Seeking Frothy Fun in a 1967 Movie

Movie poster image from here.

Parts of yesterday were v. hard and heavy.

It takes work to change, to recover after decades of living in a spiral of sugar. Imagine moving through pink or blue or white cotton candy, wound in a sticky cloud, a porous net, around a paper cone, on and off for years. Not much clarity at the heart of that. The center of the cone is empty, just air. The cone itself is flimsy paper, not something sturdy to hold one’s goals, hopes, dreams--and commitments to doing the right things on life’s road.

So after the important Thursday school meeting on Zoom with key players, including a v. difficult one who shall remain unnamed, and the doctor appointment right after in Verona for Punch (the young woman doctor is a gift), I felt drained and needed to nest. My self-care is improving. I had taken a bath and put on makeup and jewelry before the Zoom call, but had to rush at the end, squeezing my bare feet into black suede pumps without tights. Then the call went longer and I was discombobulated and with bare legs, rushed Punch to dr. It was cold, I forgot my warm scarf and had to make a phone call outside while we waited later for Latin food in Bloomfield. (Punch loves Latin food.) So, more self-care progress in store.

And I still had more reading and writing and accountability on deck for the evening. So I sat on our comfy chair and watched “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying,” the 1967 film starring Robert Morse, Michele Lee, Rudy Vallée and other great character actors on Disney+ and read and wrote as I watched. 

This movie is like “Mad Men” before “Mad Men,” with secretarial pools and men’s executive washrooms and pinching women’s behinds and making passes....that last part made me cringe. We see colorful dresses and high heels, handbags, elevator buttons, the mailroom, the silver coffee cart and more. The songs are entertaining: a troop of secretaries put magnifying mirrors on their desks and do their nails and hair; the men line up at the sinks in the washroom; and men in suits are agog when a curvy, red-haired Copa cigarette girl (the boss’s mistress) shows up to work at the company as a secretary. Her silky suit has a peplum skirt and low-cut top to outline her breasts. Her behind twitches right to left as she walks, and the men follow her every move. They are reduced to stupid boys, wearing grown-up shirts and ties and eyeglasses but trailing her like dumbos.

It portrays #MeToo in mega doses, though at the time, the movie was a comedy. It still makes you laugh, it is entertainment. But I could not help but remember the serious truths under the fluff. In my office career, I have been told:

• by an an older secretary that she had been called into her boss’s office at a big NYC company and pushed to the floor, forced to have sex.
• by a curmudgeon editor that she knew a man who had hired a pretty young woman just so he could watch her walk by all day.
• that a successful female editor, who in fact was happily married, was having an affair with a male coworker based on their occasionally staying late to work on a project (biting gossip by other women to keep women down). 

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But yes, the froth was good. I did not seek whipped cream ice cream caramel candy froth, but laughter. (I brewed a pot of organic caramel flavored coffee and enjoyed a hot cup with half and half.) Those colors, those fashions, the New York City newsstand, the young man trying to climb the ladder at work, the exec stashing his brightly colored knitting in his desk drawer (the craft calmed him, but he had to hide it). One’s mistress being the driving factor to hire or promote someone so they would not reveal the affair to one’s wife.

I remember going to see this movie with my family in the white Ford Falcon at the Wellfleet Drive-in on Cape Cod when I was six. I would have been in the front seat, between my parents, with John, Sis and Will in the back. I don’t remember much beyond seeing a man washing windows on an office tower and mistaking the redhead for Lucille Ball, whom I loved.

That family memory tickles me.