Those Conformist Fifties: Gettin' All Freudian Wit It

Alan Ladd and noir queen Lizabeth Scott in 1951's Red Mountain. Sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar, nor a gun just a gun. I don't actually know what's going to happen in the scene, having never seen the film, but keep in mind that everyone in Hollywood in the '50s, including the grips and best boys and cooks at the studio commissaries, was in analysis and could read erotic metaphors as easily as a copy of Variety. I read that she was never married and was unusually open about, shall we say, the reason that marriage was not of interest. Took some heat for it, too. (This seems awful to say about a woman who's now 86 and avoids publicity, but there's a point to be made here.) Just one more example of why I keep telling everyone—on the blog here, at parties, strangers on the street—that the Fifties were much more interesting than they get credit for if you only watch Nick at Nite, OK? That's all I'm trying to say.