Going Backwards

In the 1940 A-movie His Girl Friday, Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) is torn between life as a star newspaper reporter, with her editor boss (Cary Grant), and marriage to a dull mama’s boy (Ralph Bellamy). 

The role of women in society has been slowly evolving.
For most of European and American history, women have been dependent on their fathers or husbands.
There were clear divides.
The wealthy women were ladies of leisure, with some not even tending to their own children.
Some middle-class women kept house, while others took in laundry, assisted in their husbands’ businesses, or did piece work in their homes.
Poor women worked in factories, or were servants.

In The Corpse Vanishes, the bride-stealing Dr Lorenz (Bela Lugosi) threatens the lives of snoopy reporter Patricia Hunter (Luana Walters) and brave medical Dr. Foster (Tristram Coffin). In this 1942 B-movie, the female protagonist gives up her job for marriage.

Movies of the 1920’s through the 1940’s illustrate that the fact of women entering the work force in greater numbers was a major problem for men.
It happened in stages.
At first, women became typists, factory workers, nurses, teachers, and reporters.
A few women ran businesses, usually after their husbands died.
Slowly, women entered more and more male professions, but they always earned less money than men.
1940’s Hollywood script writers observed this “evolution” in the roles of the sexes, and acted by attempting to persuade women that their main societal goal should be marriage and children.

In Bowery at Midnight, evil psychology professor Brenner (Bela Lugosi) threatens the lives of caring society girl Judy Malvern (Wanda McKay, seen above) and her society boyfriend Richard Dennison (John Archer). In this 1942 B-movie, the female protagonist gives up her job for marriage.

By the late 1980’s, thrillers and comedies didn’t conclude with marriage ceremonies.
Instead, in “romantic” films like 1988’s Working Girl and 2009’s The Proposal, “hard-driving” business women were the butt of jokes.
The main point of most of these “romantic comedies” was that business was a cutthroat world, for which women were emotionally “unsuited.” *

One way of thinking about today’s anti-abortion movement is that it isn’t just about preserving human life.
It’s about men being dominant over women.
The current President promises to “protect” and “take care” of American women, whether they “like it or not.”
Not being able to end a pregnancy, and not being able to obtain adequate birth control methods, makes women dependent on the men.
It’s still almost impossible for any poor or middle-class woman to raise a child on her own.

I recently discovered the book Sex and the Constitution.
Geoffrey R. Stone’s book was published in 2017.
Yet, I had not heard of this 668-page book, until I found it in a used book shop.

Cover of Sex and the Constitution, by Geoffrey R. Stone.

In Mr. Stone’s book, I learned that the Supreme Court justices who decided Roe vs Wade, in a 7-2 decision (1973), relied on far different opinions than the justices who overturned Roe vs Wade in 2022.
Indeed, one of the justices (Harry Blackmun) spent hours in the Mayo Clinic Library reviewing books and articles on the history and practice of abortion.
Justice Blackmun asked in his draft opinion:

What. . . did it mean to say that a doctor can legally perform an abortion only to save the life of a woman? Did this mean that the doctor could perform an abortion “only when, without it, the patient will surely die?. . . Must death be imminent?”

Justice Blackmun’s sensitivity to this issue is a far cry from the “precedents” that Justice Samuel Alito relied upon.
While Blackmun, and the other justices, relied on the latest research, Samuel Alito turned to the 1600’s.
In his draft opinion, he quoted from Sir Mathew Hale (1609-1676), the English witchcraft judge who burned witches, and make marital rape legal.

Was Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price), in 1968’s The Conqueror Worm, a follower of Judge Matthew Hale? The time period does match. This British film was also known as Witchfinder General.

Doctors in the 21 states that are currently banning abortions assume that the death of the woman must be imminent in order for them to provide an abortion.
As a result of Roe vs Wade being overturned, pregnant women are not being treated by medical professionals, but are instead bleeding out in hospital parking lots.

In contrast to Justice Alito who allied himself with witch-killer Justice Hale, Justice Blackmun pointed out that the “criminalization of abortion was a relatively recent phenomenon” in world history. “At the time of the adoption of our Constitution, and throughout the major portion of the 19th century . . . a woman enjoyed a substantially broader right to terminate a pregnancy that she does in most states today.” Justice Blackmun was talking about women in 1972!

In the TV show Murphy Brown, the title character became an unwed mother, and shocked America. In the scene above, Murphy (Candice Bergen) goes into labor during an episode of her newsmagazine series FYI. Murphy Brown ran from 1988-1998, and was revived in 2018.

Another fact that I learned in Sex and the Constitution (about the Roe vs Wade decision), was how Justice William J. Brennon (at that time, the only Catholic Justice on the Court) reconciled his own religious beliefs with his responsibilities as a Supreme Court judge:

I wouldn’t under any circumstances condone an abortion in my private life,” but . . . “that has nothing to do with whether or not those who have different views are entitled to have them and are entitled to be protected in their exercise of them. That’s my job in applying and interpreting the Constitution.

In the 1972 two-part episode, of the sitcom Maude (“Maude’s Dilemma”), Maude Findlay (Bea Arthur) informs her husband (Bill Macy) that she has decided to have an abortion. Some advertisers dropped the show; some affiliates didn’t air reruns of this two-parter.

Although few admit it, Roe vs Wade was a compromise on abortion.
The U.S. Constitution doesn’t allow states to deny freedoms to its’ citizens, in order to accommodate the religious beliefs of other citizens.
Yet, Roe vs Wade did limit a woman’s freedom by protecting the life of her unborn child, and placing that possible life above her own.
Essentially, Roe vs Wade eliminated a woman’s right to an abortion as soon as her potential progeny became viable.
Medical experts should help Congress work out a national abortion policy that fosters the births of viable infants, as well as the health and well-being of their mothers. 

* ”Unsuited” is an interesting word. Does a man-style suit, by design, give a woman authority?

Don’t Mix Up Your Vampire Stories

Poster from the 1922 film version of Nosferatu.

This memorandum is a collection of thoughts after ingesting five creative endeavors within the course of a short time.
The first creation that I enjoyed was the new 2024 film Nosferatu.
(My husband and I recommend it highly.)
After watching Nosferatu, we were inspired to rewatch the 1922 silent by F.W. Murnau, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (that the four other Nosferatu creations are based on); Werner Herzog’s 1979 Nosferatu The Vampyre (the German version, with English subtitles!); reread the 1979 Paul Monette novel based on Herzog’s script (found in my husband’s extensive horror library); as well as rewatch the fantasy/horror film about the making of Murnau’s Nosferatu, 2000’s Shadow of the Vampire.

Around 25 years after Bram Stoker published the novel Dracula, Murnau released his silent film version of the vampire tale.

German actor Max Schreck portrayed the Count.

In Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, F.W. Murnau reinterpreted Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, which had been published in 1897.
After Murnau’s film was released, Mrs. Bram Stoker sued the German production company for infringing on her husband’s copyright.
As a result, all copies of the silent film were ordered destroyed.
(Fortunately, a few copies of the film survived, and Nosferatu has been gradually restored since 1922.)

The scene in the 1922 Nosferatu, in which the count sucks the blood of his victim, seems based on the Edvard Munch 1895 painting Love and Pain, in which a woman sucks the blood of a man.

This memorandum doesn’t deal with the many films, and books, that involve Bram Stoker’s story of Dracula.
(For example, we enjoyed the Plexus Polaire puppet theatre production Dracula: Lucy’s Dream, which was performed in Chicago in January of 2025.)

Also, there are other vampire stories, related to Murnau’s concept of Nosferatu, that we’ve not watched recently.

One central difference between Bram Stoker’s vampire tale, and F.W. Murnau’s vampire tale, is how the stories end.
In the Stoker story, heroic men usually stake a vampire, and attempt to protect their women from a vampire’s lust.
In the Murnau vision, a woman sacrifices herself sexually to a vampire to end a plague, and protect her man.
In the Bram Stoker’s Dracula stories, the women are generally helpless creatures.
In the Nosferatu stories, the female character is more powerful.

Count Dracula (Klaus Kinski) takes over the Demeter in Werner Herzog’s 1979 Nosferatu.

Another big difference between the two visions of the vampire, is the involvement of disease.
In the Bram Stoker novel a plague isn’t mentioned.
Furthermore, most of the rats in the novel infest the Demeter.*

Side note: a few years after F.W. Murnau (1888-1931) made his vampire movie, he began to work in America, where he directed three films.
He was only in his early 40’s when he died (in Hollywood), in a tragic traffic accident.
According to IMDb, of the 21 films that Murnau made from 1919 to 1931, eight have been lost.
Only 11 people attended his 1931 Santa Barbara funeral, among them: famed actress Greta Garbo, and director Fritz Lang.
His body was buried in Germany.

In both the 2024 film and the 1922 silent film, the main protagonist is named “Ellen.”
Ellen is a sweet, docile woman in the 1922 silent.
However, she summons enough strength to kill the vampire, end the plague, and (by doing so) save her city.

Shadow of the Vampire is a 2000 fantasy about the making of the 1922 silent.
It stars John Malkovich as director Murnau, and Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck, the actor who played Nosferatu.
In the 2000 fantasy, Max Schreck was actually a real vampire (a dark secret that director Murnau keeps from his cast and crew).

In the late 1970’s, Werner Herzog decided to make a reinterpretation of Murnau’s film; he called it Nosferatu The Vampyre.
Herzog’s version starred Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula, Isabelle Adjani as the main female protagonist “Lucy Harker,” and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Harker.
(Herzog gave his characters the “Bram Stoker” names, since copyright was no longer an issue.)
In both the film, and Paul Monette’s novelization of the screenplay, Lucy sacrifices herself to Dracula, ending the plague.
However, after Lucy dies, the vampire’s spirit is then transported into the body of her husband, making her actions to protect the city possibly successful, but the attempt to save her husband futile.

In 2024 film Nosferatu, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) is a haunted woman.

There are some interesting differences between the 1979 Herzog film, and the Monette novel.
(Generally, novelizations are based on the first version of a screenplay, before filming starts.)
Some of these alterations can be explained because they obviously made the budget smaller.
Others made vital changes to the story.

One of the primary differences, between the film, and the novel of the Herzog versions, is the nature of the second female lead (Mina, played by Martje Grohmann).
The Mina role is much smaller in the film, than it is in the book.
In the novel, main-character Lucy is viewed as an outsider by the other women of the town.
Her frenemy Mina comes to believe that Lucy must be communing with evil forces, and is not “a proper woman.”
Eventually, the Mina in the novel develops into a “religious fanatic.”
She communes with rats, and soon refuses to be in the same room as “unclean” Lucy.

Another significant difference is that the Lucy character is portrayed as much more sexual in the Monette novel.
When Lucy sleepwalks, she sleepwalks in the nude, not in a nightgown (as she does in the film). Furthermore, in the novel, Dr. Van Helsing places a stake in the heart of Lucy (not Count Dracula), and is then led off to be imprisoned. 

The sexual nature of the female lead (Lucy/Ellen), is portrayed differently in all five works.
In the 1922 version, Ellen seduces the vampire as an act of feminine self-sacrifice.
Up to that point, she’s a sweet creature who sews, serves breakfast to her husband, and plays gently with her kittens.

The Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) character in the 2024 film, Nosferatu, is the most sexual of all the Ellen/Lucy/Mina characters. Her version of Ellen has been haunted by the dark spirit of the vampire since childhood.
In one scene, Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz (the “Van Helsing” character, portrayed by Willem Dafoe) tells Ellen that she may be a reincarnation of Isis, the pagan goddess of the underworld.

In 1979 film Nosferatu The Vampyre, Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) is preyed on by Count Dracula (Klaus Kinski).

In the 1979 Herzog versions, brave Lucy Harker sets out to destroy the vampire by herself.
First, she attempts to convince public officials to help her, but she’s unsuccessful.
She tries to convince Van Helsing that the vampire exists, but the doctor tells her that she’s delusional.
Finally, Lucy places consecrated hosts in the vampire’s coffin, and arranges more diced-up hosts in a circle around her husband.
(When we saw the film, we thought Lucy was protecting Jonathan from the vampire, but perhaps she was protecting herself from Jonathan.)

Despite all her activities, trying to combat the vampire, Isabelle Adjani’s Lucy is not nearly as powerful as Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen.
Each has a scene in which they confront the vampire in their bedrooms.
In both films, it’s apparent that the vampire is both a seducer, and the seduced.
He’s both a victim of his vampiric condition, and in thrall to the female protagonist, who nevertheless represents “good,” opposed to his “evil.”

In the 1979 version of Nosferatu, Ellen/Lucy’s main female “friend” (Mina) is distrustful of her.
In the 2024 version of Nosferatu, the female main character is distrusted by a male character: Friedrich Harding (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson), the other half of the couple that Ellen/Lucy stays with while Thomas/Jonathan is in Transylvania.
Both the 1979 film and novel, and the 2024 film, make the point that for any female to have autonomy is dangerous and disturbing.

* Demeter is the ship that Dracula used to travel from Transylvania to London, in the Bram Stoker novel. Besides 2024’s Nosferatu, another good recent horror film to see is 2023’s The Last Voyage of the Demeter.