The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956) is a Raoul Walsh film starring Jane Russell and Richard Egan.
Mamie (Russell) has been kicked out of San Francisco and decides to find her fortune on Hawaii in the summer of 1941.
On the boat, she meets writer Jim Blair (Egan) who’s rich but is in a relationship with a wealthy woman. Undeterred, Mamie seeks making it big by joining an establishment where men pay to dance with women.
Jim disapproves of Mamie’s money schemes but comes to love her and promises to marry her after the war.
Mamie tries to be faithful in body and spirit, but as the Miss Kitty, Bertha (Agnes Moorehead) advises, men like that don’t marry women like her.
Tropes:
- Book Ends: The film starts with Mamie leaving San Francisco and ends with her returning and leaving it once more.
- Deadpan Snarker: Any film with Jane Russell needs her deadpan delivery.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Jim and Mamie don’t end up together.
- Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: It’s okay for Jim to have an affair with Mamie while he teases Annalee, but if Mamie decides to keep working at the brothel, she's a big ol' slut in his eyes.
- Gold Digger: Mamie is obsessed with money and obtaining it at all costs. She isn't exactly looking to hurt anyone but really wants to have something of her own. She begins to buy land in Hawaii for dirt cheap after Pearl Harbor to become a landlord.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Mamie, of course. She's down on her luck but a good person even if her methods are sometimes morally-grey.
- Hollywood Costuming: The outfits are very 1950s, not 1940s since the film is set in the late thirties/early-forties before Pearl Harbor.
- Male Gaze: Mamie becomes a WWII pin-up for servicemen. Her act is so popular, she even has posters plastered all over Hawaii.
- Miss Kitty: Bertha is one. She becomes warmer and kinder when she fires her enforcer, Harry, who had a penchant for hitting women.
- Slut-Shaming: Mamie by none other than every serviceman in the state of Hawaii. But it’s Jim’s comments which hurt the most.
