A cinematic -- or rather, actually, televisual --
illustration of the Eloquence of Silence.
In “The Case of the Sulky Girl” (TV, 1957), the eponymous (anti)heroine brushes past Perry Mason’s receptionist
(disregarding the objection that an appointment is required) and slips into his
office, where he is on the phone
with his back turned. He is
fumbling one-handedly with a cigarette (young folks today will be baffled by
this, but: Back in the day, there
were no hands-free phones; and
people other than serial killers
actually smoked onscreen); a slender
hand appears stage-right, with a lit match -- not a single one, not in contact
with her actual skin, but one set upright upon the matches-pack (we leave it to the hermeneuticists to unriddle the symbolism); he accepts the favor, bemused. And agrees to hear her out, there and
then.
Turns out she’s a prospective heiress (a well-worn feminine
movie trope; you won’t find guys mooning
away in that filmic position, unless they’re villains, as in Kind Hearts and Coronets), contesting a
trust. She stands to haul in
a cool million, provided she waits until age 25 to marry (and she but
twenty-three!). Mason, with
an air of reason, suggests, “Why not wait a couple of years? It sounds profitable.” -- “But I want to get married now.” -- “Mm, why?” -- …
… -- …
No answer. A
pause; a look, as blank as she can make it.
Mason, for a second opinion, glances over at Della
Reese.
She, not batting an eyelash, returns his glance.
Ahh… HA!
At this point, the adult members of the audience (the women,
certainly, and the wiser among the married men)
have cottoned on:
She
cannot wait, because she’s … with child.
Now... When I used to watch these episodes as a kid, sitting clueless on the sofa while Eisenhower stewarded the world, this passage would have blown right by me. But since it wasted no words, neither would it have perplexed me, or wasted time.
Well done, all.
[Note]
Among
the most fraught moments in movies, as we have observed before, are
wordless.
But that is not quite what we are getting at here.
In the climaxing scenes in the movies
referred to in that essay (“The Third Man”, “North by Northwest”, “The
Godfather II”), what is meant is
ineffable.
In this modest TV episode, it is
eminently effable:
She’s pregnant
out of wedlock, and doesn’t want to say so out loud.
So, it’s not
epiphanic;
but it is still an
elegant illustration of
s’entendre à
demi-mot -- or, in this case, no word at all.
(And very nice the way Mason, instantly glimpsing the truth,
nonetheless checks with Della for confirmation.)
For our own adventure
into the audio-visual,
where more is
suggested
than is explicitly
said,
try this:
For the adults who didn’t quite get it (while still leaving
the children partially in the
dark), a following scene confirms:
Sulky: “There’s something else you don’t know.”
Mason, complacently: “That was my second hunch; I hope it’s a boy.”
This strikes the modern viewer something like a fish-in-the-face: No-one would be allowed to place such a sentiment into the
mouth of the hero nowadays. And in this case, I must concur -- not
for reasons of political correctness, but of theological adequacy: “Man and Woman created He them.” (Thy will be done.)
[Post-note]
Another nice word-to-the-wise exchange -- not actually wordless, but minimalist.
Mason’s gumshoe briefly outlines the Sulky Girl’s earlier
méfaits.
Mason: “Maybe she’s just taking her
time growing up.”
Drake: “Hm. So was
Two-Gun Crowley.”
 |
Young Francis “Two-Gun”
Crowley:
an early forerunner
of Arthur “Two-Sheds” Jackson
|
[A precocious career criminal; executed for murder at the age of nineteen.]
