Marian and Shane?

The 'romantic' tension between Shane and Marian would have gone unnoticed by the younger members of the audience in 1953-54, but the adults would pick up on it. That was the beauty of films in this era--they weren't explicit. In this case, the attraction serves as a backdrop - nothing serious ever happens.

It took me decades before I realized that Lt. Cable in South Pacific (1958) had slept with Liat, pretty little Tungkineese (sp?) girl - we saw them kissing, more or less fully clothed, while he sang 'Younger than Springtime'. When I watched the film as an adult, I said 'oh, yeah......... I guess...'

The loss of innocence is one of the great tragedies of Western Civilization. Those who come on here and make smutty remarks about the boy or other innuendos are a sad by-product of a generation that wants to impute their own depraved values onto great works of art of the past. To those I say, You have your own brand of muck, in spades, and plenty of your ilk to share it with - go away and wallow in it and leave us alone.

:-) canuckteach (--:

How could anyone not see that they fancied each other? I could definitely see something there – those glances, those chats with her son about him - Marian definitely liked him as more than just an extra set of hands around the ranch. And maybe she knew him before, but it wasn’t just a knowledge of his past that had them looking at each other surreptitiously all the time. There’s that little scene where she’s desperately looking for a nice dress – now we find out later that it’s her 10 year anniversary, not just the 4th of July – but, at first, it seemed to me like she wanted to make herself pretty firstly for Shane. I might be wrong, but doesn’t her husband remark that it’s a bit early to be dressed? And whenever she talks to her son she warns him not to get too attached to Shane, as if she has to remind herself as well. Her husband seemed to eventually pick up on something (or maybe the idea that the two might be able to live together if he were to die fighting off the gang was first formulated then) when he watched Shane and Marian dancing. It may just be me but I see this slight glimmer of realisation (not quite jealousy) in his eyes.

Clearly Marian loves her husband, and she wouldn’t be unfaithful to him – because where would running off with some gunslinger get her? But that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t curious. There weren’t exactly that many men around, especially younger, attractive ones, so when a mysterious man walks into your life, even stays on your farm, you’re bound to be a little intrigued. When she says goodbye to him I get the sense that they’re both thinking “in another place, in another time maybe we could’ve had something”. But she knows that it’s her place and ultimately in her best interest to stick with the man who built her home, fathered her child and cared for her for a decade, and that a relationship with Shane, while possibly fun for a while, would not last.

Hector Barbossa; now that's a pirate!