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Ginger in the 1950's

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Ginger Rogers with Victor Moore (the original Vice President Alexander Throttlebottom in the 1931 Pulitzer Prize Musical "Of Thee I Sing" by the Gershwin Brothers, Moss Hart, and George F. Kaufman), in the film "We're Not Married".  Moore is a clumsy "Justice of the Peace" who jumped the gun and married five couples before he was legally entitled to do so.  They are Ginger and Fred Allan, Hope Emerson (and her unseen husband - her story deals with a conniving "friend" played by Walter Brennan), Marilyn Monroe and David Wayne, Louis Calhern and Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Eve Arden and Paul Douglas.  The five stories deal with how the couples react to the news that their unions are not legal (at this time).  In a way it is similar to the plot of Hitchcock's 1941 comedy "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" with Robert Montgomery, Carole Lombard, and Gene Raymond. 

The sequence between Fred and Ginger (they are the so-called "lovey-dovey" couple on a daily radio show like the then popular "Breakfast with Dorothy [Kilgallen] and Dick [Kolmar - Kilgallen's actual husband and a Broadway singer/actor]".  Whereas Kilgallen and Kolmar got along pretty well, when Allen and Rogers are not on the air they are always bickering.  Rogers, having learned the marriage is not legal, is smiling with Moore, and she and Allen hope to soon end this idiotic situation (but will they?).  Monroe and Wayne are a young couple, and they have a kid, but with her still terrific figure she and her manager (Jimmy Gleason) want her to continue a modeling career - and win a new beauty pageant for a "Mrs. America".  When they learn the marriage is illegal, Monroe is ecstatic - she eventually enters and wins the "MISS America" pageant instead (when she is crowned, we see a smiling Wayne holding the baby).  Douglas and Arden have fallen into a marriage rut, and usually are bored or quarreling.  Douglas gets the news, and stars dance out of his eyes.  He sees himself resuming his care-free bachelor days with a different sexpot date every night.  The dream is pleasing, until he sees a bill from the nightclub for about $100.00 (1954 Eisenhower dollars) floating down.  Suddenly he realizes one of the benefits of both monogamy and domesticity.
Emerson lives in the "piney woods" country with a large set of kids from her husband.  She happens to be a great cook, and Brennan likes to "schnurr" ("wheedle") some of her food for lunch (he seems to be between jobs, unlike Emerson's husband).  Emerson likes Brennan, who has sort of promised to be available to be her new lover/husband/support (for her AND her kids) if the marriage collapses.  Brennan figures it won't.  He can read, and when Emerson gets a letter from Moore she asks Brennan to read it to her.  Brennan starts reading it and turns white, realizing that he may have to marry Emerson (aside from her culinary skills, he can't see it).  He lies about the contents of the letter and tears it up.  What he does not know is that back in Moore's home in Oregon, Moore thinks that Emerson might not get the letter because she lives in the countryside.  So he sends a second copy. 

Most people like the Allan - Rogers section best, but favor Calhern and Zsa Zsa.   Calhern is an oil and mineral millionaire, and marries Zsa Zsa as a "trophy wife".  She is about as trustworthy to him as Rhonda was to Robert Ryan in "Inferno", but not as potentially deadly.  She with the assistance of Paul Stewart (who is her advisor and presumably planned this) and Alfie Briggs (one of Preston Sturgis' regulars - the tall guy with the mustache who speaks in a flat one note voice all the time, and seems smarter than other characters), set up a woman to be photographed in bed with Calhern as a frame-up, so Zsa Zsa can take Calhern to the cleaners when they divorce.  Calhern is confused and hurt by this, and how he has to answer questions about his resources from the demanding Stewart at a meeting.  But he gets the letter from Moore, and reads it while alone.  He returns to the meeting looking refreshed, and suddenly talks about hidden bank accounts abroad, and assets under other names.  "Why are you being so cooperative?", asks an astonished Stewart.  Calhern smiles and says there is no need to be nasty at a sad time like this.
Stewart and Zsa Zsa begin to leave, when Calhern says to his unfaithful sex partner if they can have a private word before they part for the last time.  Stewart allows her to do this.  After Stewart is gone, Calhern does a performance of the sad old husband saying a final fairwell to his once cherished lover.  Zsa Zsa follows suit, pretending to show sentimental regret.  Than Calhern says, "Before you go, I want to present you with a small final gift - just a few words on paper from my heart to yours...that's all!"  Zsa Zsa is given the letter from Moore, and we see Calhoun go to his bar and pour himself a drink.  Off the camera we hear Zsa Zsa screaming, "No! No!! NO!!!" and apparently falling down in a faint.  Louis turns around and toast her fallen body as the scene ends.