear.
- Huh?
- I got water in my ear.
- Here, I'll shake it out.
Oh!
Ow, you're hurting me.
Joe, let go.
He's kind of exciting and attractive.
- Who's attractive? Who's exciting?
- Earl.
- Who?
- Joe, you're strangling me.
Who's attractive? Who's excitin'?
- You.
- That's better.
Even more than talent,
she must have a charm all her own.
A manner so distinctive that even if
other women copy it, it is still hers.
She is a star,
and millions upon millions love her.
She belongs more and more to the public.
Less and less to herself.
The created image must continue...
though the girl inside may be tired.
She must pose and smile.
Pose and smile.
'Just one more picture. "
"One more. "
It's sometimes hard to remember
that there was a girl inside.
In the '50s again, a demand arose
for something more exotic and different-
for a love image larger than life.
And the most delightful of all
the larger-than-life heroines...
was the captivating Sophia Loren.
Hello.
Would you like to buy me a drink?
Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you.
I'm just here on business.
- So am I.
- Not tonight.
I'm trying to quit.
A double mint julep with a bottle
of Kentucky bourbon for a chaser.
The young lady is about to become
a Southern fried chicken.
And for you, a very Italian drink.
Buona fortuna.
- What am I getting?
- Trust me.
Cincin.
- What does that mean?
- Uh, you would say "To where it's going down. "
Oh? I'll drink to that all night.
And to your melanzane.
- Mmm!
- Uh, will you have a dance with me?
Yes, baby. Come on. Let's dance, huh?
The opposite was also true.
A new exotic appeal
existed in the child figure.
The smaller-than-life love goddess.
Carroll Baker in Baby Doll.
Sue Lyon as Lolita.
Tuesday Weld.
Susan Strasberg.
Hayley Mills in a scene from Tiger Bay.
Perhaps the most charming...
and certainly the most successful
of all the childlike heroines...
was Miss Audrey Hepburn.
Her very appeal
was both as woman and child.
The Mouth of Truth.
The legend is that if you're given to lying...
and put your hand in there,
it'll be bitten off.
- Oh, what a horrid idea.
- Let's see you do it.
Let's see you do it.
Sure.
No! No!
Hello.
You beast! It was perfectly all right!
You were never hurt.
I'm sorry. It was a joke.
All right?
- Oh, you never hurt your hand.
- I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
- Okay?
- Yes.
All right. Let's go. Look out!
As the '60s loomed,
history continued to repeat itself.
Room at the Top marked the beginning
of a new period of frankness about sex.
It's not that I don't want to.
It's just...
I suppose I'm scared.
I do love you, Joe. I do.
I'd do anything for you, Joe. Anything.
Except what any girl will do
for the man she loves.
Joe, how much do you love me?
Very much.
About a million pounds' worth.
Joe, be gentle with me.
Come on, Susan.
I think we better be going now.
I don't want to go.
I don't ever want to go.
Isn't it super, Joe?
Now we really belong to each other.
Really and truly till death do us part.
Wasn't it wonderful?
Wasn't it absolutely the most wonderful
thing that ever happened to you?
- Wasn't it, Joe?
- Yes.
Come on. Let's go.
Just as Clara Bow
had symbolized the rebellion of the '20s...
Brigitte Bardot was the
image of a new generation's rebellion.
She disrobed in her films
as a child would disrobe- on impulse.
And she brought the screen
to a stage of nudity...
such as had not been seen
since the late 1920s in Europe.
Oddly enough, the first acceptance of
nudity on the screen for a star...
was in 1913.
Annette Kellerman,
the greatest woman athlete of her day...
starred in Daughter of the Gods.
But it was not until
some 40 years later...
that Marilyn Monroe
posed for a calendar...
and changed the entire concept
of what a star could and could not do.
Her studio was shocked,
but the public...
instead of rejecting,
accepted Marilyn as she was.
Within a few years,
most of the love goddesses would conform.
And even Ecstasy was to be made again...
this time with Marla Moore.
But nudity itself seemed
not exciting enough.
And with Europe in the lead, filmmakers
took to shooting love scenes in the nude.
Les Liaisons dangereuses.
The Lovers.
One Summer of Happiness.
And God Created Woman.
Combinations of beauty, violence...
sex and nudity...
became the formula of the '60s.
In 30 years, the movies
had come full circle.
If anything, the treatment of sex
was more overt than ever before.
But England and the United States
held out a little longer.
That is, until they could present sex
under the safer guise of satire.
The picture is Expresso Bongo,
starring Laurence Harvey and Sylvia Syms.
It was produced in England by Val Guest...
a fine comedy
that won exceptional acclaim.
We could not leave this history of sex...
without a tribute
to those many moviemakers...
who, faced with
no other choice but to use a symbol...
have done so memorably.
Among them, Busby Berkeley's
"Honeymoon Hotel. "
Ernst Lubitsch's The Love Parade.
Do you hear those cannons?
Yes. Isn't it glorious?
Our bridal music.
Carol Reed's The Stars Look Down.
D. W. Griffith's The White Rose.
But perhaps the best of all
was DeMille's Cleopatra.
There's no one like you.
It starred Claudette Colbert and Henry Wilcoxon.
Who else but Cecil B. DeMille...
would have added to
a simple seduction scene...
a hundred extras, dancing girls...
four rows of galley slaves...
and a drum?
Our history is over- temporarily.
To all the beautiful love goddesses
of the screen, thank you.
one thing remains constant.
But sometimes the manner
in which it is presented differs...
and the treatment of sex
on the screen...
has been a reflection of the customs,
manners and morals of the times.
The story of The Love Goddesses...
is itself a history
of sex in the movies.
We begin with America still in
the shadow of the Victorian era...
and a movie heroine bound
by the same conventions...
as any young lady of society.
In a film with the delightful title
True Heart Susie...
Lillian Gish expressed
this Victorian innocence-
a heroine who did not smoke,
would not drink...
and couldn't even admit
she had ever heard about sex.
But someone had to do
what a good girl could not...
and the vamp was created.
She could smoke...
she could drink...
and she had heard about sex.
The word "vamp"
came from a poem by Kipling-
'A Fool There Was. "
In it, he portrayed the predatory,
bloodsucking vampire as a woman...
and the vamp of them all
was Theda Bara...
the first of a long
line of champions...
in the battle of the sexes.
Invariably, the vamp's costumes
were distinctive...
suggesting creatures in whose grasp,
or web, the victim was rendered helpless.
Actually, sex in the movies had begun
long before there were stars or plots...
and the peep-show nature
of the nickelodeon machines...
added to the forbidden fruit flavor.
The sensational Little Egypt.
To us, perhaps, Little Egypt
may not look so sexy...
but in 1898...
Mark Twain had a heart attack
watching her.
In 1916, David Wark Griffith...
master of the motion picture
during its formative years...
produced Intolerance,
one of the great spectacles of all time.
Mr. Griffith's heroines
were as pure as any...
but he managed to get away with
a remarkable amount of nudity...
by using a number of titles...
telling just what particular historical
rites the girls were performing...
and in which learned volumes the
audience could further research the subject.
In 1916, the public paid
the astronomical price of two dollars...
to see Intolerance.
The other director who was to dominate
the American screen for decades...
was Cecil B. DeMille.
DeMille made this picture,
The Cheat, in 1915.
It starred the screen's first
Oriental villain, Sessue Hayakawa...
who plays an enormously wealthy
Burmese merchant...
a collector of ivory.
The heroine is Miss Fannie Ward.
Miss Ward is a lady
in desperate need of money...
and, unwisely, she has borrowed
from Mr. Hayakawa.
When sex was encountered
by a Victorian heroine...
it was always the villain
who threatened her.
The use of violence
in conjunction with sex...
was rare in 1915.
But this theme is to appear again and again
throughout the history of the movies...
for motion picture audiences
all over the world...
were to get sexual excitement
out of watching violence on the screen.
Another major recurring theme
in the history of sex is comedy...
for audiences often choose to laugh
at a satire of the same violence...
that excites them.
This film, an early contemporary
of the Keystone Kops...
is Bertha, the Buttonhole-Maker.
World War I
shattered the Victorian age.
Overnight,
women's role in society changed.
They got the vote,
their clothing changed...
their point of view changed.
The result was an amazingly different
American woman.
But it was not until two years
after the war...
that the movies
completely reflected this change.
The catalyst was Valentino.
The picture- The Sheik.
It was a book every teenage girl
in America was reading...
behind closed doors...
each secretly sharing
the heroine's fascination...
with the handsome hero.
And that was the difference.
The man who had kidnapped our heroine
was not the villain...
but, for the first time, the hero.
And Valentino's answer
to Agnes Ayres's question...
"Why have you brought me here?"
Would change
the American love goddess.
For now, for the first time,
the heroine did know.
The result was to be Clara Bow...
the culmination
of the flapper heroine-
a sexy little girl, a tease.
Miss Bow's most famous picture was It.
She plays a young girl
working in a department store...
who has a chance to go out
with her handsome boss.
At a time when the word "sex"
was still considered racy...
the word "it"was accepted
as a substitute for sex appeal.
"It"became a byword of the '20s...
and Miss Bow, forever afterward,
the "It Girl. "
Clara Bow was flaming youth
in rebellion.
She paraded a new worldly wisdom
that sex somehow meant a good time.
However, don't be misled.
Miss Bow was but a first cousin
to True Heart Susie.
She too is a good girl.
When they come home at night...
although the boss is handsome, eligible,
and they are thoroughly in love-
There are only a few years between
the end of World War I and Clara Bow...
and yet what a wealth
of sexual and moral changes...
were compressed into those years.
The vamp was to disappear.
Nita Naldi in Blood and Sand...
played one of the last
of the great vamp roles.
For now that the heroine
had become aware of sex...
the vamp was no longer needed...
and shortly,
though still in magnificent style...
was to make her exit.
More and more,
European attitudes to sex...
were reaching and reshaping America.
In a small American town...
a crusading district attorney
zealously guards the public's morality.
To him, any woman
smoking a cigarette is sinful.
The film is Woman of the World...
and this is the Polish star
Pola Negri...
playing a countess
who has come to America-
a woman who knows
about life and love...
and is not afraid of either.
But she is hounded
by the puritans of the town...
until finally, unable to stand
the hypocrisy any longer...
she defends herself.
What Miss Negri does not know is that
she has already changed the town.
Of course, in reality
it was America that was changing...
and Miss Negri
but a reflection of that change.
The year is 1925.
The '20s have started to roar.
Inhibitions were cast aside.
The demand was for something unusual...
something exotic...
something like the heroine
of Sorrows of Satan...
a legend of Faust and the devil.
Faust is played by Ricardo Cortez...
and Satan by Adolphe Menjou.
The devil offers Faust the opportunity of getting
whatever he desires in the world-
wealth, power, prestige...
and even a Marguerite.
This is Lya De Putti...
a Marguerite who is just a little different
from the Marguerites we have known.
Faust is smitten
and gets his Marguerite...
but her ambitions
reach far beyond Faust.
D. W. Griffith...
had his own personal view
of the battle of the sexes.
He had fought it many times
and lost.
By matching Marguerite
against the devil...
he evened up the score.
It was the only sure way Griffith knew
of having the woman lose.
The change that had taken place...
can be seen by comparing
Miss Gloria Swanson-
just about the period of World War I-
with Miss Gloria Swanson
eight years after the war.
The same Miss Swanson,
but quite a different love goddess.
The scene is from
The Loves of Sunya...
a Swanson production of 1926.
Cecil B. DeMille
compared the excesses of the '20s...
with the orgies of ancient Rome...
as the subject of his film
Manslaughter.
He solemnly warned of the consequences
of this generation's behavior.
Notice the two women on the right.
But moralist or not,
DeMille was a showman...
and never one to keep an audience in the dark
about the evils he was lamenting.
He introduced the bathtub scene to movies
with Gloria Swanson...
in Male and Female...
and the nude bathing scene
became a trademark of the '20s.
Clara Bow.
Every heroine
very much in her own style.
Esther Ralston.
In his epic of the French Revolution,
Orphans of the Storm...
D. W. Griffith
filled the bathtub with wine...
as well as some leftover young ladies
from Intolerance.
The most famous movie bath of them all
was to be Claudette Colbert's...
in The Sign of the Cross.
Even in the late '20s...
standards in Europe continued to be
different from those in the United States...
with its basically puritan background.
This is Fritz Lang's Spies...
produced in Germany in 1927.
These charming ladies appeared
in the American film Ben-Hur...
but an export version
that was never shown in the United States.
The same scene
was even shot two different ways.
This is from the Faust legend
you have just seen.
Lya De Putti played the
European version like this...
and America
saw her like this.
In Europe itself...
they were going a little further...
making pictures like Casanova...
and Small Town Sinner.
And this is from Abel Gance's
End of the World.
European films differed not only
in the extent of nudity they permitted...
but in their portrayal
of human behavior.
In Diary of a Lost Girl,
made in Germany in 1929...
a young girl with no money
and no place to turn...
goes to the address
of the only friend she has.
Unknown to her,
it is a bordello.
Its madam could have played Grandma
in any American film.
But no American-made film
could or would have presented a brothel...
in such a sympathetic manner.
The girl is Louise Brooks...
a young American actress who made
her most famous pictures in Europe.
And the question is,
will she accept the bordello or not?
One European film, made at the end of this period,
caused a sensation in the United States.
It was Ecstasy, famed for
its numerous encounters with the censors.
It starred one of the most
beautiful women in the world-
Hedy Lamarr.
Afterwards, Miss Lamarr married
industrialist Fritz Mandl.
He spent a fortune attempting to buy up and destroy
all the prints of Ecstasy, but he failed.
Even Benito Mussolini
had a personal print...
and would not surrender it.
In 1938 Miss Lamarr
was to create another sensation...
this time for an outstanding performance
opposite Charles Boyer in Algiers.
It was to make her an American star.
The cancan
from G. W. Pabst's L'Atlantide.
With the coming of sound in 1929...
dancing brought to the movies
new erotic possibilities.
However, this film, L'Atlantide,
has another significance.
Its star illustrates almost perfectly
the type of love goddess...
who was next to dominate the movies.
A public caught up in the booming,
wondrous, unbelievable '20s...
was now demanding the unattainable.
The result was the creation
of an exotic image...
a woman not to be loved
but worshipped, even feared.
Antinea.
Brigitte Helm was the first example
of this new, queen like goddess-
beautiful, cold and deadly.
She toys with her male captives...
and offers each his freedom
if he can win at chess.
Those who lose belong to her.
Check.
Check.
Check.
Check.
Check.
Check.
Checkmate.
It was this queen like image...
that was next to rule
the American film.
The goddesses appearance
and their manner were royal...
but they were not always godlike
to start with.
Even Greta Garbo did not start out
projecting this quality at all.
In fact, here is the raw material-
Great Garbo in her very first film...
a simple Swedish comedy
entitled Peter the Tramp...
produced in 1922.
Who then could have foretold
that within a few years...
Miss Garbo would be shaped
into a legend?
On the other hand...
it might just have been possible
to recognize another queen like goddess...
from this early film.
It was The Blue Angel that was to
turn Marlene Dietrich into a star.
Opposite her was
the great Emil Jannings.
He played a respectable,
aging schoolteacher...
obsessed with a nightclub singer
and destined to be destroyed by her.
Marlene Dietrich was royalty,
no matter what role she played.
The Blue Angel was the first of her seven films
to be directed by Josef von Sternberg...
and it was he who brought her to America.
I'm sorry, miss,
but I don't understand a word.
Will you please go away.
It's a shame, allowing such women
on a first-class train.
What's the matter with 'em,
Parson?
I imagine the honorable divine
objects to their morals.
Well, I thought they were pretty good-looking -
at least Shanghai Lily is.
Do you mean to say that Shanghai Lily
is on this train?
Hot water, sir?
Confound it, sir,
that's Shanghai Lily!
For the last fortnight I've been attending
a man who went out of his mind...
after spending every penny on her.
- How have I changed?
- You know, I wish I could describe it.
Well, Doc, I've changed my name.
- Married?
- No.
It took more than one man
to change my name to Shanghai Lily.
1931.
The film- Morocco.
May I offer you
this glass of champagne, mademoiselle?
Thank you.
votre sant.
- May I have this?
- Of course.
Bravo!
The real period
of wide-open sex in America had arrived.
It was not the '20s,
as generally believed...
but actually the four years
from 1930 to 1933.
The new love goddesses
were homegrown...
and no love goddess was more American
than the blonde bombshell Jean Harlow.
Let's not talk about things
like that now.
Now, wait a minute. I'll do anything
you ask me to, but I will not lift -
I love that nose.
Oh, it's such a sweet nose.
Nevertheless, whether the nose is sweet or not,
I'm not gonna live in your house.
You might as well get that...
straight.
- You want me to be happy, don't you?
- Mm-hmm.
- Then I'm not gonna live here.
- Mm-hmm.
- You're not hungry, are you?
- No.
I'm not either.
Don't you just love Sunday afternoons?
Everything quiet.
Nobody at home to disturb you.
Madge, there's somethin'
I got to tell you -
You were goin' away, weren't you?
Packin' to leave.
Oh, honey lamb,
you mustn't do that.
What would Father say
if he came back and found you gone?
And I would cry.
Cry!
The owner of the lazy
Southern accent is Miss Bette Davis.
The film- Cabin in the Cotton.
Her costar- Richard Barthelmess.
I don't know.
Come up to my room for a minute.
I wanna talk to you about somethin'.
Turn your back and look at
those snapshots for a minute...
while I get into
somethin' more restful.
Turn your back.
Marvin?
Madge.
Busby Berkeley, a genius of design...
created these monumental
and mathematically precise production numbers.
He dreamt up images
that would have shocked Sigmund Freud himself.
The production number always seemed to start
with a duet between Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell.
Then Miss Keeler danced.
It turned into a fantasy of eroticism.
The four years
were full of irreverent comedies...
and one of the most charming
of the comediennes was Carole Lombard.
By now, Clara Bow's bloomers
were out of style.
It was a new era in fashion-
the lingerie era-
and just as bathing scenes
had been part of the '20s...
so, in the early '30s,
the filmmakers usually found an excuse...
to get the heroine
down to her step-ins.
The film is No Man of Her Own -
Hello?
And brought Carole Lombard and Clark Gable
together for the first and only time in the movies.
Who is it?
Is, uh, this Miss Randall's cabin?
Yes!
- Can I come in?
- Well -
Just a minute!
Just a minute!
Now you can come in!
The plot itself is an example...
of society's changing standards.
Gable has come to spend the weekend...
but thus far Miss Lombard
has not succumbed to his charm.
Why keep kidding around like this?
I'm not kidding.
Only, well, you just walk in
and pick up a girl...
and walk out.
Is that fair?
No. No, you're right.
Ah, well, forget it.
Anyway, we've had a little fun.
I've seen Glendale,
had a couple of laughs.
I'll be seeing you around sometime.
So long, honey.
Why don't you be a sport?
Why don't you give a girl a break?
Why don't you take a chance?
I don't get you.
Have you ever gambled?
Hey, I'll gamble on anything.
Why don't you gamble with me?
All right.
- Heads we do, tails we -
- Get married!
Right.
I never go back on a coin.
Comedies got earthier.
The public wanted to know more,
to hear more...
and to see more.
The picture- Professional Sweetheart.
Ginger Rogers is the Purity Girl,
America's radio sweetheart...
married for publicity
through a nationwide contest.
But the groom has caught on
that he has been duped...
and takes matters into his own hands.
Gonna make you into the kind of woman
I thought you was - a good woman.
- A woman that -
- Got a cigarette? I'm simply dying -
No!
Any liquor?
Oh, dear.
- Smokin' and drinkin' and -
- Mmm, smokin' and drinkin' and men.
And men?
How - H-How many?
Mmm, I don't remember.
Hundreds.
Stop that!
Ain't ya got no decency at all?
After all, you're my husband,
aren't you?
Here.
- Give me that.
- Give those to me. Give them to me.
Give them to me.
Comedy roles like these
were Miss Rogers's first success.
And though this type of movie
was soon to disappear...
she went on to the top,
dancing with Fred Astaire...
and winning an Oscar
for a dramatic role as Kitty Foyle.
- Stop it! - Make me. Make me, you
great big - I'll dance if I like.
I want to get -
Let go of me! Stop it! Stop it!
- Ouch!
- You great, big - Oh! Oh!
If I ever lose my temper, I'll just -
One of these days,
I'll show you just how -
Glory, baby. Glory.
Oh, God, please don't let her die.
She's wicked, but I love her.
Jeanette MacDonald's name
usually brings to mind Nelson Eddy...
and memories of sentimental
and not particularly sexy operettas.
But that was to come later.
During these years, Miss MacDonald's
comedies blended sex and sophistication.
Among them, Rouben Mamoulian's
Love Me Tonight.
Princess! Help! Help!
Oh, my goodness. She - She's fainted again.
You know, I had an elder brother
who used to faint quite often.
- He was a "nip-omaniac. "
- A what?
A "nip-omaniac. "
He used to go around pinching things.
Oh, I had a friend like that.
He used to pinch business girls in elevators.
- They had to send him to a cooler climate.
- No.
- I knew a girl -
- This is no time for reminiscences.
Go and get a couple of footmen
to carry her upstairs.
But you gave the servants
the afternoon off.
Our footmen are playing football
against the old soldier's home.
Well, you two carry her upstairs!
Someone fetch a doctor.
You carry her. I'll get the doctor.
Valentine, can you go for a doctor?
- Certainly. Bring him right in.
- Ye - No, no.
No, it's for Jeanette.
She's fainted again.
Oh.
Princess, permit me to introduce
Dr. Armand de Fontinac.
- Your Highness.
- Doctor.
And now, my dear,
remove your dress.
- My what?
- Your dress.
- Huh?
- There's no occasion for distress.
- Is that necessary?
- Very. Yes.
As long as professional ethics apply,
I'll see you with only a doctor's eye.
Oh, dear.
The doctor's eye is satisfied.
Now I'll hear your heart.
Don't sigh.
Very good. Nothing wrong here.
Now I'll take your pulse, my dear.
Perfectly regular.
Right on the tick.
Madam, oh, madam,
you cannot be sick.
Then why do I lie awake in bed,
and why does blood rush to my head?
- At night?
- Quite right. At night.
And why does music make me sad,
and why do love songs drive me mad?
- At night.
- Quite right. At night.
- And frequently I faint.
- That's quaint.
At 22.
Oh, this won't do.
- Are you married?
- My husband died three years ago.
- At 16 I was wed.
- You've been a widow for three years?
- Three years the prince is dead.
- You were very happy with your spouse?
- He was the son of a noble house.
- Hmm.
It was the happiness of great peace.
Rochambeau.
My better half.
And here you have his photograph.
Of all the love goddesses
of comedy, one was to dominate.
With the right kind of encouragement,
she'll throw discretion to the winds.
And her hips to the north,
east, south and west!
It's the only show on earth
where the tickets are made of asbestos.
She was a goddess
molded by two opposing forces-
one, the demand for
an ever-increasing frankness about sex...
the other,
a traditional reluctance to face it openly.
The result had to be satire.
Even today, Mae West is remembered
by people who never saw her...
as the sexiest of the love goddesses.
In actual fact, it was not so much
that she was sexy...
but that she was funny about sex.
If I wasn't a married man,
I could go for you, baby.
No wisecracks now.
Penny for your thoughts.
Sit back, watch...
and you'll see why Mae West
completely dominated the early '30s.
Ooh, mama!
I know just how you feel, honey.
Am I making myself clear, boys?
Suckers.
Never met anybody
just like you before. You're different.
Anything different
always costs more, but it's worth it.
Oh, uh, by the way, honey,
you married or single?
- Married five times.
- Five times?
- Wedding bells must sound like an alarm clock to ya.
- Oh!
I don't suppose you believe
in marriage, do ya?
Only as a last resort.
Uh, what do you do for a living?
Oh, uh, sort of a politician.
- Oh, I don't like work either.
- Oh.
Oh, uh, you know,
I like to get around and travel...
and believe me, I've been places
and seen things.
Mm-hmm?
I've been things and seen places.
That sort of evens us up, huh?
Mmm.
Sit down.
I didn't get your name.
Then what about tomorrow?
For breakfast, lunch and dinner. Anything.
Oh, let me see.
Breakfast I have in bed,
so that's out.
I don't eat lunch,
and dinner I -
Well, make it supper tomorrow night.
That's a date.
And we'll go out.
I like sophisticated men
to take me out.
Well, I'm not really sophisticated.
Well, you're not really out yet either.
- You're a liar!
- Say, listen, you.
A better dame than you
once called me a liar...
and they had to sew her up
in 12 different places.
You're lucky I'm a little more refined
than I used to be.
And if you was as much a lady as I am...
you'd get out of here
before I get real sore.
- You haven't a streak of decency in you.
- I don't show my good points to strangers.
I'll trouble you to scram.
Just a minute.
I realize there's only one thing
that will influence you to leave Kirk alone.
How much?
- Oh, Beulah.
- Yes, ma'am.
Peel me a grape.
- Hello?
- Miss Tira calling.
Good. Put her on.
Oh, uh, Mr. Clayton?
I've been thinking over everything you said,
and, uh, I made my decision.
Good. I'm glad you made up
your mind so quickly.
Oh, I'm very quick in a slow way.
You see, I can't discuss it over the phone.
It's, uh - It's got a lot of angles to it.
Uh, you better come up and see me.
Well, I'll be glad to. In fact, I'll come over
right away if it's convenient for you.
Most convenient.
I'll tell you this much.
You're -You're gonna like what I got in mind.
Mm-hmm.
I'll be ready. Good-bye.
Mmm.
By 1933,
the four-year period was coming to an end.
Although this film, Baby Face, was set
against a background of the Depression...
its treatment of sex...
represents the culmination of the wide-open
attitudes that had begun in the '20s.
I have good references.
If I could only see him.
You can wait if you want to,
but he's out to lunch.
What part of the South
are you from, Mr. Pratt?
Tallapoosa, Georgia.
I know some Pratts where I come from.
Where was that?
Oh, maybe I'll tell you someday
when I know you better.
- Say, I like it here. How about a job?
- Oh, we don't -
Oh, now, don't tell me in this great big
building there ain't someplace for me.
Have you had any experience?
Plenty.
I'd rather wait in there.
I hate crowds.
Don't you?
The boss won't be back for an hour.
Well, then why don't we
go in and talk this over?
Miss Stanwyck is to proceed floor by floor...
using the same technique
until she reaches the top.
We haven't time for every flight,
but we have chosen a few of the best.
This is the Benson mortgage.
Will you look it over now?
Is the insurance clause here?
Everything's incorporated in it.
Stick around after 5:00.
Oh, not here.
Somebody might -
- Has Mr. Brody left yet?
- No, Mr. Stevens. I believe he's still here.
Brody.
Brody.
This is an outrage.
A man in your position.
Get your check at once.
Young woman.
We've no place here
for a girl of your sort.
Ann.
Oh, how could I?
Was he... your first sweetheart?
This is very distressing.
I'm sure you must see how impossible
it would be for you to remain at the bank.
But what will I do?
- Have you no family in New York?
- No. I'm all alone here.
I haven't any friends,
and I haven't any money.
I shall have to think this over.
Will you tell me where you live?
My telephone number
is Schuyler 3-2215.
The Depression reshaped America's attitudes.
The consequences of a people
having to face breadlines and starvation...
were to be a tightening up
of their values.
The American audience no longer
would accept a freewheeling approach to sex.
This attitude brought about
the Production Code...
an age of innocence...
and a brand-new love goddess.
Oh.
Oh, he's elegant.
Are -Are you sure you like him?
I'm just crazy about him.
I'm awful crazy about you too, Daddy.
I've had such a good time.
Well, now - now you go to sleep.
And I'll be in the next room if you want me.
Night, Daddy.
It was the period of Shirley Temple...
Judy Garland and Andy Hardy...
Deanna Durbin...
and the top love goddess of 1937...
Snow White.
From True Heart Susie we had come
full circle to True Heart Susie.
The love goddess
was now the girl next door.
It was just a bit part
in a movie called They Won't Forget.
The entire role lasted only a few minutes.
But it was to make Lana Turner a star.
The love goddess had become a normal,
well-shaped, well-rounded girl...
and her name was Betty Grable.
So let's give 'em three big ones.
Crew! Rah, rah, rah! Crew, crew, crew!
The girl next door was a heroine...
with whom you flirted
and whom you married.
But because she could not say or do what
the love goddess of the early '30s could do...
her sex appeal could only come about
by emphasizing her physical beauty.
There were sweaters...
and there were sarongs...
and never-never lands
where a girl could be startled...
by so little as a kiss.
- Kiss?
- A kiss is something that -
Well, you just don't see it around.
It's something that - something you do.
Kiss?
That's a kiss.
Then, for a second time...
a world war crushed
an age of innocence.
It was time for the love goddesses
to return to the great tradition.
Me?
Miss Rita Hayworth.
Sure, I'm decent.
A second cycle was beginning.
Once again the brakes were off.
And with gathering momentum
into the '60s...
moral restrictions were to be loosened.
Only one love goddess was to span the period...
from the age of innocence to the '60s-
from National Velvet to Cleopatra -
Elizabeth Taylor, probably the most beautiful
love goddess of them all.
We have chosen this film-
A Place in the Sun -
to show the beginning of that change.
Wow.
- Hello.
- Hello.
I see you had a misspent youth.
I guess it was.
Why all alone? Being exclusive?
Being dramatic?
Being blue?
I'm just fooling around.
- Maybe you'd like to play.
- Oh, no. I'll just watch you. Go ahead.
Oh, Angela, if I could only tell you
how much I love you.
If I could only tell you all.
Tell mama.
Tell mama all.
No one can create
an illusion better than Hollywood.
And the greatest illusions have been
the love goddesses themselves-
images formed out of the clay
of ordinary mortals.
A girl shaped into a symbol of sex.
First the makeup department.
Then the publicity boys take over.
Neither is particularly
concerned with the girl inside.
They shoot a lot of cheesecake.
Anything to catch the eye,
to show off the figure.
Any prop will do,
preferably phallic.
Miss Fourth of July.
Miss Thanksgiving.
Even Miss Idaho Potato.
But acting- That's not so easy.
That's work and patience...
a willingness to learn.
The girl inside is a little scared...
but if there's talent,
it begins to show.
- I got water in my ear.
- Huh?
- I got water in my ear.
- Here, I'll shake it out.
Oh!
Ow, you're hurting me.
Joe, let go.
He's kind of exciting and attractive.
- Who's attractive? Who's exciting?
- Earl.
- Who?
- Joe, you're strangling me.
Who's attractive? Who's excitin'?
- You.
- That's better.
Even more than talent,
she must have a charm all her own.
A manner so distinctive that even if
other women copy it, it is still hers.
She is a star,
and millions upon millions love her.
She belongs more and more to the public.
Less and less to herself.
The created image must continue...
though the girl inside may be tired.
She must pose and smile.
Pose and smile.
'Just one more picture. "
"One more. "
It's sometimes hard to remember
that there was a girl inside.
In the '50s again, a demand arose
for something more exotic and different-
for a love image larger than life.
And the most delightful of all
the larger-than-life heroines...
was the captivating Sophia Loren.
Hello.
Would you like to buy me a drink?
Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you.
I'm just here on business.
- So am I.
- Not tonight.
I'm trying to quit.
A double mint julep with a bottle
of Kentucky bourbon for a chaser.
The young lady is about to become
a Southern fried chicken.
And for you, a very Italian drink.
Buona fortuna.
- What am I getting?
- Trust me.
Cincin.
- What does that mean?
- Uh, you would say "To where it's going down. "
Oh? I'll drink to that all night.
And to your melanzane.
- Mmm!
- Uh, will you have a dance with me?
Yes, baby. Come on. Let's dance, huh?
The opposite was also true.
A new exotic appeal
existed in the child figure.
The smaller-than-life love goddess.
Carroll Baker in Baby Doll.
Sue Lyon as Lolita.
Tuesday Weld.
Susan Strasberg.
Hayley Mills in a scene from Tiger Bay.
Perhaps the most charming...
and certainly the most successful
of all the childlike heroines...
was Miss Audrey Hepburn.
Her very appeal
was both as woman and child.
The Mouth of Truth.
The legend is that if you're given to lying...
and put your hand in there,
it'll be bitten off.
- Oh, what a horrid idea.
- Let's see you do it.
Let's see you do it.
Sure.
No! No!
Hello.
You beast! It was perfectly all right!
You were never hurt.
I'm sorry. It was a joke.
All right?
- Oh, you never hurt your hand.
- I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
- Okay?
- Yes.
All right. Let's go. Look out!
As the '60s loomed,
history continued to repeat itself.
Room at the Top marked the beginning
of a new period of frankness about sex.
It's not that I don't want to.
It's just...
I suppose I'm scared.
I do love you, Joe. I do.
I'd do anything for you, Joe. Anything.
Except what any girl will do
for the man she loves.
Joe, how much do you love me?
Very much.
About a million pounds' worth.
Joe, be gentle with me.
Come on, Susan.
I think we better be going now.
I don't want to go.
I don't ever want to go.
Isn't it super, Joe?
Now we really belong to each other.
Really and truly till death do us part.
Wasn't it wonderful?
Wasn't it absolutely the most wonderful
thing that ever happened to you?
- Wasn't it, Joe?
- Yes.
Come on. Let's go.
Just as Clara Bow
had symbolized the rebellion of the '20s...
Brigitte Bardot was the
image of a new generation's rebellion.
She disrobed in her films
as a child would disrobe- on impulse.
And she brought the screen
to a stage of nudity...
such as had not been seen
since the late 1920s in Europe.
Oddly enough, the first acceptance of
nudity on the screen for a star...
was in 1913.
Annette Kellerman,
the greatest woman athlete of her day...
starred in Daughter of the Gods.
But it was not until
some 40 years later...
that Marilyn Monroe
posed for a calendar...
and changed the entire concept
of what a star could and could not do.
Her studio was shocked,
but the public...
instead of rejecting,
accepted Marilyn as she was.
Within a few years,
most of the love goddesses would conform.
And even Ecstasy was to be made again...
this time with Marla Moore.
But nudity itself seemed
not exciting enough.
And with Europe in the lead, filmmakers
took to shooting love scenes in the nude.
Les Liaisons dangereuses.
The Lovers.
One Summer of Happiness.
And God Created Woman.
Combinations of beauty, violence...
sex and nudity...
became the formula of the '60s.
In 30 years, the movies
had come full circle.
If anything, the treatment of sex
was more overt than ever before.
But England and the United States
held out a little longer.
That is, until they could present sex
under the safer guise of satire.
The picture is Expresso Bongo,
starring Laurence Harvey and Sylvia Syms.
It was produced in England by Val Guest...
a fine comedy
that won exceptional acclaim.
We could not leave this history of sex...
without a tribute
to those many moviemakers...
who, faced with
no other choice but to use a symbol...
have done so memorably.
Among them, Busby Berkeley's
"Honeymoon Hotel. "
Ernst Lubitsch's The Love Parade.
Do you hear those cannons?
Yes. Isn't it glorious?
Our bridal music.
Carol Reed's The Stars Look Down.
D. W. Griffith's The White Rose.
But perhaps the best of all
was DeMille's Cleopatra.
There's no one like you.
It starred Claudette Colbert and Henry Wilcoxon.
Who else but Cecil B. DeMille...
would have added to
a simple seduction scene...
a hundred extras, dancing girls...
four rows of galley slaves...
and a drum?
Our history is over- temporarily.
To all the beautiful love goddesses
of the screen, thank you.