By Melissa Antoinette Garza
Bashful boys can be the most adorable ones to play with. J. Pierpont Finch (Robert Morse) is extremely bashful. He’s cute as a button and such a sneaky little minx. I love him.
Pierpont buys a book entitled How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. It provides a pathway to success. The first thing he does is manipulate his way into a mail room job by alluding he was friends with the boss.
He then manipulates his way into a higher position and so on. All the while, he acts like an innocent good doer who just falls into good fortune. It’s all calculated and he fancies himself the smartest person at the office.
He may be the smartest man, but Rosemary (Michele Lee) eats him alive in intelligence, wit and manipulation. She’s delightful. She has these wide eyes and seductive come hither lips that help convey the many “Oh My” moments wonderfully. She wraps Pierpont around her finger from the second they meet. He wants to keep his mind focused on business and he tells her that. Rosie girl takes it as a challenge. She likes the puppy dog boys and so do I. She wants to wrap her arms around him and claim him as her own. She puts her claws in and though he tries to resist, Rosemary is just all sorts of beautiful. She’s fierce, upfront and knows what she wants in a time when that was not expected or admired. She was a renegade woman. I want to climb on top of her. She’s just all sorts of fantastic. In one song, she wonders about which female trap she could set. It’s just marvelous. She’s a dominatrix queen in a vanilla wardrobe. The contrast is just hot as hell.
Rosemary and Pierpont go out to eat and she leads the whole date. It’s glorious. He tries to bring up business and she just turns it into them going out again. When she get him to reveal his fear, she jumps in and builds him up. That’s pure Fem Goddess right there. Nurturing strength is the most emotional type of sexiness a woman has to give and Finch is captivated by it. I love them together. Their chemistry is palpable. She makes herself his muse. She becomes his inspiration by her sheer will alone.
I see this film as such a progressive film with a feminist approach told in a manner of parody. So many complain about this film and the play adaptations and call it sexist. It’s not. People no longer look at context. They don’t understand that the women are in full control in this film. The men are their puppets.
One thing that some point to is the song A Secretary is Not A Toy which is essentially about treating a fem secretary like a play thing. On the surface that seems sexist, but when you watch the women come into focus they are in full control. They set the standards. When they don’t want a man touching them regardless of how powerful they are, they get physically slammed against a wall. Rosemary does that. She’s a fucking badass. When the women dance in the montage during the song, they are owning their sexuality. Wanting to fuck women and hating women are not the same thing and as long as men don’t cross the line, attraction is natural. This entire number is about the secretary having all the power and the men being wrapped around their fingers.
This isn’t a subtle hint at feminism either. It’s rather a hammer to the head. Hedy LaRue (Maureen Arthur) is a naughty and ditsy mistress to Jasper. She is the dominant one in the relationship and she calls all of the shots. This is such a wildly progressive film for the time and the fact that people are claiming it is anti-woman is baffling. It is so pro-woman. Every woman is self-determined and self-made. They are in charge of their own destiny. They are in the workforce and rocking their love lives the way they want. It’s so empowering. Anyone who knows anything about the time-frame this came out would see this as the feminist anthem it is.
I love this movie. I love the play. I love the music and fuck everybody, I love the message. Yes, it has a song called Brotherhood of Man that is about the closeness of male friendship. First, that’s not a bad thing. Second, a strong, badass, hardcore, masc, fem Miss Jones (Ruth Kobart) joins in the boys-only party showing inclusivity of gender which was not a big thing in the 60s.
I can’t suggest this enough. The songs are brilliant. The performances are spectacular. The cast is phenomenal. Morse is brilliant in the lead and the fem goddesses own the screen. Lee, particularly, is magnificent. She shows unparalleled brazenness as Rosemary. She doesn’t flinch when she thinks Pierpont is cheating on her. She plays it cool. The character is just built as a feminist and to deny that is so insulting and undeserved.
This is one of my all time faves. Amazon Prime members are lucking out as it is up there for for free. Still, I suggest owning this one.
Scared Stiff Rating: 8.5/10
