Sally McKee's fears that she looks hideous are actually the projection of the hideous perception she has of herself and the life she has led. With her overdone makeup she is unconsciously trying to paint over her past, trying to cosmetically hide the moral blemishes that now threaten something precious and unexpected that has entered her life, and which she now feels she must abandon because she knows she can't hide them forever. Remember what Spalding, the stewardess, says to Alsop, the ticket agent, when Sally McKee leaves the counter and he comments that "That woman has something." Spalding replies, "Practice. Lots of practice."
Her story is hugely sanitized for the film. It would have to be, given the morés of 1954, both as applied to her story and as applied to making this film.
As the movie goes, Sally first gives us a hint of her problem when she asks Capt. Sullivan if she can sneak off the plane in 'Frisco with the crew. She had come to know and love a man she had yet to meet, one who had seen her picture in a trade magazine for Pan Am, where she had been working, and written to her. She had been afraid to tell him that the picture was some eight years old, and now she fears that he'll be disappointed in her and also, perhaps, angry that she deceived him by not telling him.
We also see the man, a forest ranger named Roy Larsin, a big-hearted but naive and rather bucolic fellow, writing to her in his innocent fashion.
That much we see in the film. What we don't see there is that her fear of how he'll react when he sees her true age is really the least of it.
What is left out is Sally's confession to the drunk, Flaherty, of her earlier life (in the book they warm up to each other quite a bit more than the film shows), believing they'll never meet again, even if they survive the flight. She says to him, and you'll recognize the beginning of the dialogue from the film (abridged a little):
"[Roy Larsin is] a wonderful, kind, clean man who has the right to know the truth about me. I am going to tell him that I am a different person than the one he thinks I am. I want him to understand that I was known all over Honolulu as the easiest lay in town. I was the visiting fireman's delight...two drinks and a medium-priced dinner was a guarantee of Sally McKee...any time, any place...as soon as my working hours were over. I want him to know that I've seen the inside of so many hotel rooms that the cleaning maids call me by name. I want him to know that the police have my name, too--a pretty little party in the Moana one night that was pretty dull going until everybody decided to take their clothes off and it happened that I was the only woman with four men. I want him to know that my body has been so beat, I don't think it will ever come to life again, that I was fired from three jobs because my supervisors got tired of sleeping with me...I am old. I am much older than my years should have made me...I have been saying to myself that I could begin all over again...Somehow I tricked myself into believing that I was still desirable, and then...reading his last letter, I came to my senses. I looked in my mirror and I was certain...I loved this man with all the hunger of a woman who sees her last chance for love...And I was certain it could never be."
Her overdone makeup was really her mind's attempt to cosmetically hide the blemishes on her soul more than the ones on her face. She takes it off now because she no longer intends to paint over the truth.
For me it's a pleasure to read at the end that all of her fears prove to be groundless. As Garfield watches, she leaves the tarmac on Larsin's arm, smiling. (The movie is more equivocal on that point.) Realistic or not in real-world terms, the story, I believe, is meant to be a classic love-conquers-all romantic happy ending for them.
[For those unfamiliar with the term: a visiting fireman in this context (based on the Random House Dictionary) is "a visitor, as a tourist or vacationer, in a city, presumed to be a big spender." The term is also often used for military personnel when they are in port.]
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hobnob53
13 years ago
Even though the movie had to somewhat "sanitize" her character to get past the censors, it's still pretty clear that Sally has "been around", as a "good-time girl" if not as an outright prostitute. Her coming from Hawaii, where such women were commonplace before, during and after the war (such as the characters played by Donna Reed in From Here to Eternity and Jane Russell in The Revolt of Mamie Stover), is another tip-off as to what she's really been up to. The women in the two films I mentioned also had to have their characters somewhat "cleaned up" for motion pictures.
I was disappointed in the DVD of THATM because it's missing around 10 seconds of Jan's big scene. When she finishes wiping off her make-up, she turns to Paul Kelly and asks him something to the effect, "Are you still interested, mister?" (I don't recall the exact dialogue, but it's in the DVD), but then goes on to say (and this is exact), "Or do you feel like a -- like a bored priest hiding behind his confessional?" That one line is missing from the print now on DVD. I actually have an old off-the-air tape of this film from when it was broadcast on HBO in the early 1980s and the line is there. How it got lost in the print recovered for the DVD I don't know, but it's a powerful line -- especially for 1954 -- and its absence is pretty glaring.
Of course, it was her acting in this scene that helped win Ms. Sterling her only Academy Award nomination, as Best Supporting Actress of 1954, although both she and co-star Claire Trevor lost to Eva Marie Saint, for what was clearly a leading performance in On the Waterfront.
Jan Sterling was a very good and too-often underrated or poorly-used actress. But I agree with an earlier poster who admired her knockout performance as the bitchy wife of the cave-in victim in Billy Wilder's superb Ace in the Hole, a character who also had a sordid "past". She really deserved an Oscar nomination as Best Actress for her work in that film, today generally considered her best role and best acting job, but it was way too nasty a picture (as well as a box-office flop) for the Hollywood of 1951.
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FANatic-10
11 years ago
She was great in this scene, though I too, having not read the book, felt like her fears were misplaced, as she looked as young as her pen-pal boyfriend, who had gray hair! She certainly deserved her Oscar nomination, though I felt they were pushing it to give Claire Trevor one too. Neither had all that much to do in the film, but at least Sterling had this riveting scene. Trevor had one decent scene trying to comfort David Brian, where she breaks down somewhat, but that was it really, though I've always liked Claire Trevor and felt she deserved her Oscar in "Key Largo".
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hobnob53
11 years ago
Claire had also received an Oscar nomination for playing Humphrey Bogart's ex-girlfriend (now -- what else -- a disease-ridden prostitute) in Dead End (1937). She probably deserved a nomination for yet another such role in Stagecoach, opposite Wayne, in 1939, but didn't get one. Poor Claire Trevor was always getting nominated for portraying "tramps"!
Jan Sterling's chances for the Oscar for THATM were undoubtedly harmed by having both her and Trevor nominated for the same film. But I think the fix was in for the "supporting" nomination for Eva Marie Saint for her obviously leading role in On the Waterfront anyway. It's also too bad her film career petered out by the end of the decade, though she continued to act.
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don-lockwood
11 years ago
I agree with the above, Jan Sterling was deserving of her nomination for this crucial scene, the best in the film. But while Claire Trevor stood out because she has charisma, she didn't impress me much this time. I'd sooner bestow a nomination on her costar Ann Doran, but again, no one in this film had much to do. It was a weak year for the category, and Eva Marie Saint, borderline as she is, richly deserved her Oscar. Naturally, the Academy snubbed more interesting performances from Mercedes McCambridge in Johnny Guitar, Lillian Gish in The Night of the Hunter, and Thelma Ritter (so often nominated otherwise) in Rear Window. Not to mention they wouldn't even consider a foreign-language performance in that era, despite good ones to choose from in Sansho the Bailiff and Seven Samurai.
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