Young at Heart

I watched this old movie, quite by accident. Though I rarely channel-surf, I hit upon this movie the other night and became hooked. I even recorded it; I have since watched it a couple more times. What was it, Doris Day's seductive voice? She has a way of speaking that is feminine and melodic, gentle, and yet commanding. Her voice goes into a whisper for effect and yet it can also rise up quite matter-of-factly when the need arises. Was it the time warp evoked by the trio of blonde hairdos, by the 1950s attire? (As the three sisters look up at once, smiling in perfect stylized synchronicity, not a hair out of place, all lip-glossed and golden, it reminds me of an Olympic sport... Were all the women in the 50s so perfectly put together? I think of Plath and how she suffered for it.)

No... These things moved me, but what really hooked me, I think, was Frank Sinatra. Honestly, his character cast a spell. Barney Sloan. The gaunt cheeks, the deep self-pity. Doris Day stood in contrast, as what Barney called "the gay-young-thing type." She was all sunshine and he was all gloom. Exactly as billed.

But more than that - The way they talked to each other - it evoked the most poignant aspects of a time when our culture was fundamentally different, when certainly women approached men a different way, and likely vice versa. Yet although men may have been said to have the "power," at least politically speaking, women had the real power when it came to romance. Laurie (Doris Day's character) was like the muse -- she provided the beauty, the inspiration, the magnetism which in turn provided Barney a reason to live. But I oversimplify. She was commanding, as I mentioned, and nurturing as well. A woman in charge of herself who could be "someone to watch over" him. (Yes. He sang that song in the film. She was watching.)

How is it achieved? I wonder. This balance of seduction, attraction, beauty, femininity, with strength, presence, confidence? And why do women now feel that if they intentionally make themselves attractive to men they'll lose respect, at least self-respect? Why do women now feel that to be powerful they have to be "ballsy" and hard -- stiff, unmoved, like Hillary Clinton? It was her downfall ultimately that she fought exactly this internal battle. Although I raged against that fact as a feminist, when I watch Doris Day I think maybe Hillary could've learned something from her. Am I crazy?

But in the movie, you wouldn't see all this without him. Man and woman truly complement each other here. That's the hook. Say all you want about Doris Day. It all boils down to Barney - Sinatra acting Barney - and the way he appreciates her.

There's a scene where he's in a bar, playing piano and singing ("Just One of Those Things"), and smoking his cigarette, feeling down on his luck, and the whole picture, which has since become cliche -- but at the time was not, so it's OK -- and Laurie walks in, and he's surprised to see her. "What are you doing here?" he asks. "I could ask you the same question," she says, "And a few more besides." He tells her about his latest round in the battle with the Fates. The latest bad card they have dealt him. He's in love with her and she's about to be married. Why, he asks, does she have to be so beautiful? If only her eyes were dull or her nose shiny...

As I said, she's perfectly put together, but it's his appreciation that really draws out the magic; it's his pain that makes this scene romantic. He wants her. Sinatra's able, somehow, to make us feel this quality of wanting. Throughout the movie, with his stance, his face, his voice (of course), we see a man wanting. A man needing. And he's no less masculine for it!

She's totally in charge of herself, even when he seems to stop feeling sorry for himself, when he stands up and says he's going to fight for her. Even when she starts to cry, because she feels so deeply for him. She might seem to be acting like the weepy female, but she's acting conscientiously like a woman who's careful with a man's ego. So she allows him to say "Go." And after a pause. "Go!"

Maybe this is the romantic movie I've been looking for. It's not one or the other of them, but man and woman together, as I said before, in perfect complement.