Ain't nobody write me like you read me before

[sovay]

I freely admit that I ground my way through the protracted heteronormative anxieties of Strange Lady in Town (1955) for the continued presence of twenty-three-year-old Lois Smith as Spurs O'Brien, one of those mixed-up motherless tomboys who just needs her gender trouble sorted out by her father's remarriage to a strong feminine role model if you believe the screenplay and looks such a late nineteenth century baby dyke in her ranch jacket and jingling boots that you feel she's just waiting for motorcycle clubs to be invented. Her crush on a cavalry lieutenant is narratively doomed and might in any case have been envy. Put her in a ball gown, she's right back in trousers and string ties the next scene, heedless and gallant as any young grandee. I mean when Dana Andrews drags his heels on the sub-screwball romance through which the picture manifests its stresses over the place of professional women, Spurs does her best to run off with Greer Garson herself, all the way back to Boston. "I don't know, Doc, except—well, except I can't figure out any sort of life without you." What did the film think it was doing with her? I don't even know what it thought it was doing with the slap-kiss of its textual couple, but I took an awful screencap just because of the lingering way Spurs sees herself out of a room with Garson's Dr. Julia Garth in it. Once she gets over the rebound, she'll make some Eastern belle ring. "But what a woman!"

Comments

[theseatheseatheopensea]

Oh, I have to watch this one! I really liked Lois Smith in Five Easy Pieces, and I'm always here for western tomboys! <3

[sovay]

Oh, I have to watch this one! I really liked Lois Smith in Five Easy Pieces, and I'm always here for western tomboys!

It is not a good movie, but honestly she's amazing. "Don't argue," she orders her father, "just get on your horse and get busy, because I'm warning you, if she leaves town, then I'm leaving with her!" And then she's as good as her word.

[regshoe]

That may be an awful screencap, but I think it successfully conveys something of the character's appeal, at least :D (And yet it's the much more conventionally-feminine looking woman on the right who's a doctor? This film sounds interesting, if not good)

[aurumcalendula]

Spurs sounds cool! (I'm tempted to watch the movie to see if could make a femslashy vid out of it)

[theseatheseatheopensea]

It sounds like the kind of movie that needs a queer canon divergence to fix it!

[sovay]

Spurs sounds cool! (I'm tempted to watch the movie to see if could make a femslashy vid out of it)

I think it would be the best thing possible for the movie if you did.

[sovay]

It sounds like the kind of movie that needs a queer canon divergence to fix it!

Dana Andrews snoozes, he loses.

[sovay]

That may be an awful screencap, but I think it successfully conveys something of the character's appeal, at least

Hooray! She is what the picture has going for it.

(And yet it's the much more conventionally-feminine looking woman on the right who's a doctor? This film sounds interesting, if not good)

(It's true that its confusion produced results compelling enough I had to write about them. That is indeed the doctor in red.)

[larryhammer]

That is so excellently baby dyke.

And, huh! Lois Smith is still alive and kicking at 95, and still making movies.

[sovay]

That is so excellently baby dyke.

You see why I couldn't just turn the thing off.

And, huh! Lois Smith is still alive and kicking at 95, and still making movies.

Yes! I had seen her younger without knowing her, but I discovered her with Marjorie Prime (2017). I checked that she was still around.

[gullyfoyle]

As penance for your mixed feelings over watching this movie, you are sentenced to watching "Johnny Guitar" (again, I'm thinking).

[sovay]

As penance for your mixed feelings over watching this movie, you are sentenced to watching "Johnny Guitar" (again, I'm thinking).

Fortunately, it would be no penance.