Does Doc Boone give the Ladies Decency League the finger when they are leaving town?
He sticks his head and hand out the coach and says "Bye Ladies". They cut to the ladies who scream in horror and one of them covers her eyes.
You don't actually see it by I would think he made some obscene gesture to them.
Very funny bit.
I'm watching the movie right now on TCM. Unfortunately, those scenes occurred about 10 minutes ago. But I remember seeing them in opposite order from what you described. In other words, I saw the ladies make shocked expressions, then the scene changed to show the stagecoach from the left rear as Doc gestures to the ladies. But I don't recall seeing anything offensive. It made me wonder just what made those ladies express shock. Could they have suspected he was drunk or maybe they saw his bottle?
shareI believe the actual gesture was cut from the film for whatever reason. If you watch closely the edit point is just after he gestures with his hand in front of his face. I would guess he has just thumbed his nose at them or possibly stuck his thumb to his nose and wriggled his fingers.
There is the possibility he flipped them off but the probability of that in a mainstream film in 1939 is extremely low, to the point of nil.
Would you believe I found the film on YouTube?
The particular scene we are discussing here occurs about 4 minutes in at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9JwIRCNawg
We catch the beginning of the offensive hand gesture in a very short scene. It appears that Doc moves his opened hand towards his face in preparation to place his extended thumb on his nose with the rest of his fingers outstretched upward. But before his thumb makes contact with his nose, the scene changes to show the shocked ladies. Then when it returns to the Doc, his hand has already moved away from his face in a friendly wave to them.
YTubey diagnostic "This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated."
Fearful of preservation of hollywood's precious copyright fluids (snort),, dontcha know SealordJohn?
Everything else you wrote was spot-on, nailed it, thanks.
Here it is : https://streamable.com/0h4i
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