Tag Archives: Waterhole #3 (1967)

Times change…

In this era where sexual harassment has become something everyone is far more sensitive to -thankfully!- there are things from the past that are being looked at with fresh eyes.

One of them is this song, Baby It’s Cold Outside

This is the first appearance of the song in the 1949 film Neptune’s Daughter and, yes, that’s Ricardo (KHAN!) Montalban singing!

The song is one of those very big Christmas songs that has been covered by many, many singers over the years since its release.  Here’s another version, by Dean Martin, which I’m embedding below only because it offers the lyrics to the song…

What’s the song about?  Easy: Sex.  Here we have a guy and a gal together in the guy’s apartment/home and the gal wants to head out but the guy wants her to stay over, and its not so they can finish off the latest New York Times crossword puzzle.

Yes, Baby It’s Cold Outside is a Christmas sex song!

Here’s the thing though:  Is the song really an innocent ode to having good ol’ fashioned sex or is this song about… sexual coercion?  Date rape?

Kim LaCapria at snopes.com offers an examination of this song and the opinions about it, especially in these times:

Is Baby It’s Cold Outside about date rape?

As per usual, I don’t want to spoil everything in the linked article, but I will offer some analysis/notes of my own, some of which can be found in the article above.

First, the song clearly presents a woman who is, at least as the song starts, not interested/wanting to stay with the man.  The man, on the other hand, is clearly horny and wants the woman and the line “Baby, it’s cold outside” is his attempt to convince her to stay, among other things.

As the song progresses, the woman notes her mother and father will worry and, if she were to stay, she worries what the neighbors will think.  She’s offering multiple reasons for leaving while the man comes closer, offers her drinks, tells her there are no cabs to be found, etc. etc., all in the attempt to get her to stay the night with him.

Is it indeed sexual coercion?  Or is the song meant to be playful, with the protagonists of this song -both the woman and man- really wanting to get it on and we’re given a “wink wink” view of sexual politics, the woman playing hard to get -but not too hard to get- while the guy has to smooth talk his way to get to where they both want to go…

Here’s the thing, and I posted it clearly in this particular blog’s title: Times Change.

A short while back, and in another blog entry entitled Time Passes and Things Change (gee, how about that?!) I wrote about seeing the opening minutes of the western comedy Waterhole #3.  That film, which featured James Coburn as the protagonist, involves a search for missing money.

I like James Coburn.  I think he was a great actor and he appeared in many fine films, as well as the occasional dog.  Waterhole #3 isn’t one of his better known films, but it is an example of how sexual mores were different in the past versus what we have in the present.

While one could make a case that Baby It’s Cold Outside isn’t quite as dark a song as some view it now, there is no doubt, viewed from today, that the sexual “seduction” scene in the early parts of Waterhole #3 is rape.

Here’s what I wrote about the movie and the “seduction” scene between James Coburn and Margarete Blye’s characters in the film:

Billee (Margarete Blye) finds Cole (James Coburn) in her barn, with his pants down (I’m not entirely sure why he isn’t wearing his pants…I suppose that was meant to be part of the “fun”), and he corners her (“humorously”), she tries to fight him (“humorously”), he pulls her down to the ground (“humorously”), he starts kissing her (“humorously”), and then, but of course, she’s somehow charmed by his actions and succumbs to the passion.

I then added this: Holy shit.

Mind you, this happens within the first approximately fifteen or so minutes of the film and, no, the Billee and Cole characters do not know each other before their encounter and, yes, the scene was so off putting to me that I had to shut the film down right then and there.

But my point is this: Until recently (and by that I mean the last ten or so years and, particularly, within the past year) there was a far looser sense of sexual politics and in a movie like Waterhole #3, released in 1967, the idea that women would naturally fall for a “scoundrel”, especially one played by James Coburn, trumped the ugly implications of what was clearly, clearly, a forcible rape, which disgustingly was played for laughs!

Still, it doesn’t shock me that a forgotten film like Waterhole #3 doesn’t engender the same scrutiny as a famous song like Baby It’s Cold Outside.

Yet its a good thing, in my opinion, that people’s eyes are opening a little more to the world around us.

And if you think this is much ado about nothing, please take a moment to see this video.  If this doesn’t open your eyes about what its like to be the victim of sexual harassment, nothing will.

Time passes and things change

A day or two ago I was flipping through the various channels and caught the opening minutes of a mostly forgotten 1967 James Coburn film Waterhole #3.  Here’s a clip from the movie’s first fifteen or so minutes… 

So I’m watching the film and its dated and all but it tries to present, as can be seen a little in the clip, a humorous take on the Western.  Further, I’m a fan of the late actor James Coburn.  He’s completely in his element playing these types of characters.

However…

Immediately after this scene finishes, the character Coburn plays, wanted outlaw Lewton Cole, heads to the farm of the Sheriff seeking his horse.  There, in the barn, he meets up with the Sheriff’s daughter, played by Margarete Blye, and what follows…ugh.

Here’s the IMDB description of the film (the highlights are mine):

Sergeant Foggers and two Confederate soldiers lay their hands on gold bullion belonging to the army, taking at the same time a certain Ben Akajnian hostage. Then they bury the loot near an isolated waterhole in the desert. Some time later, Lewton Cole, a professional gambler, fights a duel with one of the robbers, kills him and finds the map of the treasure on his body. Stopping at the small town of Integrity, Cole, in order to escape Sheriff Copperud locks him up in his own jail-house, steals his horse and even finds the time to “seduce and abandon” Billee, the sheriff’s comely daughter. The indignant father catches up with Lewton, arrests him and grabs the gold. But Foggers and his accomplice attack him, relieve him of the treasure and free Cole…

Don’t let the “nice” description fool you: Cole rapes Billee.

He.  Rapes.  Her.

The movie, clearly a product of its time, presents the rape as a “humorous” seduction.  Billee finds Cole in her barn, with his pants down (I’m not entirely sure why he isn’t wearing his pants…I suppose that was meant to be part of the “fun”), and he corners her (“humorously”), she tries to fight him (“humorously”), he pulls her down to the ground (“humorously”), he starts kissing her (“humorously”), and then, but of course, she’s somehow charmed by his actions and succumbs to the passion.

Holy shit.

There is no “seduce” about this.  This is rape, plain and simply, and with that supposed “humorous” scene, I could no longer watch the film and had to turn it off.

Again, I know this movie is a product of its obviously unenlightened times.  Yet it is jarring being hit with something like this today, nearly fifty years later.  Clearly as a people we have advanced beyond these medieval -or worse!- attitudes.

Which brings me to, coincidentally enough, to another topic regarding older mores… specifically in Walt Disney World/Disneyland.

I’ve written about changes to rides to make them more politically correct before (you can read the original post here), noting how the original version of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride (the basis for the successful Johnny Depp movie series) has changed over time.

Well, it appears there are more changes to come!

This article, by Ed Mazza and found on Huffingtonpost.com, notes that the famous Redhead at the very-politically incorrect “Wench Auction”, will be changed:

Disney To Remove “Wench Auction” From Pirates of the Caribbean Ride

This is what the “Wench Auction” looked like for most of the ride’s run, until now…

Image result for Pirates of the caribbean wench auction images

Here’s a slightly closer look, which illustrates the comely women being auctioned with one big exception…

Image result for Pirates of the caribbean wench auction images

I’m not surprised by the change at all.  Much as I enjoy the ride -and it is one of my favorites- it was originally designed just a little before the release of Waterhole #3, and, frankly, featured some of the same oddball sexuality played for laughs.

The “Wench Auction” scene is specifically played for laughs.  A bunch of captured women are being auctioned off to be “brides” (ie sex slaves, no?) and the “prize” of the auction is a beautiful redhead.  However, the auctioneer has to first get rid of a comely, fat, and ugly woman first while the potential buyers demand to have a go at the redhead.

Ho…ho?

Later on, and in the original version of the ride, we had another sexually charged humorous sequence involving pirates chasing down women in one home, then the next.  In the third home (the punchline), a larger woman chases the pirate with her broom.

Again, what are the pirates chasing the women hoping to get from them?  Were they hoping to capture them and then they would very politely convince them to make them a nice meal?

Yeah.  Right.

That later part of the ride was changed and no longer were the pirates chasing the women but the women were chasing the men.

Now, the “Wench Auction” is being done away with and, with that, the ride certainly will strip (no pun intended) itself of some of its last… uncomfortable… elements.

I know there are those who argue the Pirates are villains and by removing these more risque jokes they’re castrating (again, no pun intended) the ride.

However, this is a park devoted, ultimately, to children.  As such, perhaps its best to remove these elements that at one time may have been acceptable but, frankly, by today’s standards are not.

By the way, the “Wench Auction”, for those too lazy to click on the link above, will be changed in this way:

The Redhead is now a pirate and the “Auction” sign remains but no mention of any wenches or auction of the same.

The Redhead’s there for the loot!