Why was Hollywood's most magnetic woman always cast as the one who loses?
A video essay about fifties and early sixties social and sexual mores, in life and in cinema, and how these "codes" (in partnership with a production Code, capital C, which was almost antediluvian in terms of sexual politics) molded and then trapped the female performers who came up in the shadow of it all. Suzanne Pleshette is a perfect case in point.
Editing
Juxtaposes Pleshette's smolder against her thankless roles
Direction
Kremer's narration treats her career as detective work
Director
Daniel Kremer
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Pleshette recorded her lines for this essay shortly before her death in 2008; Kremer sat on the footage for over a decade.
The Hays Code's 'Compensating Values' clause let films show 'sin' only if punished—hence every Pleshette romance ending in noble sacrifice or spinsterhood.
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