Steve's character...a bit creepy in the beginning?

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Scorpis 65, things have changed alot since then. Time was, when someone knocked on your door, you just opened it! Not now. You have to say "who is it?" or look through the peephole. She figured it was OK to just let him in. Also, don't think it was presumptious of him at all. She had opened the door and like I said, when the door was opened, it was considered OK to just waltz on in. When you look at his actions from the viewpoint of that time, nothing wrong with it, really. Times have changed not for the better in some ways.

Scorpio - yes, I basically agree with everything you've said.

My take in the times and personalities:

I could really relate to Steve.
Steve was a photography enthusiast (would be artist). On the beach, we see him imposing his lens on everyone around him; invading private / sensitive moments such as children at play, a mother searching for a lost child, a fat old man being teased, etc (yes, legally he had a right to such invasive behavior).
As a photography enthusiast myself, I can tell you that something happens, for some of us, in which there seem to be no boundaries; armed with a camera and "boundless" enthusiasm. Myself shy, I've taken photos of strangers (with and without permission) and interacted with people I might otherwise have nothing to do with; emboldened by my hunger to capture - eternally - "that special moment in time".

Life in the city.
We see the crowded beach scene.
We can also imagine the crowded tenement neighborhood in which people live so closely together. Boundaries are very important and yet, sometimes life pushes in all around you and you "throw up your hands".

At the beach, Steve (emboldened by his photography) had imposed himself into Lora's life. Lora, a mature woman with good intuition, decided to "let him into her life"; life moves fast in the city and sometimes people's judgements occur in seconds. And we know, later, that Lora's intuition about the good character of Steve was correct.

Why wasn't Steve's character "fleshed out"?
Well, it might have taken attention away from the women.
The beauty of this film was in the honest depiction of two very different women (the two mothers and two daughters). Two single women and their struggles in " a man's world". That's really where the story is.

In the late fifties / early sixties my mother wanted to leave my father.
But, with children (as we've seen in this film), life for a single mother in those days was extremely difficult - if not impossible. Think about all the safety nets available to single mothers today (food stamps, housing, and numerous other welfare programs; plus education programs). Even with all these programs it is still very challenging for single parents. But, imagine being a single mom in the 50s and early 60's; tremendous struggle and sacrifice.
This struggle seemed insurmountable to my mother and she stayed married - "for the children".

This is a beautifully crafted story of the struggle of four women, to not only survive, but to find success and happiness in a man's (predominantly white) world and the triumphs of their spirits.

Aand how pouty he was in that creepy low shot when she wants to go to Italy to make a movie?

"It's as if God created the Devil...and gave him...JAWS"

Only see his good side? The guy was an arrogant, sexist, smug know-it-all who insisted on lecturing Turner on how to live her life at every turn. And this "proper" way of life according to him would, of course, have been to forget the career ambition and get her ass in the kitchen. Because "this is the only way for a woman to be happy".



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

Not to mention Steve would have to be utterly obtuse beyond normal human limits not to notice Susie was getting the hots for him.

Plus his decision to 'entertain' the extremely cute 18-year-old daughter of his long-time friend by repeatedly taking her out to grownup dinner-dancing clubs for lengthy interludes of cheek-to-cheek dancing, has to be considered extremely weird.

Although no more weird than Lora's decision to appoint a dashing, debonair, late 30s-early 40s swinging bachelor as "chaperone" for the same extremely cute 18-year-old, who was already asking questions about "when is it OK to kiss boys?"

And, come to think of it: the same dashing debonair bachelor was peeved at Lora for turning down his marriage proposal, and also peeved that she chose advancing her career over staying with him.

Of course in the movie Steve was given the rock ribbed moral character of a saint and of course this was also the 1950s so things were somewhat different but Lora was lucky she didn't come back from Italy to find Susie shacked up with Steve in his downtown apartment.





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4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.

He's tall and extremely good looking, so he's accustomed to people, especially women, accommodating him. He just assumes they will welcome him enthusiastically, because that's all he's ever experienced.