Douglas Sirks, Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)

The Unhappy Marriage...

Douglas Sirks, Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)

Synopsis: This film is the story of a weary couple, Lola Delaney a slaving wife to Doc Delaney a miserable chiropractor who is also a recovering alcoholic. The couple finds themselves searching for hope from the “best years of their lives” the past. Since the Delaneys didn’t have any children, they had a dog named little Sheba who vanished; Sheba was for the Delaneys the hope which they used to survive their miserable marriage. When a youthful female college student, Marie, comes into their lives to rent the room downstairs their lives change forever. Doc Delaney finds his new youthful tenant “a breath of fresh air” in comparison to his “nagging wife”. When Marie takes up with a crude guy, Doc Delaney then becomes entangled in jealousy and finds himself going back to the bottle. Whilst his wife Lola struggles to stay by his side and support him without losing herself in the process.

Analysis

Characters Appearances + Mannerisms of  (Marie)

In the beginning of the film the young college student Marie is introduced as room and board hunting. Marie sway’s her hips while she walks playfully up to the Delaney's front door. Her manner is proper, cheerful and motivated. Her physical appearance in the opening scene shows her wearing a bow in her hair, an long A-line skirt with a tucked in collar shirt. Mary Jane pumps and a bullet bra. Clearly this opening scene is accentuating her fit but curvy youthful figure. The image of youth, sex appeal and innocence plays in Marie’s performance of a type of idealized femininity of the 1950s.

With that being said; her performance of idealized Femininity does not just stop with her body language and appearance, but also with her interests.  After meeting Doc Delaney, Marie mentions that she is an art major and that the room down stairs would be perfect because it’s spacious and she could transform it into a studio for her work. Her chosen field of study seemed appropriate for a youthful upper middle class white woman before marriage. In that it involved more creativity, expressionism and freedom (In my opinion, something to keep her busy and give her a variety of potential husbands). After moving in, Marie starts dating a young man named Turk. Turk is a jerk! He is blonde, blue eyed, youthful athletic built and wealthy. But, because of his physical appearance and social status, he expresses hyper masculinity (Definition: Hyper masculinity is a psychological term for the exaggeration of male stereotypical behavior, such as an emphasis on physical strength, aggression, and sexuality. wiki) and is hypersexual. Turk is also, deviant and overbearing at the same time. Marie is able to control Turks overbearing affection by when she says, “No” “let’s just talk” “stop,” and “let’s do this instead.” But those girl power words do not last long, once Turk grabs hold of her and forcefully kisses her she struggles for a bit and then like a fish she then becomes still.

Near the end of the film Marie breaks it off with Turk, and when Mrs. Delaney asks why? Marie simple says, “I like Turk, but he's just not the marrying kind.”  Marie is displaying how marriage was still the goal for many women. Even with a woman pursing a college education, marriage was still on the brain and still very desired. Marie’s old boyfriend Bruce Cunningham comes back into the picture not to long afterwards, and wants to marry Marie. Now, Marie knows that this young man practically adores her, he is also wealthy, a true gentlemen and most importantly already stable (finished with school and working at a successful job). Unlike Turk (who is not stable, still in school, doesn’t adore her, and is immature) Bruce is the “marrying type.” When he comes down to visit her, Marie gets all dolled up and Mrs. Delaney asks why? Marie simple says, “I know my man.” Marie knows what Bruce physically likes to see and she knows how to act. She conforms to his ‘ideal girl’ to become his object of desire (all for the sake of the ring of course J). After Bruce visits and both his and Marie's feelings and intentions are established, Marie then vanishes from the storyline and what is said of her is that she and Bruce went off and got married.  This notion that she found a man and completely disregarding her studies, goes back to the earlier argument that marriage was not only heavily desired, but also that once you found “true love” a woman should basically drop all of her current goals and first accomplish that one.

*Fun Facts about the Bullet Bra*

“The bullet bra usually features concentric circles or spirals of decorative stitching centered on the nipples. Invented in the late-1940s, they became popular in the 1950s due to 'sweater girl' pin ups.”  (Wiki)

 

 

Characters Appearances + Mannerisms of  (Lola Delaney)

When Lola Delaney is introduced in the beginning scenes, her physical appearance (the messed up hair, bathrobe, sleeping garments, tired unwashed face and slow motion) showed the lack of femininity. The lack of conforming to an idealized image of womanhood. Unlike Marie’s character in the opening scene, Lola exhibits a lack of ‘personal care.’ When her husband Doc Delaney is introduced in the scene, his physical appearance is portrayed as (refined, clean and proper). In fact, it is her husband who prepares breakfast. When Lola sees this she simply says to Doc, “I should be getting up early and making your breakfast.” Lola obviously is aware of her gender, and her roles as a woman and a wife, but because of her lack of motivation, she doesn’t feel the need to conform.

Throughout the film Mrs. Delaney looks conflicted with her performance as a women and a wife. She is always found apologizing to her husband, with her tone and body language almost sad and frightened. She would say, “you ain't mad at me are you daddy?” this suggest that she knows her place as a wife to the extent of pleasing her husband and that she wanted to perform accordingly to the perfect female image of that time. With her tone and facial expressions, there is also a sense of fear because she knew her husband was an alcoholic and that he could snap anytime. This also suggests that, she might have already experienced trauma caused by him. Lola Delaney seemed as if she loved her husband, but feared him more. This fear is part of the ideal feminine characteristic in the 50s. This was because, a woman was supposed to be almost childlike and dependent on her husband. The childlikeness and dependence on her husband is seen throughout the film when Lola refers to her husband as ‘daddy,’ this not only helps establish his masculinity and dominance, but also allows for any mistreatment from him to be justified (because in a sense he is ‘daddy,’ the next patriarchal figure in her life after her father). In one scene Lola says to doc, “Are you sorry you married me? I mean you didn’t know I was gonna get old, fat, and sloppy.” The fact that Lola is aware of her undesirable appearance and attitude, just makes the fine line of what idealized femininity really was in those days, fit, not lazy and never old.

Near the end of the film, Lola’s husband Doc Delaney comes home drunk after seeing Marie and Turk getting ‘fresh.’ Lola notices that something is wrong and when Doc comes home late one night she tries to calm him down, but he ends up getting angrier and even attacking her with a knife. Lola at this time being the good martyr wife just says,"Please daddy no!” “Please daddy, it’s me Lola!” By this time Doc faints and help arrives. As Doc is being dragged away to the hospital crying and begging Lola for them not to take him, Lola starts crying and then begging them not to take him, even though he attempted to kill her, she still wanted to be with him. The idealized femininity of the 50s is a powerful thing, in films like this where  Lola’s dependency on her husband, even in times of danger for herself; she would rather be abused and re-abused in order to keep him near, was what women of that time were supposed to do, take the abuse! Why? Because you love him, and if he threatens to kill you and emotionally and mentally tears you down, it’s alright, you deserve it.

After her husband is dragged away, the scene jumps to his discharge and entering the house, after he calls out for her Lola, almost like a child answers, “Doc…Daddy are you alright?” Lola’s character is performing as the ‘good wife’ concerned with her husband’s welfare before her own. She then says to him, “we are gonna be happy daddy” Lola putting Doc’s happiness before her own is another idealized femininity trait which emphasizes that a woman’s happiness is dictated by the happiness of her husband. After Doc tells Lola, “honey please don’t ever leave” Lola reaction is that of a nurturing kind, she runs over to her husband and just holds him and says, “I’d never leave you daddy, your all I got Doc, your all I ever had.” For her performance in the ending scenes of accepting her husband back and even practically forgetting all the wrong that he has done and working on making him happy because her happiness is dependent on her husband is really the transformation which not only takes place in the home (with it being cleaned up) but also with her performance as a wife and a woman, The very last scene is with Lola and her Husband in the kitchen, Lola is dressed up with her makeup and hair done, preparing Doc’s breakfast and she talks about her last dream of little Sheba and the realization that “we gotta move on” she says, “I don’t think little Sheba’s coming back, I ain’t gonna call her anymore.” Little Sheba was almost a metaphor for the Delaney’s past, even though the dog probably did exist and was used to replace the couples unhappiness, in the end of the film the realization of little Sheba’s death was the stepping stone for Lola’s transformation into a woman who was now set on not finding her own happiness return to her, but now focus her happiness on being an obedient and desired wife to Doc Delaney.

Characters Appearances + Mannerisms of (Doc Delaney)

In beginning scenes when Doc Delaney is introduced, his physical appearance shows a man who is properly dressed, hair combed, and face washed. Doc also takes charge for the domestic roles which his wife Lola lacks (i.e. preparing breakfast in the morning, because he is usually up and ready before Lola has even gotten changed out of her nightgown). Doc’s lack of consideration towards his wife, and his performance as the stern husband, can be seen as him establishing that he is ‘man of the house.’ This is seen when after Lola has stepped out to buy Doc some fruit juice, Marie comes back looking around Lola’s sewing room downstairs and asks if it would be alright with Mrs. Delaney if she rented out the room downstairs instead of the one upstairs, Doc just stares at her with half a smile on his face saying, “it’s my house” this shows his performance in adhering to the idealized images of masculinity by establishing that, ‘this is my house, and any decision making shouldn’t concern his wife, and that they are made by my command and mine alone.’ After renting out the downstairs room, Doc tells Lola, “I rented out your room for you... the downstairs one so you’ll have to move out your stuff.” Since knowing that his ‘obedient’ wife will not say anything against his decisions, this helps him establish that dominance not only the home, but also over his wife.

Doc’s affection for Marie played well into exposing the evils of masculinity in melodramatic film. In one scene, after Doc sees Turk and Marie getting fresh, he says to Lola, “If anything happens to that girl I’ll never forgive you.” His coldness and lack of affection towards his wife is because of his attraction to Marie. This attraction is not only because of her youthful appearance, but because of her gendered performance (which at that time was seen as very attractive). Unlike Lola his wife, who had lost her femininity  when she lost the will to become the object of her husband’s physical desires. Doc Delaney's roles as man and husband had left his exterior emotionless. As a man he isn’t free to do whatever he wants, but instead he must follow the code of a social structure that had become naturalized in the sense that it became second nature.

At the end of the film when Doc sees that he has lost in competition over Marie, he eventually goes back to the alcohol and stubbles home one night, Lola tries to calm him down,  but he just says to her, “you slut,”  “you and Marie are just the same, a couple of sluts.” At this time, the foundation of idealized masculinity holds true to being rare and truly unattainable. Doc’s mastering of his gendered role would have been possible with his wife’s performance of idealized femininity. After an attempt to kill his wife and after his discharge from rehabilitation does he come home to a clean house, an understanding wife and one who now has become the object of his desire. Doc says to Lola once he arrives home, “Honey please don’t ever leave.”  Doc Delaney’s character is that of a fallen man who knows that without his wife, regardless of her performance imperfections, he truly wouldn’t be a man. Though with that being said, the last words Doc says are, “it’s good to be home” even after his breakdown, life goes on as usual and with the help of his wife’s improved performance he is able to establish his patriarchal role once again as ‘head of the house.’