MovieChat Forums > Westward the Women (1951) Discussion > 'You must pay the rent' skit

'You must pay the rent' skit

posted 14 years ago by tmaj48
1 reply | jump to latest

I saw this for the first time today. I'm not a fan of Westerns, but I started
watching this out of curiosity and was immediately hooked--it was very well done, with an uncompromising story, and it was one of the very few Westerns
that centered on strong female characters. Thanks, TCM, for showing this. But
why isn't this exceptional film on DVD?

One scene that caught me by surprise, though, was the "You must pay the rent"
scene. This was a silly little skit that my friends and I used to recite for
laughs when we were kids, and it was bizarre to see it turn up in this film.
It's most likely anachronistic, since the story takes place in 1851, and the
skit probably parodies the stage melodramas that came along about 20 years
after that. Does anyone know just how old this skit really is?

I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!

[–] ljspin 13 years ago

I don't know how old this skit is, but the melodramas that it makes fun of were reaching their peak around the 1850s. Although they were still being performed twenty years after this movie is supposed to take place, they had really passed their peak of popularity. Vaudeville shows, musicals, and realistic dramas were starting to take their place in American theatre.

That said, I had no problem with Ito making fun of the genre.