MovieChat Forums > White Christmas (1954) Discussion > Mary Wickes doesn't get her comeupance

Mary Wickes doesn't get her comeupance

posted 16 years ago by jandacinnamon
47 replies | jump to latest

My wife and I watch this every year and the thing that gets to us is that the innkeeper's housekeeper (Mary Wickes) never really has to account for her misunderstanding about what she overheard on the phone. That's the thing that starts the whole tiff between Bob (Bing) and Betty (Rosemary). And frankly, Betty's not much better. Why doesn't she just come out and tell Bob why she's upset? He'd clear it up just like that...but then the movie would be about a half an hour shorter.

That's what we get for trying to analyze a 1950's musical.

[–] SRECCLES 14 years ago

I remember watching the movie as a kid and saying the same thing to my mother...Mary's character started all the trouble and she gets away with it.

[–] SilverCreedWolf 14 years ago

The stage version of this resolves this by having the housekeeper character misunderstand a message that the Ed Harrison character leaves for Bob as she's working the switchboard (their names are not the same in the stage version). No eavesdropping.

Furthermore, what she misunderstands is different in the stage version. She believes that Bob and Phil are trying to buy the Inn from underneath the general, which she then tells Betty, who of course, has the same reaction.

I tend to like how the stage version handles this better.

JOE TYRIA
http://www.youtube.com/user/SilverCreedWolf

[–] wrfarley 14 years ago

That's a very interesting revision. Of course, the stage's book writers had over half a century to come up with it. The Mary Wickes character is unsympathetic by today's standard because she is devious. To 50's film audiences, her behavior would've seemed awkward but honest (in keeping with "I Love Lucy" hijinks of the day).

[–] jackboot 14 years ago

It's a little hard to be truly objective, since I'm so familiar with, and attached to, the original, but I think that I'll stick with the film's original version of events over the stage version.

The eavesdropping thing is meant to be funny. It's a classic busy-body thing to do, to listen in on someone else's conversations and draw all sorts of (generally incorrect) conclusions. That's ample fodder to grease and set in motion the gears of comedy.

The misunderstood message kind of takes the housekeeper out the action. She has no stake, no culpability and we don't get to laugh at her mistake the same way we can by seeing a busy body get hoisted in her own petard.

I think that devious is a little strong for Emma, Farley. I'd just say that she was a nosy busy body (and what a nose!). Why was she so nosy? she seemed to be on an eternal mission to keep the General's life together (it took fifteen thousand men to take her place, after all), so, I'm sure she was largely motivated by a sense of needing to protect the General from himself as much as to protect him from anyone else. Emma is not an altogether unsympathetic character. She's one of the boys with Bob and Phil, she's one of the girls with Betty and Judy, she's like an aunt to the General's granddaughter, the General obviously needs her to keep his own life in order and she does reveal a few soft spots in her rhinoceros hide by getting all choked up over Betty's return and also when she helps send the General in the door to his big surprise party at the end. I like the Emma factor in this treatment. She's the closest thing we get to a bad guy and she's not really so bad after all and in spite of her busy body ways, she is, all the way through, an integral member of the family.

It would have been nice for her to have to acknowledge the cost her busybody ways imposed. For me, that would have made for a complete, clean and tidy wrap up and ending. It would have been cute if they'd set Emma up by having Phil phone the lodge, pretending to seek the job of housekeeper (couldn't you see Phil doing that??) with Emma snooping on the conversation only to get caught in the act and everyone, Emma included, getting a big laugh at the end.

[–] Bilwick1 14 years ago

The current Broadway musical was going to have a number to cover the comeuppance, "Let's Slap This Bitch Around," but before it got to Broadway the producers decided it added a discordant note and made the show less family-friendly.

[–] prjdean 14 years ago

Bilwicki

you are very imaginative and funny too but all the things you have written about deleted scenes etc. are total fictions. There are no deleted scenes on any dvds.

But I do love your line about in the remake that Phil will be straight!

[–] Bilwick1 14 years ago

"Bilwicki

you are very imaginative and funny too but all the things you have written about deleted scenes etc. are total fictions."

Aw shucks, you found me out, prjdean! You're a regular Hercule Poirot.

[–] prjdean 14 years ago

I might add that they make very enjoyable reading --

No Poirot here although I have played similar detectives on stage!

[–] SRECCLES 14 years ago

I know. I remember watching this as a kid. When Mary's character says something like "If I wasn't such an old biddy I'd cry" I remember saying out loud "This whole thing was her fault" and my mother laughed.

[–] wannabertist 13 years ago

My guess is, they edited out a scene where she might own up to it. The movie is long so they probably took it out cause there were more mportant scenes to show. Just my guess. Bugs me too.

[–] JussSayin 10 years ago

I agree that Emma should have apologized for her error. Instead they simply acted like it never happened.

[–] JohnD61 8 years ago

I wanted a scene where Danny Kaye poisons Mary Wickes and as she is dying he says to her:

The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!

[–] Scarecrow-88 8 years ago

This is the part I have a problem with as well. Not necessarily that Wickes needs to be punished or anything but that Betty doesn't address what she believes is wrong just outright. It would have saved a lot of fuss and drama. She just goes around in a huff with plenty of stiff upper lip. If she just said her piece, the whole situation would have been settled. However, that's the point. To drum up some melodrama, there's the threat towards the show and romance for dramatic effect.

[–] MNRebecca (769) 2 years ago

Remember, she tried that before. She tried the honest, straightforward route with Bob in Florida talking about Benji‘s letter. Bob responded cynically and interrupted frequently, making sincere conversation with him difficult. He continues to interrupt Betty throughout the movie. It makes sense that she would think there’s no point in trying to talk to him.

[–] strntz (11813) 2 years ago

Remember, she tried that before. She tried the honest, straightforward route with Bob in Florida talking about Benji‘s letter. Bob responded cynically and interrupted frequently, making sincere conversation with him difficult.

That's not a bad point (darn), but she could have even gotten a backhand insult in at Bob during the piano argument about Bob taking advantage of the general which would open a dialog.

Still, in Florida, while Bob was a bit of a dick, his main point was that he had no issue with Betty's plan whatsoever - it was Betty who didn't like that Bob pointed out her little "angle" which was absolutely true - something Betty didn't want to hear.

I wish they had addressed the misunderstanding a little better (I heard the stage play handled that differently). It's difficult to see two characters we like not only fight, but fight over something that doesn't even exist.