When placing films in context to the respective time periods in which they are produced and observing the role of women as seen in these films; it is crucial to make comparisons. Splendor in the Grass, The Attack of The 50 Foot Woman, and Rear Window are three distinctly different films that produce various complex observations about women as well as yielding common themes in the role of women as seen through the lens of the 1950’s and early 1960’s. One of the main themes that emerges is this distinction between the whorish/flirtatious women and the serious/mentally unstable. In order to better understand this theme and make comparisons among the films, we must first summarize each of the films with emphasis on the two distinct types of women in them.
Splendor in the Grass (1961) is the story of young woman named Deanie Loomis and her teenage boyfriend Bud Stamper, the son of a wealthy family. It is based in the 1928, just before The Great Crash, though this doesn’t serve as the primary theme. Deanie is sexually aroused by Bud, but is torn between her sexual desires and the council of her mother who cautions that “…women don’t enjoy those sorts of things…” This serves to be the theme of what transpires as Deanie and Bud, by virtue of sexual interests and family expectation, break-up. Earlier in the film, Bud's father states that there are two types of girls and that one is more effective for "letting off steam." Inspired by this, Bud makes love with the school “flapper.” Because of this, Deanie descends into what is later regarded as an unhealthy mental state. Her sexual boundaries and securities are compromised by her loss of Bud. We see in this piece more so than in the others a distinction between the sexually promiscuous and the serious individual who "goes mad."
Attack of The 50 Foot Woman (1958) is a science fiction piece that explores the role of women as a result of a man’s infidelity. The film opens with our main character driving through the Californian desert and coming upon a large space craft whose inhabitant is a 30-foot man. Nancy Archer is a rich heiress to a large sum of money who has been married, divorced, and then re-married to her husband Harry Archer. Harry by no means is interested in much more than Nancy’s wealth and the whole town is coming to know of a rather public relationship he has developed with Honey Parker. Nancy suspects this but finds some comfort in the denial of such a relationship according to her husband. She goes out with her husband to find this monster promising to go away to a psychiatric facility if there is nothing to be found. After a long search, they do come upon this giant and his flying craft. A scared Harry runs from his wife and goes back to town to get Honey and leave. His plans are changed when the sheriff asks them to stay in town for a while as Nancy has come down with illness after being found. She begins to grow larger and the doctors are baffled by this phenomenal growth. At 50 feet tall, she goes on a rampage to find her cheating husband and in the end kills Honey, Harry, and herself leaving a wake destruction in the town.
Rear Window (1954) is foremost an exploration of voyeurism, but has deep female implications as well. Lisa is a career driven and successful woman. Her partner L.B. Jeffries is also career driven but due to injury has been confined to his apartment and purposed (by his choice) to watch his neighbors studiously. Jeffries isn’t nearly as motivated in the relationship as Lisa seems to be. Jeffries argues that it wouldn’t be the life for her to be with him on his work for the magazine and that it would kill him to stay in the city. Much of the relational brokeness is evident also in the women across in the other apartments.Their relationship is sexually and emotionally dead until suspicion of murder across the way in one apartment fuels first his, then her interests and pulls them together. She loves him and that she can be with him to take part in solving this mystery is comforting. Their broken sexual and emotional relationship is strangely satisfied in the lives of others.
In each of these films we see women who have specific freedoms and use those freedoms in polar opposite ways. We have the sexually promiscuous, whom everybody knows as such. Then we have the career driven, sophisticated, often mentally unstable woman. The sexually promiscuous seem to be “living life.” They are femme fatales, seductive and charming, and they are not without pain or heartache but they are able to somehow “match” it. Then there is the serious woman who in many ways longs to have elements of promiscuity and excitement in their relationships but these are turned off by forces beyond their control. Juanita and Jennie (Splendor…), Honey (Attack…), and the ballerina (though we learn she is marginally faithful in the end) or her aged counterpart Miss Lonelyhearts (Rear…), are all these sort of adventurous, beautiful, and “loose” women. It’s not that they are without vastly different levels of flirtatiousness, promiscuity or excitement in their lives; it is that they all have or are “living” it. Deanie (Splendor…), Nancy (Attack…), and Lisa (Rear…), are all in broken relationships and their passions are not being met in some way or another. Deanie is admitted to a mental ward to treat a condition brought on by her broken relationship; Nancy isn’t being satisfied sexually or emotionally by her husband and is heartbroken to the point of massive vengeance against him and his lover; Lisa and Jeffries are in a disconnected relationship, not just because of his injury, but also their lifestyles and this disconnect is only connected by their vested interest in the murderous life of a man across the way. These observations speak to the changing view of women in film.
Just as we had learned about a sexual revolution in the 1920’s, there was also another sexual revolution among the films of the 1950’s and early 1960's with rock and roll, cult film heroes, and broadening boundaries. This change can be seen in the films. These two types of women seem to be the commonality that unites these three films. Modernly, there is any number of different typecasts of women with any number of emotional outcomes to their respective lifestyles. The women of 1950’s film had significant freedoms but were all resolved to act in specific roles and their sexual choices, career, and lifestyles were a result of their decisions in the films. These three films don’t show us what their lives were like thirty years from the times depicted in the films, with the exception of Miss Lonelyhearts. Miss Lonelyhearts is the closest we come to seeing a potential change of life in an aged version of a woman who once knew some sort of happy life. She is shown to be a woman of drunkenness, failed relationships, and suicidal yearnings.
The two distinct women of the 1950’s film are bonded by their freedoms, confusion and placed accordingly as either whorish/flirtatious or serious/mentally unstable. These stereotypes are re-enforced in the films by the characters shown (i.e. Nancy v. Honey). This distinction helps us better inform our understanding of the role of women in this period of time. Modernly, we are seeing these two extremes broken down, but these films remain a staple of a time when these two distinct types of women were represented as such in film and presumably in 1950's and early 1960's culture.
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