Why all the baths?
What was the point of all the baths Waldo took?
shareWhat was the point of all the baths Waldo took?
I'm puzzled by your question "all the baths."
In the opening scene, Waldo is introduced in the tub. In a flashback scene, Waldo is seen in the tub writing a critique of one of Laura's suitors. That's only 2 baths.
The point is that Waldo is a rich eccentric who types and does paperwork in the tub, as if he was sitting at a desk. Apparently that irony was lost on you.
Most people bathe or shower at least once a day. Don't you?
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Obviously people take baths, but classic movies usually did not show adult characters sitting in baths conversing with people in not one but two scenes. Usually we would hear a man say "just a minute " and he would come out in a robe, but not inviting them in to sit with him while he is naked in the tub. I don't know of another movie like this where the character is shown taking baths in two scenes, and there are many ways to show someone is an eccentric without showing him in the bath. Waldo apparently liked having discussions with people while bathing. Perhaps there was some innuendo that a code movie tried to imply, that he was well endowed and so got a kick out of it when he got out of the bath and asked a fellow to hand him a towel, kind of a twisted way for him to boost his ego by showing off his wares. This was a very interesting way to show how deviant this guy was at the time of the code, when they couldn't show overt behavior like cross dressing. The baths were another clue to Waldo.
shareObviously people take baths, but classic movies usually did not show adult characters sitting in baths conversing with people.
It was just another way of showing how eccentric Waldo was.
All kinds of things can be (and have been) read into Waldo's exhibitionism and sexuality, but these things are in the minds of the viewers -- and rightly so.
The movie doesn't overtly make an issue out of them, and I personally feel no need to go there. Let each person take away from the scene what he wants.
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I can imagine that scene raised eyebrows in the 40's.
shareI'm trying to think of some kind of metaphorical connection to the painting "The Death of Marat" (in his bath) but am coming up blank. But it's what I immediately thought of when I first saw Waldo in the bath with the typewriter on the board over it.
shareI hope yu didn't lose sleep or miss a meal trying to make that connection. I understand the possiblr similarity but, in this case, can't think that was an intended reference. The painting is very fine of course. But who would be Lydecker/Marat's Charlotte Corday?
shareI think that many people at that time bathed less than daily. They washed but full immersion in a tub or shower was less common. Waldo's bathing habits would have marked him as odd.
shareI think that many people at that time bathed less than daily. They washed but full immersion in a tub or shower was less common. Waldo's bathing habits would have marked him as odd.
You are entitled to your opinion, but I disagree with your spin.
The OP's original question about "all the baths" is erroneous and misleading.
As I already stated, Waldo is only seen in the tub twice. Nothing really strange about that.
What makes him "odd" and eccentric is that he's working in the tub as if he was at a desk, and he invites a complete stranger into the room, then stands naked before him.
Nothing wrong with men being naked in front of other men, but most people wouldn't do that in the privacy of their own home and bathroom. If nothing else, you wouldn't know how the other person would take it. Simple manners. Waldo may have been a bit of an exhibitionist, adding to his aura of being "odd."
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up until the 1950s, and the growth of suburbia, most people, rich or poor bathed once a week, the old "Saturday night bath" was a well understood term. Hot water heaters where not common in most homes prior to the 1950s, and luxuries like a a tub or shower in a urban apartments or hotels, unless belonging to the upper classes were not all that common, as they had communal baths in the buildings, it was to show waldo was socially upper class and well off and eccentric, a bit of a urban upper crust snob, and that was one of his weird things typing in the tub, maybe it relaxed him?
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