I’m an avid fan of Turner Classic Movies, and in the age of TiVo, I can tape as many movies as I like and watch them at my leisure. As a result, I always have a pile of films to go through on my DVR. One movie I finally got to recently was the 1966 comedy Walk, Don’t Run. I was interested in the film because it marked Cary Grant’s final film before retiring, and as it turned out, the movie was appallingly dull. Still, Walk, Don’t Run provides an interesting look at some of the issues I discuss on this blog.
The film’s plot concerns British businessman Bill Rutland (Cary Grant) being forced to share a cramped Tokyo apartment with fellow Brit Christine Easton (Samantha Eggar) and American athlete Steve Davis (Jim Hutton) during the 1964 Olympics. The first half of the movie is a series of unfunny scenes revolving around the main characters’ incompatibilities, but the second half of the film consists of Bill conspiring to set Steve up with Christine, who is smitten with him but also happens to be engaged to the boring British embassy secretary Julius Haversack (John Standing).
At the midpoint of the film, Steve attempts to set up a date with Christine but is thwarted when her attempt to prevent Julius from contacting her – leaving her phone off the hook – is undone by another guest who places the phone back on the hook. Bill and Steve then arrange for an “accidental” encounter with Julius and Christine, where Bill spends the rest of the day distracting Julius, allowing Steve and Christine to bond. Their plans are shattered when Steve and Christine are accused of being spies and arrested. Bill is able to bail them out, but in the process, Steve is forced to reveal that he has been living with Christine, which draws the otherwise oblivious Julius’ suspicion. Steve then leaves the police station without signing a waiver that would keep the incident out of official records, putting Julius’ career in jeopardy.
Bill, Christine, and Julius track down Steve at the Olympics and get him to sign the waiver, but in the process end up divulging information about the affair to the press. Steve and Christine are forced to get a shotgun marriage in order to defuse the story, with them planning to annul it once the incident blows over. Julius reluctantly allows Steve to sleep at Christine’s apartment one last night, but due to his suspicion, stays behind to sleep in a chair outside of Christine’s bedroom. The film ends with Steve sneaking into Christine’s room and the two embracing as Bill watches from the street.
Walk, Don’t Run reminds me of Funny People in several ways, namely in having a plot in which a single alpha wins the heart of a taken woman. A few points:
- The differences between Steve and Julius are not nearly as big as the differences between George Simmons and Clarke in Funny People. Steve is portrayed as a bit of a rogue; he is first introduced in the movie when Bill sees him taking notes outside of a building where he is mistaken for a corporate spy. He is also exceedingly secretive about himself, refusing to answer questions about what sport he is competing in in the Olympics. Additionally, Steve openly disdains marriage. That said, he and Julius are separated mostly by their attitudes (Steve is exciting and energetic, while Julius is stuffy and dull) and not their entire characters.
- The reality of female amorality was known back in the “good old days.” When Steve first proposes a date to Christine, she attempts to offer an excuse, claiming that Julius would want to see her that day, while simultaneously severing her only means of communication with him, allowing her to go with Steve. She is portrayed as being willing to toss away her years-long engagement to Julius for a man whom she has only known for a few days. The gina tingle rules all.
- The ending came as a legitimate shock to me. The outcome of the story’s events is ambiguous, leaving us to watch Steve and Christine kiss while Bill, having driven a wedge between an engaged couple, leaves to return to Britain
and celebrate his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The irony is obvious. - Walk, Don’t Run was released to theaters in 1966, on the cusp of the Sexual Revolution. This was the literal last gasp of the Golden Age of Hollywood, just before the countercultural New Hollywood filmmakers came roaring in. Given that Walk, Don’t Run is a product of Golden Age filmmaking, the film’s approval of mate-stealing and its ambiguous ending shows that the rot had infected society well before the actual rise of the counterculture. This is why I am critical of conservatives who idealize the 1950′s as some sort of era of utopian traditionalism – the virus had entered the culture well before the 1960′s, and the Sexual Revolution was nothing more than the whitehead exploding after reaching critical mass.
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Yep. The 50s were “the 60s before the 60s”.
Pretty much the entire 20th century was the story of women being freed up to pursue their sexual desires. The 20s were pretty racy, as well, and that was tamped down only by depression and world war II. The trend resumed promptly thereafter in the 50s, and reached critical mass in the 60s and 70s. The situation we face today has its roots not a couple of decades ago, but almost a century ago. That’s one of the main reasons it will be so difficult to dislodge in any significant way.
There was a good reason why men had to put some controls on female sexuality.
The result is what we see today: bad boy addictions and a 40% single mama to newborn babies rate (and rising). And the collapse of civilization under the weight of the social burdens this causes…
This is a re-make of “The More the Merrier” (1943), with Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn. That was a funny movie, much more appropriately when set in 1943.
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