Sex and the Single Girl (1964)
This week’s look into romantic comedies is a blast to the past, back to the beginning of the Sexual Revolution that opened the door for the female characters we see today. In one sense Sex and the Single Girl, directed by Richard Quine, embodies the burgeoning feminism of its time, but it’s the whimsical free-spiritedness of the 60s that really shines through on screen.
The film revolves around Bob, a writer at the notoriously trashy gossip rag STOP, attempting to prove Dr. Helen Gurley Brown, whose bestseller is full of tips about bagging men, is actually as pure as the driven snow. He impersonates his neighbor Frank (Henry Fonda) to get Helen to counsel him, while Frank and his wife Sylvia (Lauren Bacall) bicker marvelously throughout the film. Bob’s girlfriend and Helen’s psychologist colleague round out the neat little love square in the plot, which all gets resolved in a raucous — and seemingly unending, chase scene in the third act.
Sex and the Single Girl is extremely loosely based on the real Helen Gurley Brown’s book of the same name. Brown’s book hit shelves two years prior and made waves on the cultural landscape, selling 2 million copies in 3 weeks. It’s full of tips on beauty, dieting, dating, and living a “rich, full life”. Essentially a guide for embracing your femininity and taking advantage of new social and economic opportunities as a women in the sixties. The book was hugely transgressive for the time, encouraging women to be open about having sex before marriage and enjoying it; there’s even a chapter on having an affair with a married man. Helen Gurley Brown used the massive success to become editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, which she ran for 43 years.
On the surface, it’s hard to see what, if any feminist message from the book made it into the movie. Natalie Wood’s portrayal of Brown certainly reflects the sort of empowered young woman that Brown was in real life, but she’s won over to the side of monogamy by Bob Weston, the man who slandered her name and lied to her incessantly. The real Helen Gurley Brown enjoyed the single life until the age of 37. In addition, it’s filled with the centuries old romantic traditions of attempted suicides for love and silly obstacle course love triangles. However, in the grand scheme of romantic comedies, I think Sex and the Single Girl marks a turning point in progress for the genre and a corresponding shift in culture.
Think about it, just 30 years before, Twentieth Century was released, a film in which a man manipulates a woman into doing his will and is played as the sincere protagonist. In 30 years the entire romantic premise has shifted. Romance is no longer a man sculpting a woman to his liking, here he has to repent for his ways and change to get the girl. Already, we’re much closer in theme to 2002’s Punch-Drunk Love than to Twentieth Century. Which goes to show what a transformative time it was for society. The sexual revolution truly changed the paradigm, and I think it was this time period that introduced the narrative framework for romantic comedies through to the modern day.
With the wild cultural transformations came the wild artistic endeavors of the 60’s. Sex and the Single Girl is wildly funny, notably the dialogue between Fonda and Bacall. Bob’s office having coin-operated mirrors and drinking fountains are a humorous way to let you know that STOP is a rag. There’s clever editing bits as well, the reveal of Frank and Sylvia doing the twist is wonderful and the chase scene was stitched together with care. Cinematography is mostly standard, and the music is fitting for its time. Nothing highlights the film’s sense of playfulness more than the chase scene really. The whole chase (a symbol of the cat and mouse game of love perhaps) is a big laugh, and it gives you the sense the movie doesn’t want you to worry about the social changes so much. That is, I think, the movie’s central message — to laugh along with progress, and know you might have to make some changes if you want to make it.
